Academic

NYU Launches Takeover of Harvard & Yale Law. Schools Seen As "Weak" Under Interim Leadership

By Dan Filler

In what is seen as the most significant law school news story in several generations, NYU Law School has unexpectedly launched a hostile takeover of Harvard and Yale Law Schools.  For the first time in memory, both of these iconic schools are working under interim deans.  NYU President John Sexton moved aggressively to exploit this vulnerability.  He announced that current Harvard and Yale faculty would each receive a $4 million apartment, or a Purple ticket to the 2012 Obama inauguration, in exchange for swearing permanent allegiance to NYU.  In an effort to maintain the Harvard and Yale brand strength, the schools will remain separate departments at NYU, and will operate independent of NYU Law.  Much like IIT-Chicago Kent, the schools will be called NYU Harvard Law and NYU Yale Law.  NYU Law will be known as NYU NYU Law.  All three law schools will be housed in Olin Hall, a 105 story building to be constructed at 119 MacDougal Street, the current site of Mamoun's Falafel. 

Although he has not been formally named to the post, current Louisville Dean Jim Chen is expected to be named director of the three law school operation.  In addition to his work building up the Louis Brandeis brand, and demanding top quality work from even the most slothful faculty, Chen is famous for sitting two seats to the right of Barack Obama in the official 1990-91 Harvard Law Review photograph. 

A few months ago, such a takeover would have been unimaginable.  Yale Law School was riding high after 92 consecutive years as the #1 Law School in the U.S. News Survey.  And the Harvard Law faculty was basking in the gauzy afterglow of having stolen Cass Sunstein away from Clark University the University of Chicago.  But times changed, and very quickly.  Funded by extraordinary donations by NYU Law, and its alumni, an unknown Senator from Illinois was unexpectedly installed in the White House.  Shortly thereafter, the leaders of Harvard and Yale Law were recalled to the nation's capital.  And after a series of secret meetings between John Sexton, Ricky Revesz, Marty Lipton, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, held at the New York office of the Trilateral Commission, a decision was made to move forward on the acquisition. 

In the short term, the move will bring a great deal of reputational capital to NYU.  Professor Brian Leiter has rejiggered his law school rankings in light of this deal, combining the three highly reputed schools into what he titles The NYU Law Empire.  "These separate names are only a formal distinction", Leiter commented.  "Harvard and Yale Law are dead now.  It's all NYU from here on out."  Other law school experts agreed.  "Chen is only an interim manager, brought in to ferret out the dead wood and combine the units", noted one skeptical Columbia law professor.  "In the end, we all know that Kenji Yoshino will be brought in to run this show.  He's been waiting for years to run a major law school conglomerate.  This pomo stuff...it was just covering."

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on March 24, 2009 (boomark / email).