Legal Commentary

A recent article by Jack Weiss, who is the Chancellor/Dean at LSU law school explores the pros and cons of non-traditional deans, i.e., lawyers and judges whose career paths have been primarily outside the legal academy.

Jack, M Weiss, A Causerie on Selecting Law Deans in an Age of Entrepreneurial Deaning, 70 La. L. Rev. 923 (2010) (PDF copy attached below).

Is this a developing trend? Is it a good development? What are the pros and cons of the non-traditional candidate versus the traditional candidate?

A developing trend. Weiss? own review of the 2009 roster of American deans at the top 100 ranked law school counted only 8 deans with a predominately non-academic career track at the time of their appointment. By his count, there were 21 ?traditional? deans who had followed the paradigmatic path of getting on the tenure track after only a brief stint clerking and practicing. He classifies an additional 40 deans as hybrids who, besides being from the tenure track, previously had significant non-academic career experiences in law practice and government service.

Pros and Cons. Weiss distinguishes the different roles that law deans play to evaluate the strengths and weakness of the traditional versus the non-traditional dean. He argues: (1) a tenure track experience standing alone does not equip a person with the entrepreneurial skills needed for managing resources and fundraising; (2) a non-traditional dean is equipped to reconcile the doctrinal side of legal education with the clinical skills side; (3) someone from outside the academy is a more resolute agent for change; (4) an experienced lawyer can be an effective institution defender and conflict manager; (5) someone who has not been a teacher and scholar can nonetheless appreciate and evaluate good teaching and good scholarship.  I cannot say that I myself am entirely persuaded to all of these propositions.

A modest conclusion. You will have to read Weiss? article to fully appreciate his arguments. But if you know the fact that Weiss himself is a non-traditional dean, you probably can predict his modest conclusion: ?search committees, university presidents, provosts, and faculties hiring law school deans should not overemphasize the relevance and importance of a deanship candidate?s career academic experience nor undervalue the experience of the candidate who comes from practice, the judiciary, business, or government? (942). I do agree with that much.

As promised, here is a PDF of the article:  Download 70 LSU L Rev 923.