Unsolicited Advice to Law School Dean Search Committees

A true bounty of opinion, anecdotes, and advice has been offered by many outstanding deans in these symposia in recent years. By and large, these deans have focused on the art of deaning, which is to be expected. But in addition to their experiences and observations concerning deaning, law school deans are also uniquely situated to provide insights concerning a related topic: the dean search process. This I take as the subject of the current article. As these symposia contemplate, the present article is informal in tone and is based upon my own experiences both as a law school dean candidate and as a member of two dean search committees (for both a law school deanship and for the deanship of a university college of liberal arts). The article is not intended to be a comprehensive step-by-critique of every aspect of the dean search process. Instead, I paint with broad strokes, suggesting some major areas to which dean search committees might be attentive