Building of a School and Faculty
REFLECTIONS IN BRICK AND MORTAR: BUILDING A VISION, REALIZING A DREAM
ELLIOTT S. MILSTEIN
The building was always a problem. Even Dean John Sherman Myers1 recognized this; on the day that it opened in 1967, he said that the law school building was too small. I had known this since 1972 when, as the new director of the clinical program,2 I discovered that I would be sharing an office, separated by a partial wall, with the clinic's secretary and its students. Over the years we had been forced to evict the component pieces of the law school from the law school building3 and to pirate every bit of open space for offices. By the time I became interim dean the problem had become a crisis. Ending that crisis was one of the major goals of my deanship, but I did not know when I signed on how tortured would be the path to achieving it.
The dilemna of my deanship was to get rid of this intractable problem while at the same time pursuing the exciting task of fulfilling our ambitious academic aspirations. We wanted to be among the very best law schools in the world and were too impatient to wait for a proper building. The danger was that we would be consumed by the often frustrating details of the building project and distracted from the far more important and engaging work of expanding and enriching the intellectual life of the law school. The other goal of my deanship was to ensure that the creative energies of the law school community would generate the innovative programs, original scholarship, distinctive pedagogy, and extraordinary public service necessary to its academic success.
When I was appointed Interim Dean in June 1988,4 we on the faculty believed the major obstacle to resolving the lack of adequate space was the American University's (AU) Central Administration. While the question of new space for the law school had been on the table for some time, there was still no viable plan agreed to between the Washington College of Law (WCL) and then President Richard Berendzen as to how to proceed. A major hurdle involved money¾how much would be spent, how would it be raised, and who would pay for the building if fundraising was not successful? As our saga played out, the most intractable impediment proved to be the capacity of various groups of objecting neighbors to thwart us, but we did not know that back in 1988.
When I became Dean, the faculty believed we had an urgent need to settle the remaining building issues with the Central Administration. I was committed to bringing to the situation whatever skills and experience I had as a negotiator.5 I chose Andrew Popper, the faculty member who had been most involved with the various building planning processes in which we had engaged, to serve as Deputy Dean,6 and together we set out to solve the problem.
There were both quantitative and qualitative issues that needed resolution. Quantitative issues included the size of the building, the number of students who would occupy it, the size of the budget, and the sources of money to be spent. Qualitative issues centered around aesthetics and control: how fancy a building; who would select and guide the architects; who would control the fundraising campaign, the financing, the legal strategy, and the construction project? All of these issues were of central importance at the time and we worked hard with Donald Myers, Vice President for Finance and Treasurer of the University, and Provost Milton Greenberg to settle them. However, because unanticipated events had such a huge impact on the project,7 the details we agreed to in the beginning had little relevance by the time the project was complete. What really mattered were the relationships that we established and the framework of cooperation that permitted us to respond to the circumstances with which we were ultimately presented.
The main difficulty in achieving our goal stemmed from the structure of the zoning laws in the District of Columbia. American University's campus, like all of the universities in the District of Columbia, is in a residential zone. This means that nothing can be built on campus unless contained in a Campus Plan approved by the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) as a special exception to the zoning laws.8 Every ten years, each university has to seek approval of its Campus Plan and, typically, neighborhood organizations oppose parts of the plan. Consequently, it has become standard practice for the BZA to require that the university meet with its opponents in an attempt to negotiate an agreeable solution. In our case, the original submission of our Campus Plan that included, among other things, a new law school building on the Cassell site,9 was rejected by the BZA in response to the objections of neighborhood organizations. Thereafter, the University was ordered to negotiate with neighborhood representatives.
One of the greatest assets of American University is its location in a beautiful, gracious neighborhood. This location, however, is also one of its greatest liabilities: rarely can something be built on the campus without offending someone's perceived interest. As it turned out, even the status quo bothered some, and thus, in the very difficult negotiations that ensued, the University was faced with the often competing and conflicting demands of the different neighborhood organizations from every neighborhood that surrounds the campus.10
The residents of the houses directly behind the proposed site for the new law school building were the law school's most aggressive opponents with regard to its location. These residents formed the Fort Gaines Citizens' Association. Our team, including Andy Popper, university representatives, lawyers, architects, traffic consultants, landscape architects, and others, met frequently with the neighbors to try to satisfy their underlying needs. It seemed illogical that they would not prefer a brand new, architecturally distinguished building to what is currently there¾an ugly building constructed by the Navy as a temporary building during World War II and a parking lot that borders on their properties. And so, after each meeting a new drawing of the proposed building was prepared, responding to their objections to the prior drawing. As a result, the building we would have built met every one of their stated objections. It got smaller, was sunk into the ground, had no windows on the side facing the neighbors, and was subject to a number of restrictions regarding hours of use, numbers of students, parking, and more.
Typical negotiation dynamics involve two or more parties making mutual concessions until a bargain is struck, and the parties go forward, bound by the resultant contract. In the campus plan negotiation, however, the only concession available from the neighbors was an agreement to refrain from opposing the Campus Plan before the BZA and the courts. Such an agreement would have been valuable to us because we were very anxious to go forward and construct our building. Thus, the University made enormous concessions in the negotiations and reached agreement with nearly all of the neighborhood organizations. At the last minute, however, two citizen associations from Fort Gaines and AU Park refused to sign the Campus Plan Agreement and, even though we were still bound by the agreement, we were faced with having to endure a contested hearing, adding months of delay to the decisionmaking process. The irony was that, at the BZA hearing, we were defending the architectural changes made at the request of the Fort Gaines neighbors, while they attacked the building and made it clear that no changes would have been sufficient to gain their support.
The BZA finally supported our Campus Plan in February 1990 and we celebrated with champagne in my office. But our joy was short-lived as the opponents exercised their right to appeal to the D.C. Court of Appeals and the wheels of justice continued to turn excruciatingly slowly. It took twenty-five months before the Court ruled in our favor.11
Meanwhile, frustration stalked the halls of the law school.12 While the appeal in the D.C. Court of Appeals was pending, we learned that the building at 4801 Massachusetts Avenue was offered to us to buy. Because this was the only existing building that was both large enough and close enough to the campus to be a possible location, we were immediately intrigued. In addition to the fact that it was approximately fifty-percent larger than the Cassell building, the circumstances suggested we could occupy it much more quickly. After all, unlike the Cassell building, it already existed and only had to be remodeled. Because the building is situated in a commercial zone, we could occupy it as a matter of right,13 and there appeared to be no foreseeable end to the litigation over the other site. I also thought that there would be fewer objections by surrounding neighbors because we would not be erecting another large building in the area and would be occupying a structure that would probably otherwise be occupied by a more intensive use. We called a special faculty meeting in the summer of 1991 and decided to proceed on a "dual-track" strategy, pursuing both building alternatives until it became clear which would be most advantageous.
During the months prior to the victory in the Court of Appeals affirming the BZA decision, we conducted a feasibility study of the 4801 Building with our architects and zoning lawyers and also negotiated a purchase contract with its owners. That contract was signed only a few days before the Court of Appeals decision and required, among other things, that the sellers remove the remaining tenants from the building. Removing tenants required another extended waiting period while the sellers attempted to fulfill that condition. Unfortunately, they were unable to do so and ultimately we exercised our right of rescission. The whole episode sounded like a law school examination in an advanced property course. The situation got even more complicated as the mortgagee filed a foreclosure action against the owners and they responded by declaring bankruptcy.
I have been both a lawyer and a client. No doubt, being a lawyer is better. In addition to the General Counsel of the University,14 we were represented at various times by different lawyers specializing in zoning, real estate transactions, municipal bonds, bankruptcy, and title insurance. Perhaps to their dismay, they had lawyers acting as clients as the law school team marked up drafts and critiqued their legal work.
We had to weigh the two options constantly, to build or to remodel. Our feasibility study demonstrated how desirable it was to have the additional space that the 4801 building provided. We also compared price and learned that the cost per square foot would be substantially less at 4801 than building the new structure at Cassell. While the foreclosure introduced another delay into the project, we believed that we could buy the building on more favorable terms from the mortgagee than in the original deal. And so, we waited again. Once the mortgagee owned the building15 we could negotiate a new contract to buy it.
Meanwhile, my initial belief that we would not face much neighborhood opposition was shattered early. As soon as word leaked out that we were intending to move the law school four blocks north, various people began to mobilize opposition. Remarkably, among the most vocal was the leader of one of the associations that had opposed the Cassell building, refused to sign the agreement, and litigated against it.16 They now claimed that the Campus Plan Agreement, negotiated in order to get permission to build the law school on the campus, constituted a contract requiring that it be built there.17
The opponents took a number of actions to thwart us. They convinced the local City Councilman, Jim Nathanson, to oppose us and, accordingly, the City Council did not permit us to use tax-exempt bond financing for the project.18 Fortunately, we had an attractive alternative in the private market. They unsuccessfully attempted to pressure the Mayor's office to keep us from getting a building permit. Councilman Nathanson introduced legislation that could have had the effect of requiring us to go back through the zoning process. It did not pass and he ultimately was defeated for reelection. They argued at the administrative level that we were required to amend our Campus Plan and go back to the BZA. Their argument was rejected and when we got the permit, they challenged it, again unsuccessfully, in the Court of Appeals.19 At the time of this writing, there is still one more legal action pending in the Superior Court, claiming that the population of the law school, although it is no longer on the AU campus, must be counted toward the population limit agreed to fo the campus as part of the campus plan agreement.20
After four trips to appellate courts and countless appearances in trial courts, administrative tribunals, and administrative agencies, we finally have our building. The amazing thing about our tale is that I have not yet described the other difficult parts of the building project that would occur in any law school undertaking construction. We had to work as a community and make difficult decisions about the size, shape, and contiguities of the spaces we wanted for each function in the institution. Faculty, staff, and students participated in these decisions and each of them came to the process to shape the future of the law school, with a vision of what that future might be. From that process, repeated anew each time the plans changed, emerged a building that would both express the values and the personality of a century-old institution and also anticipate its needs for the future. Led by Andy Popper, our community had to learn how to communicate with architects and designers, to imagine how particular decisions would affect day-to-day life in the institution, and to make difficult resource-driven choices and compromises.
We also had to determine how to pay for the building as well as how to pay for the costs of operating and maintaining it. WCL has two sources of revenue: tuition and gifts. The operating budget is nearly all built upon tuition income. During my deanship, we had no endowment to speak of21 and the university had no deep pockets we could reach into for support.22 Therefore, fundraising would be of particular importance to WCL. We could not thrive without a new building and at the same time, were we to saddle the operating budget with its entire cost, the academic program would starve. Accordingly, I spent considerable time on alumni relations and development, explaining their own stake in the quality of WCL and asking for their financial support.23 Many faculty think that asking for money is the least agreeable part of the job of dean. In fact, I found that fundraising was part of forming interesting and rewarding relationships with our alumni. I enjoyed meeting our alumni, learning about their lives, values, successes, and anxieties, and finding out the impact their time at WCL had on them. Their generosity was inspiring, as it expressed confidence in WCL. We had a $20 million dollar target for our capital campaign, including money for both the building and the academic program. By the end of my deanship, we raised pledges totalling more than $18.6 million. Admittedly, however, I read with envy about the giving records of wealthy schools and dreamed of the day that WCL can attract such huge donations from a comparably large percentage of its graduates.
Prior to 1987, our tuition rate was equal to that of the rest of American University but was substantially below that of the other law schools in the city. Among the consequences of this fact was that our faculty salaries lagged far behind other top schools, creating a danger for recruiting and retaining faculty. Dean Frederick Anderson reached an agreement with the University that law school tuition would be set independently of the other parts of the University and that the University's share of the differential would be set aside for the new building. We were able to use the increased revenue generated by the tuition increases over a four-year period to fund six new faculty positions, provide large competitive salary increases for faculty,24 create and continually upgrade a computer network for both faculty and students, and save for the new building from our own budget. In addition, enrollment bulges in some years led to budget surpluses that, by agreement with the University, were allocated for furnishings and equipment. Thus, by the time the building opened, we had saved considerable money, helpful in buying furnishings, equipment, and technology, and built into the operating budget the bulk of the money needed to pay the debt service on the building.
It has been quite a saga. In 1985, the University bought what is now Tenley Campus and decided that WCL would move there. We excitedly planned the extensive remodeling that would have been required and dreamed of our new home. Neighborhood opposition made the project infeasible and the University assigned the space to another use. Eleven years later we finally occupied our new building and it is thrilling to behold. The old building, all of it, would fit on one of the six floors of the new one. The space is beautiful, commodious, and inviting. I certainly would have preferred that we had obtained it much sooner, that we had not been forced to spend as much as we have on litigation and on designing three different buildings, and that the emotional cost had not been so high. Even so, it is ours, it is fantastic, and it is good.
The building was not the only concern. An important part of the job of the dean is to manage the resources of the institution and to ensure they are sufficient to accomplish its goals. This means paying close attention to both the income side and the expenditure side of the budget. Historically, this area has caused the greatest conflict between the law school and the Central Administration. On the one hand, the law faculty believes that the University takes too large a share of the law school's income, and tries to exert too much control over the law school's financial (and other) affairs. On the other hand, many at the University see the law school's apparent relative wealth, manifested in its higher salaries and support for scholarship, and its claim to academic autonomy, as unfair. For the Central Administration, struggling to fund the many needs generated throughout the University from a limited pool of resources, the temptation to look to the law school's income is great.
During his deanship, Tom Buergenthal entered into an agreement with the University that provided that the law school would pay the University twenty-two percent of its gross tuition revenue for indirect costs,25 and that the law school would have line-item authority over the rest to fund the operating budget of the law school. This agreement eliminated much of the budgetary conflict that had existed between the law school and the University. It also has enabled the law school to engage in long-term budget planning, and has meant that when the law school added new academic programs, it could generate the funds to support them. This agreement proved to be very important to WCL's success in recent years.
Even with this agreement, enough ambiguity remained at the margins that a remarkable amount of my work as dean involved negotiation with the Central Administration over money. The most difficult issue, one that presented itself in a number of forms, concerned the question of the contribution, if any, the law school would be required to make to help cover any operating deficit in the rest of the University. Unfortunately, throughout the nineties, the University has had to deal with an era of declining enrollments and increasing financial aid budgets. This fact has put great pressure on the budget and has resulted in both across-the-board and targeted budget decreases, affecting nearly the entire University. During this same period, the law school enjoyed a period of relative prosperity with large applicant pools to both the J.D. and LL.M. programs, increasingly reliable funds from the alumni annual appeal, and grants in support of the clinical curriculum and various programs. Growth in the enrollment of the law school, particularly growth in the LL.M. program, produced additional revenue. Our arguments against cutting the law school's budget were substantial. The additional students required additional faculty and other services; thus, decreasing the law school budget would be self-defeating. Furthermore, the fact that the new building was in our immediate future meant that investing in our academic program was essential; only by maintaining an excellent program would we be able to attract the quality and quantity of students necessary to support it. Saving money for the building, both from the operating budget and any surplus revenue, was essential because the costs for the plant and its equipment were likely to be higher than originally expected. Fortunately, these arguments prevailed and the law school's contribution to the University's deficit was limited to making payments to the WCL building fund that the University otherwise would have made.
Another ambiguity that existed concerned the question of how to pay for the costs of operating the new building. While we were on the main campus, the physical plant costs were included in the indirect cost payment to the University and, except for unusual items, the law school did not separately pay for them nor did it control the quantity and quality of services that were provided. The fact that we were to move off-campus meant that we were not bound by the existing model and a new one could be negotiated. We decided that we were willing to take on responsibility for paying the additional costs of running and maintaining the much larger new building in exchange for a lower indirect cost rate and the power to manage physical plant services ourselves.26 President Benjamin Ladner asked Vice President Myers and me to work together to create a formula that would be fair to both sides and would clarify the issues that had caused problems under the earlier arrangement. We both examined models extant at other off-campus law schools, consulted widely, and came up with a structure that will define the relationship between WCL and the University for the foreseeable future. The agreement gives us control over how the new building is used and maintained. We are able to take the risks and enjoy the benefits of new programs and, because the indirect cost rate is lower, have significant incentives to be inventive in taking advantage of new opportunities the new building presents.
Of course a building and money do not make an educational institution great or distinguish it from others. My main goals as dean were to build the academic worth of WCL and also to strengthen and promote those things about it that are distinctive. In order to accomplish those goals, I believed that there had to be within the faculty an intellectual community with a shared sense of commitment to the collective enterprise of building the institution, to the personal task of advancing knowledge through scholarship and service and most important, to the educational mission of the school. I tried to foster such a community within WCL and, fortunately, nearly all of our faculty craved having a supportive peer group and therefore enthusiastically initiated the activities to make it a reality.
It is unlikely that any other law school has a richer intellectual life than the one we have been able to create at WCL. Surprising as it may seem, few faculties are as internally focused as are we and at many law schools most faculty are present only when required by class schedules and meetings. The rest of their time is spent working elsewhere, some quiet place where they can work on their scholarship or at some office consulting. At our school, however, the modern tradition is for faculty to be in attendance, available to their students and their colleagues. I saw one of the roles of the dean as helping to provide faculty with incentives to continue that tradition. Many faculty members took advantage of the seed money, food, and logistical support we were able to provide and organized symposia, seminars, conferences, and presentations by both colleagues and outside speakers. Reading groups formed during the summer. This activity energized the student body and student organizations, who also invited speakers and organized conferences. The Law Review and the journals got involved in a number of symposia which they ultimately edited and published.27 And somehow, all of this occurred despite our inadequate physical space.
More evidence of the intellectual vitality of WCL is contained in the annual The American University, Washington College of Law Faculty: A Bibliography of Published Writings.28 According to a compilation performed by Andrew Popper, from AY88-89 to AY94-95 the faculty published more than 300 books and articles, and testified before legislative and policymaking bodies more than 200 times.29 I was fortunate to be dean at the time faculty began to receive enormous external recognition. They were quoted in the press, elected to chair various sections of the Association of American Law Schools,30 appointed to serve on important committees, invited to speak at conferences and symposia around the world, and appointed as visiting professors at distinguished law schools. Professor Patrick Kehoe, Director of the Law Library, was elected as President of the Association of American Law Libraries. Professors Robert Goldman and now Dean Claudio Grossman are both serving as members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States.
During my deanship, the superb programs that make WCL distinctive flowered and moved from the periphery of activity of the school to become more fully integrated into the daily life of the institution. The International Legal Studies Program, directed by then Professor Claudio Grossman, more than doubled in enrollment, attracting graduate students from all over the world. This allowed WCL to offer more international law courses than any other law school. We added a fourth area of concentration, International Environmental Law,31 to the curriculum and developed a partnership with the Center for International Environmental Law, creating a network for our graduates to assist them in influencing public policy in their respective countries. Professors Claudio Grossman, Robert Goldman, and Herman Schwartz launched the Center for International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, raising money from foundations and creating opportunities for faculty and students to participate in its activities. Professor Richard Wilson's International Human Rights Law Clinic established a link between the clinical program and the international program, providing a vehicle for students to litigate international cases. Professor Herman Schwartz' Israeli Civil Rights Program expanded to add a Palestinian lawyer to the two Israeli lawyers who visit WCL each year to learn about American civil rights and public interest law. The International Human Rights Law Group recognized the pioneering human rights work of our faculty and students and, on its behalf, Attorney General Janet Reno presented the law school with a prestigious award. As a result of the law school's growing reputation in international law, in 1995 U.S. News and World Report ranked WCL as having the tenth best international law program in the country, based on a survey of professors in the field.32
Professor Ann Shalleck, Director of the Women and the Law Program, worked with Professor Grossman to connect the two programs, establishing the Women and International Law Program, which quickly attracted foundation funding for international conferences and curricular development. Through its annual national conference, the Women and the Law Program continued to provide a forum for law professors to examine how to integrate gender into the law school curriculum, and to operate a clinical program enabling students to examine how gender operates in the legal system. The Law and Government Program, which started in AY93-94 by Professors Tom Sargentich and Jamin Raskin, builds upon the strength of our faculty and curriculum in the public law arena. Having quickly established itself through a series of well-attended topical symposia, and by organizing externships for students in governmental agencies, the Law and Government Program will, no doubt, lead to both curricular development and collaborative scholarly work in the public policy arena.
Because of my background as a clinician, one of the most satisfying parts of my deanship was observing from a distance the progress of our clinical program under the leadership of Professor Robert Dinerstein. Prior to becoming dean, I devoted energy to fostering the faculty status of clinical teachers. Clinical legal education in its present form essentially began in the late 1960s in various law schools throughout the country, including ours. Most schools staffed their clinics with lawyers who were not made members of their faculties. At WCL, I was hired in 1972 as a tenure track faculty member and at various times other faculty members taught part-time in the clinical program,33 but nearly all of those who taught in the clinical program were not considered members of the tenure-track faculty. The American Bar Association changed the accreditation standards for law schools in 198434 to encourage law schools to provide clinical teachers with an employment relationship similar to the rest of the faculty. In 1987, our faculty decided to create a separate tenure track for clinical teachers with the same requirements for tenure and promotion for both clinical and non-clinical faculty. I had the honor and opportunity as dean to work with the Central Administration on the final details of the necessary amendments to our faculty manual and then to implement the plan. Subsequent developments have exceeded my fondest hope. The clinicians' scholarship is among the very best on our faculty. All six clinical teachers have published articles in the most prestigious law reviews in the country,35 and all were promoted to full professor and granted tenure during my deanship. We added new clinical programs in international human rights and domestic violence, and we added a tax clinic when Professor Janet Spragens became the first member of the non-clinical faculty to ask to teach a clinic. We were thrilled when, based upon a poll of clinical teachers in the United States, U.S. News and World Report recognized our clinical program as in the top three in the country.36 I am chagrined however, that we are still able to serve fewer than half of the students who want to enroll in the program.
The programs at WCL have become integral to the life of the institution partly because there is immense student interest in them. A majority of the students enrolling in WCL mention the international law, women and the law, and the clinical programs as reasons they chose to come. Our traditional strength in public law has always drawn students to us as well. And, in addition to The Law Review, we have three student¾initiated journals: The Administrative Law Journal, The Journal of International Law and Policy, and The Journal of Gender and the Law. Each is completely student-run and independent of the faculty-led programs, but obviously reflect the symmetry between the interests of our students and those of our faculty.
In the area of admissions, our goals were straightforward. We wanted to increase the quality of the class and its diversity. Prior to our being affected by the recent decline in the national applicant pool for law school, our pool rose to nearly 7000 applicants and approximately one of every twelve people applying to law school nationally applied to WCL. The numerical indicators of quality soared37 at the same time as we were able to increase dramatically the percentage of enrolled minority students. The desire to attract more minority students and faculty was widely shared in the law school. We recognized the interrelationship between recruiting both students and faculty of color. Various Faculty Appointments Committees helped create a consensus within the faculty that hiring minority faculty members was a high priority. As a result, we went from one to four African-American faculty members in a few years' time. In addition, we already had an Hispanic law professor and were able to add an expert in American Indian Law to our faculty. We created an Office of Minority Affairs and hired a very talented person, Sherry Weaver, as the director and followed her recommendations. We published a minority recruitment brochure and made sure that minorities were recognized in all of our other publications. Our minority alumni, particularly our Black Alumni Association, agreed to help recruit, as did our students. We recruited in colleges with high percentages of minority students, such as historically black colleges. This initiative produced a law school that now has between 25% and 30% minority students and very active chapters of the Black Law Students Association, the Hispanic Law Students Association, the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, and the Native American Law Students Association.
A perennial problem in law schools is how to provide career planning services to students who are not interested in working for those large institutional employers that are most likely to conduct the on-campus interview service traditionally provided by placement offices. Medium to large law firms, some federal agencies, corporations, and larger prosecutor offices are able to predict hiring needs in advance to be able to come to campus in the fall to hire for the next year. Inducing those organizations to recruit at WCL and hire our graduates was a project that took many years and has enjoyed significant success.38 However, those students interested in public interest, public service, and small firm jobs only began to be served effectively when we added a public interest/small firm job coordinator to the Office of Career Planning to specialize in their needs.
We have been able to demonstrate further support for public interest work by our students and graduates through the joint efforts of students, faculty, and the administration. Donations from alumni created an endowment to support loan repayment assistance for alumni in low paid public interest jobs and, although the amount of the grants was necessarily small, the fact that we were one of the first schools to have such a program demonstrated our commitment to encouraging this work. The impressive array of pro bono work done by our faculty, often in tandem with teams of students, gave students models to emulate in their own careers. We were host to public interest job fairs, and twice served as the host school for the National Association of Public Interest Law's national conference. Faculty members and student organizations invited public interest lawyers to appear as speakers in classes and in symposia. An array of student organizations provided an outlet for student energy to study and work on public interest causes from environmental protection to juvenile justice. The Equal Justice Foundation raised money each year, matched two to one from our annual alumni appeal, to provide fellowships for students working in the summer in public interest jobs. Their annual auction, started in 1993, has become one of the most enjoyable events in the life of the school.
Throughout my deanship, I emphasized our traditional, distinctive claim as a law school rooted in humanistic values¾one that operates without undue competitiveness, where faculty are sensitive to pedagogy and do not try to embarrass students in class, and where faculty accessibility to students is taken for granted. I talked often about the close relationships among students, between students and faculty, between faculty and staff, and between students and staff. I also worked hard to preserve this important yet fragile part of our identity. My concern was that as our faculty became more successful with their scholarly endeavors they would be attracted to spend more of their time away from the law school and away from students and that as our admissions standards continued to rise we would attract students with a different value set about competitiveness who would change the institution. In retrospect, I think those concerns were misplaced as there is abundant evidence that many people at WCL are guardians of this tradition. The faculty takes enormous pride in its well-deserved reputation for teaching excellence and our emphasis on pedagogy is an important reason most of us chose to spend our careers here. The members of our staff, particularly WCL registrar Rebecca Davis and her colleagues, are extremely popular with our students because of their remarkable abilities to provide in a large institution the type of flexible, personal service one would normally expect only in a small one. And I will always be grateful to the students who originated and carry on one of our newest traditions, "The Law Revue." That annual musical comedy, each year an original satire of various aspects of life in the law school, kept all of us from taking things too seriously and contributed mightily to boosting morale even in the darkest days of the struggle for the new building.
One of our objectives in designing the new building was to ensure that the new space preserved and enhanced our capacity to be attentive to the quality of relationships in the law school. In working with our architects, Andrew Popper and the faculty and students on the Space Committee made sure that the faculty was not hidden away in some distant corner of the building. Instead they keep faculty near areas where students would feel welcome, sprinkled "schmoozing" spaces throughout the building, made sure that the best spaces in the building were dedicated to students uses, and tried to give a very large building a human scale. My sense is that the new building succeeds in fulfilling this vision, but we will only know for certain after we have lived there for some time.
Throughout my service as dean I often said that I have a romance with the Washington College of Law. As a faculty member of the Washington College of Law since 1972, I have served for nearly a quarter of its first century and have learned from working under all of the living former deans who were my predecessors in that office. My term as dean spanned the last seven years of the first century of the Washington College of Law's existence, providing me with the opportunity to build upon the efforts of my predecessors and to have moved it forward and made it stronger. Last summer, I proudly passed the megaphone to my close colleague and friend, Claudio Grossman, confident that, as Dean, he will use it to lead the law school magnificently through its next set of challenges, propelling it into a second century even finer than its first
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1. John Sherman Myers was the Dean of the Washington College of Law from 1956 to 1967. Although I never met him, my many conversations about him with his widow, Alvina Reckman Myers, and with his former students and friends make him a very familiar person to me. His leadership set the stage for what the law school has become in the years since his passing.
2. It seems remarkable from this vantage point that I was hired to be clinical director when I was 28, with only three years experience as a lawyer. Prior to joining the faculty, I had been a clinical teacher for one year at the University of Connecticut, a graduate student at Yale Law School (and a teaching assistant in its clinical program) for one year, and a criminal defense lawyer with New Haven Legal Assistance Association for one year. We would be unlikely to hire a clinical teacher today with this little legal experience, but fortunately for me, back then clinical education was in its infancy and the faculty was willing to gamble with me. I have always been grateful for that fact as well as for the support the law school has provided for my experimentation, even when it was unsuccessful.
3. Prior to the law school's move and reunification in its new building in January 1996, the program had spread among six other buildings on the campus. The law school building was unable to house the law library, the clinical program, the offices of admissions, minority affairs, career planning, many student organizations, and most classrooms.
4. Eighteen months later, after a national search, I was appointed Dean.
5. I have taught negotiation, both as part of the clinical program and as a separate course, since I started teaching at WCL. Throughout my deanship, I team taught a course entitled "Lawyer Bargaining," a simulation course in negotiation, with Adjunct Professor Norman Stein, who was my first research assistant.
6. I gave Andy Popper the theretofore unknown title of "Deputy Dean" to symbolize the important role I expected him to play during the interim deanship. We had a shared set of beliefs regarding how to proceed on the building and agreed on the priority of many other projects we intended to tackle together. As it turned out, we were partners throughout the seven years. Among his many achievements during that time, the new building stands as lasting testimony to his multiple abilities and his tenacity.
7. By the time WCL moved to its new building in January 1996, with the exception of Vice President Myers, none of the participants in these discussions was still in office. President Berendzen resigned in 1990 and was succeeded first by Provost Greenberg, who served as interim president for more than a year, then by Joseph Duffey, who served as President from 1991-93. I was appointed interim president for 13 months beginning in the summer of 1993 and served until Benjamin Ladner's term began in 1994. Provost Greenberg resigned at the end of the 1992-93 academic year, and was succeeded first by Ann Ferren, who served for two years as interim provost, and ultimately by Robert Griffith, whose term as Provost began in the summer of 1995. Claudio Grossman served as Acting Dean of WCL while I was Interim President. When I returned to the deanship in the summer of 1994, Jamin Raskin joined the law school administration as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs so that Andrew Popper could spend more time on completing the building project. Andrew Popper and I stepped down at the end of June 1995 and Jamin Raskin remained as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Claudio Grossman became Dean.
8. Glenbrook Road Ass'n v. District of Columbia Bd. of Zoning, 605 A.2d 22, 26 (D.C. 1992) (stating that D.C. zoning regulations "do not allow the location of colleges and universities in residentially zoned districts as a matter of right," but requires universities to obtain "special exceptions" to use property in residential zone).
9. The site of the dilapidated Cassell Building, the former athletic center of the University, is located across the street from the main campus, on Massachusetts Avenue.
10. Because there is still litigation pending regarding the interpretation of the agreement that ultimately resulted, a full description of the negotiation will have to await another day.
11. Glenbrook Road Ass'n, 605 A.2d at 44.
12. We continued to try to improve the existing physical plant. We tiered our largest classrooms, (a major improvement), installed ceiling fans in the classrooms, and bought new furniture. But nothing could make up for the fact that we did not have enough space, and that what we had was unattractive, poorly ventilated, and uncomfortable.
13. Draude v. District of Columbia Bd. of Zoning Adjustment, 527 A.2d 1242, 1246 (D.C. 1987) (stating that university building located in commercial zone is "located there as of right"); see also 11 D.C. Mun. Regs. § 701.6 (f) (1991).
14. Professor Anthony Morella, the senior member of the WCL faculty, served with dedication and distinction as General Counsel of American University from 1969 to 1994, making him perhaps one of the longest serving university counsels in the country.
15. Various aspects of the foreclosure have been challenged in a civil action in the U.S. District Court brought by the former owners of the land on which the building is situated. Their challenges have been rejected. Burka v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 56 F.3d 1509 (D.C. Cir. 1995). In subsequent proceedings, American University was substituted for Aetna as party defendant. Burka v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 894 F. Supp. 28 (D.C. 1995).
16. Other neighbors, particularly those in Fort Gaines, were ecstatic about the location. Most were neutral or supportive.
17. This theory was rejected by the courts. Duke v. American University, Civ. No. 0003212-95, (D.C. Super. Ct. 1996) (affirming summary judgment in favor of University).
18. At about this time, President Duffy left the University to become the Director of the United States Information Agency. I was appointed to be Interim President and Professor Claudio Grossman was appointed to serve as Acting Dean. I immediately formed a task force to work on the building consisting of university trustees¾Edward Carr, Richard Cohen, and Robert Pence, and law school faculty¾Claudio Grossman, Andrew Popper, and Jamin Raskin, and central administrators¾Donald Myers, William Ahlstrom, and myself. This group worked tenaciously, helping us make the very difficult strategic judgments necessary to complete the project. In addition to our excellent zoning lawyers, we hired political consultants to advise us how to proceed.
19. Spring Valley Wesley Heights Citizen's Ass'n v. District of Columbia Bd. of Zoning Adjustment, 644 A.2d 435, 436 (D.C. 1994) (holding that BZA had no authorization to prohibit college from acquiring commercially zoned property where college or university use is permitted as matter of right).
20. Duke v. American Univ., Civ. No. 0003212-95 (D.C. Super. Ct. 1996).
21. The generosity of both Alvina Reckman Myers and John Sherman Myers, whose estates were left to the law school, will provide endowment income to the law school for the first time. The major portion of the income from the corpus of their foundation is pledged to the building fund. Mrs. Myers, who passed away in 1995, was an indefatigable supporter of WCL. She participated in the ceremony held at the beginning of construction but unfortunately did not live to witness its completion.
22. Budget issues occupied a great deal of my time during my interim presidency and I developed a deep understanding of the University's financial condition. Suffice it to say that it became clear to me that WCL is on its own in paying for its building.
23. We have had a great team, led by Associate Dean for Institutional Advancement Paul Purta, and I am very grateful for all I learned from him about fundraising and institutional leadership.
24. These increases brought our salaries in line with those of other top law schools.
25. "Indirect costs" here means a proportionate share of the unallocated costs of running the university and includes such items as central administrative services, accounting, payroll, physical plant maintenance, security, etc. There have been various attempts over the years to allocate costs to justify particular charges but no cost allocation model was ever fully satisfactory and none was adopted. From the perspective of the Central Administration, this agreement has been very helpful because it has provided the law school with incentives to produce more revenue and, in practice, the law school has never failed to reach its revenue projections.
26. The budget cuts in the physical plant area meant that buildings were cleaned less frequently and that fewer people were available to undertake repairs. This was particularly noticeable to the law school community, frustrated that the new building seemed always to be delayed, and thwarted our attempts to keep the old building habitable in the interim.
27. Conference, International Protection of Reproductive Rights, 44 AM. U. L. REV. 963 (1995); Symposium, The Constitutional Structure of National Government in the United States: Is It in a State of Crisis?, 9 ADMIN. L.J. AM. U. 1 (1995); Conference, The 30th Anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's Decision in Gideon v. Wainwright: Gideon and the Public Service Role of Lawyers in Advancing Equal Justice, 43 AM. U. L. REV. 1 (1993); Symposium, Race and Gender in Theory and Practice of the Law, 1 AM. U. J. GENDER & LAW vii (1993); Conference, Human Rights, Public Finance, and the Development Process, 8 AM. U. J. INT'L. & POL'Y 1 (1992).
28. Gary McCann, Associate Director of the Law Library, has been compiling this since 1984.
29. Andrew F. Popper, Stimulating Excellence: The Subtle Art of Deaning, ADVOCATE, Spring 1995, at 5.
30. The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) is the learned society of legal education. Its approximately 70 Sections present a program at the AALS Annual Meeting and often engage in other activities relevant to a particular field.
31. The other three areas of concentration are International Trade and Banking, International Organizations, and International Human Rights.
32. America's Best Graduate Schools, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REP., Mar. 20, 1995, at 77 [hereinafter Best Graduate Schools].
33. Professor Nicholas Kittrie was involved in clinical education prior to my joining the faculty. Professors David Aaronson and Paul Rice both taught with me in the clinic during my early years. All have since left clinical education to pursue other interests.
34. AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, STANDARDS FOR THE ACCREDITATION OF LAW SCHOOLS, § 405(e) (1984).
35. See, e.g., Susan D. Bennett, No Relief but upon the Terms of Coming into the House¾Controlled Spaces, Invisible Disentitlements, and Homelessness in an Urban Shelter System, 104 YALE L.J. 2157 (1995); Robert D. Dinerstein, A Meditation on the Theories of Practice, 43 HASTINGS L.J. 971 (1992); Binny Miller, Give Them Back Their Lives: Recognizing Client Narrative in Case Theory, 93 MICH. L. REV. 485 (1994); Nancy D. Polikoff, This Child Does Have Two Mothers; Redefining Parenthood to Meet the Needs of Children in Lesbian¾Mother and Other Non-Traditional Families, 78 GEO. L.J. 459 (1990); Ann Shalleck, Constructions of the Client Within Legal Education, 45 STAN. L. REV. 1731 (1993).
36. Best Graduate Schools, supra note 32, at 85 (rating American University number three in clinical education, after Georgetown University and New York University).
37. Thanks to excellent work on the part of the Admissions Committee and the staff of the Admissions Office, we were able to boost our average LSAT score from the 66th percentile in 1988 to the 87th percentile in 1994, and our average grade point average jumped from 3.12 to 3.38.
38. Directors of the Office of Career Services (formerly known as the Placement Office) have worked tirelessly and successfully to bring such recruiters to the law school. Nearly every large law firm in the D.C. area has partners and associates from WCL. The recent downturn in the employment market in such firms has blunted somewhat our penetration of this market in the past several years.
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