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Welcome Message from the President
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Dean and/or President?
One of the 'concerns' expressed by the American Bar Association about Cooley Law School was the fact that I was serving both as president and dean. Being rooted in the governance structure of the typical university, they saw the president as the source of money for the law school and the dean as the decision maker with respect to spending.
If I was both dean and president, who did I fight with? And conversely, who fought with me? They seemed to find it inconceivable that the board of directors, the administration and the dean and faculty could all be on the same page.
In early January 1975, I wrote to the board:
"I do not believe there ever was a conflict of interest between my roles as dean and president. Our school, being a corporation organized and existing solely for the purpose of operating a law school, never needed more than a single chief executive officer.
"A dean is customarily the chief academic officer of each of the colleges within a university. The ABA and others are accustomed to the notion that every law school has a dean. Indeed, ABA standards require that the school have a full-time dean, and specify many of his powers and duties.
"When it was suggested that the ABA was concerned over my dual role, I saw no reason for the matter to be a stumbling block to accreditation. Looking to the model of such institutions as the Detroit College of Law, where G. Cameron Buchanan, a practicing attorney, is president, and John Abbott is dean, it seemed to me that it is entirely possible to divide the offices without detriment to the school."
My memorandum went on to point out that, while ABA standards required that a law school be governed by a board, they limited the authority of the board to "establishing general policies" and vested total operational authority in the "dean and faculty." Thereupon I expressed an opinion that surely separated me from the mainstream of American legal education:
"I confess that I am not altogether pleased with this concept. I see it as a rule that law schools are to be run by law teachers, and only generally guided by the representatives of the profession and the public who serve on the governing board.
"I believe this leads to inbreeding of law school administration; pressure to spend money on projects which primarily benefit teachers; a complete rejection of any cost-benefit analysis of new schemes and programs; and the flowering of an attitude that the duty of the board is to raise money for the educators to spend without any corresponding control over the nature of the expenditures.
"It proceeds from the supposition that only law teachers can decide what is good legal education; that the dean and faculty are the 'experts' and the governing board is merely a source of support for the school and for them.
"Too many American law schools are now completely operated by their faculties. The faculties have gained control over the selection and retention of their own membership, and over the selection of the dean as well.
"If Cooley Law School is to fulfill its intended mission of providing legal education which is responsive to the felt needs of the practicing bar, the sitting judiciary, and the consuming public then it is imperative that the board be representative of their interests, and that the direction and operation of the school be kept in the hands of persons immediately responsible to the board."
I concluded by suggesting that I continue as dean, that I report to the board, and that an unpaid, volunteer president be chosen from among board members. I appointed a nominating committee which returned with the names of Phil Marco as board chairman, and Jack Cote as president.
Interestingly, the issue of a combined deanship and presidency seems to have exhausted its importance on me. Some years later Tom Reed served as president and dean of South Texas School of Law and Leigh Taylor is designated dean and chief executive officer of Southwestern University Law School, which has no president. More recently, Cooley's dean, Don Leduc, has been elected my successor as president and he holds both positions without complaint from the American Bar Association.
Which is as it should be. The ABA has no standard on the subject. I have no doubt that the Bar's complaint about me was merely another incarnation of the old "proprietary school" issue; the discomfort they felt because I was the founder of the school, the unspoken suspicion that I had too much to say about its governance, and was or might somehow be using the school to line my own pockets.
Perhaps because of the Free Press's negative campaign against me in 1973, I was perceived as a lightning rod for public criticism. That attitude reached right into the Cooley boardroom. Early in 1975, I sought an increase in my salary. I had agreed to work for Cooley for the same salary I had been receiving at the Supreme Court, $42,000 a year. That was the compensation I had obtained for the court when I was Chief Justice in 1970. So by 1975, I had not had a raise in five years.
I asked for $72,000. The board choked collectively. They appointed a committee, deliberated and delayed. As the months went by without action, I simply told them that I would bill the school for my services at an hourly rate, like any other lawyer. That arrangement continued for nearly the rest of 1975.
The discussions among board members were interesting. They agreed that the school could afford what I asked for, they agreed that I was worth it and could do easily as well in the practice of law. But over and over phrases like "public criticism," "negative publicity" and such were voiced. The board members were all my friends, and I'm sure were looking out for what they conceived to be my best interests. But the bottom line, as I saw it, was that my biggest liability was me.
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This Page was last updated on:
02/01/2005