Commentary

• Publication year: 2008
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 04

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND LAW REVIEWVolume 31, No. 4SUMMER 2008

Commentary

Aviam Soifer(fn*)

There has been talk about "professional deans," and I am worried that someone might think I am one of those. I am very happily in my second deanship, but I hope that one is allowed three strikes before it can be said that he has turned professional.

I want to talk a bit more about a few of the many important things that have already been said, and to stress what Kris said about aspira-tional capacity. It seems to me that trying to adjust to but also trying to select the place that has aspirational capacity similar to your own aspirations is key. It is critical in those essential early negotiations, and it is crucial in your own initial, significant understandings, too. As Kris also said, it is a question of the ends as well as the means. I am reminded, however, of a wonderful albeit somewhat jaded saying: "If the ends don't justify the means, what good are they?" That, too, is worth thinking about when becoming a law school dean.

I also want to discuss briefly being comfortable within paradox because, in some ways, I think this whole conference is about that capacity. There are a lot of paradoxes in the role change to being dean. For example, a lot of us question authority. That is one of the things faculty members generally should do and delight to do, and maybe law school faculty members do it even more than most professors. Therefore, particularly if you have had considerable experience as a legal academic, all of a sudden you may realize: "Yikes, I am, at least in part, the authority here, so everyone is going to be questioning me, and that is not fair because I'm a good person and they just hired me, and we had a wonderful celebration." You have to be comfortable even when such a realization hits.

You also have to know to whom you ought to listen. I think the point made about the SALT network is very important-you can find out all sorts of things about your new school through that and other networks. But you also have to be very careful to make your own judgments, and not too quickly at that. It also should not seem as though you are listening to only some of the people on the faculty.

It actually is quite difficult as an outside dean to know to whom you should really listen and whose advice you should...