UCLA School of Law Dean Michael Schill has announced that he is leaving UCLA to become dean of the University of Chicago School of Law effective January 1, 2010. Brian Leiter gloatingly reports that:
Before moving to UCLA, Dean Schill taught at NYU and Penn for many years, and is no doubt well-known to thousands of current law students and young lawyers as co-author of the leading casebook on property.
Schill has been, by any measure, a phenomenally successful Dean at UCLA: recruiting faculty from tenured posts at NYU, Virginia and Chicago; retaining faculty in the face of offers from Harvard, Texas, and Michigan; doubling the number of endowed chairs at the law school, and nearly doubling alumni participation in annual giving. Only rarely does one encounter a Dean who gets such rave reviews from his faculty. UCLA has, of course, been one of the nation's top law schools for decades, but Dean Schill will leave the school in probably its strongest and most competitive position ever. My colleagues and I are fortunate, indeed, that he will take the helm here, and we look forward to welcoming him to Chicago.
Indeed, Chicago is most fortunate. Mike Schill has been an amazing dean. Far better than Chicago deserves.
Under Schill’s leadership, the UCLA law school assembled a very strong managerial team. On the administrative side, the law school has been run efficiently and effectively. Significant improvements in a number of areas have been quite noticeable. Information technology has steadily provided improved resources and capabilities, for example, especially in the classroom.
I have been particularly impressed with the work of Associate Dean Laura Lavado Parker and Director of Communications Lauri Gavel. Under Schill’s supervision, they have significantly enhanced both the quantity and quality of the law school’s communication with alumni and media. The law school now routinely funnels media inquiries to faculty with expertise, for example, so that I have been quoted in the media much more often in recent years.
I’ve been privileged to sit in with Schill and Parker during several meetings with prospective donors. They did a remarkable job of anticipating how best to “stroke” the target. Indeed, I’ve come out of several of those meeting thinking I should be contributing more to the law school!
Not surprisingly, Schill did a great job in fundraising. In particular, I’ve been very involved with the UCLA Law Firm Challenge. The fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2008, was record breaking with 75% of the School's alumni at 76 participating firms making a gift to the School. The alumni with whom I deal routinely credit Dean Schill with the success of the program. Along with other Schill-initiated fundraising developments, we have raised the 16% aggregate alumni participation rate in 2002 (which was at the bottom of the nation's top 20 law schools) to 30.5% in 2008 (which puts us in the top 5).
Schill changed our alumni culture from one of (what one alumni friend of mine called) benign neglect to one of enthusiastic and generous support for the School, in the way that the alumni at our private and public school competitors support their schools. The alumni I know were enthusiastic about Schill. They believed in his vision for the school and were willing to open their wallets in response. Not surprisingly, I'm hearing today from alumni who are deeply saddned by this news.
Nonetheless, I am firmly convinced that Dean Schill has laid the foundation for the future financial strength of the law school. In particular, he has left us in good shape to complete the current $100 million campaign in short order, which will allow the law school to compete effectively with better funded private schools.
Schill’s success at fundraising enabled the School to make a number of programmatic enhancements. In 2005, for example, Dean Schill launched the School’s comprehensive Entertainment and Media Law and Policy Program, which has enriched the School’s curricular offerings. The focus of the program is multifaceted: It is not just about the business of entertainment or the practice of entertainment law; rather, it is about all sorts of media and intellectual property, as well as about policy and culture in what is one of the most dynamic segments of the economy in the country.
Another very important development driven by Schill has been the creation of a joint program with RAND, which significantly enhances the School’s ability to conduct empirical and interdisciplinary research.
I have never had cause for complaint for how I have been treated by any of the deans I have served with at UCLA. During Dean Schill’s tenure, however, I have felt particularly valued and appreciated. He has gone out of his way to reward my teaching and scholarship. It’s not just the rewards, however, it is his demeanor. He has a knack for making one feel that one is a valued member of the School community.
I will miss him tremendously.
