The University has announced that current law professor Michael Moffitt has been selected as the next dean of the University School of Law.
Moffitt’s selection comes after current Dean Margie Paris’ decision to step down as acting dean in early 2011 and resume her role as a member of the School of Law faculty, according to a press statement released by the University last Friday. Paris has held the position since 2006.
The initial selection process for Paris’ successor began in 2009 and was overseen by a search committee headed by Timothy Gleason, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication. The selection committee was assisted by the services of San Francisco-based recruitment firm Isaacson, Miller.
Gleason said the original pool of approximately 40 candidates was eventually narrowed down to four candidates. Gleason’s committee then turned over those names to the provost’s office for consideration. The other three candidates were Jerry Parkinson, former dean and current law professor at the University of Wyoming; Susan Fortney, law professor and interim law school dean at Texas Tech University; and James Chen, law school dean at the University of Louisville.  
Moffitt’s status as a pre-existing faculty member had no bearing on his ultimate selection, Gleason said.
“A search committee is going to go work really hard to make sure that there is no bias towards an internal candidate in either direction,” Gleason said. “The challenge with being an internal candidate is that people know you, that’s a good thing presumably, but it also means people know you, so it’s very hard being an internal candidate.”
A 1994 Harvard Law School graduate, Moffitt has been on the University School of Law faculty since 2001. He has served as the associate director of the School of Law’s Appropriate Dispute Resolution Center since 2001 and as the school’s associate dean of academic affairs for the past three years.  
Moffitt’s wife, Jamie Moffitt, became the executive senior associate athletic director for finance and administration in April after serving as the law school’s associate dean for finance and operations.
Moffitt largely specialized in international conflict resolution and mediation practices in both the private and public sectors.
“(These were) big and nasty public sector disputes,” Moffitt said, “border wars, ethnic disputes, I worked with the United Nations and development banks.”
Moffitt has also assisted in resolving potential ethnic conflicts overseas.
“I even did some work in an ethnically divided area in the Caucasus area in the former Soviet Union trying to maintain a cease fire,” Moffitt said, “pretty high profile, pretty nasty stuff.”    
Now focused on the present, Moffitt said he foresees an easy transition as he takes over leadership of the School of Law in July and hopes to expand the role of the law school to other areas of campus life and studies. Expansion of law school programs will be one of his top priorities.
“We have a few joint degree programs, but for my appetite we haven’t done nearly enough to bring law students across the street, and I don’t think we’ve done enough to bring the law school across the street to undergrads and to other graduate programs.” Moffitt said.
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