Deans & Legal Education
A Selected Bibliography

Introduction

Dean - It's not Paula Dean, or James Dean, or even Dean Martin - it's "the" DEAN of the law school.

This position is defined as the "administrative officer in charge of a college, faculty, or division in a university." This position is a bit like parenting. There is no manual, directions, or even a "how-to" guide. There are sometimes faculty manuals, university policies and procedures, state and/or federal law but every law school - public or private; young or established; ranked highly or not at all has a dean or an acting dean or an interim dean. You may hear - "she's an outside dean" or "he's an inside dean", but most of the deans - past, present, and future would agree - it's an interesting responsibility There are many constituencies; successes and proud moments. There are also enormous stresses - fiscal, tenure, law suits, alums, legislation, university relations, and of course - parking and printing.
This bibliography includes selective brief annotated citations to a variety of articles by and about deans and deaning.

There's a topical index but many of the articles are listed in more than one place An attempt has been to include most of the articles, but surely there may be an article inadvertently excluded, so send the citation and the bibliography will be updated. It's our intention to create an active document which can serve as a point of reference for deans and future deans and those merely being tempted with the thought.