Leadership in Legal Education Symposium Iii: The Dean as Crisis Manager

Abstract

This article discusses some of the issues which confront a dean in a major crisis and offers some observations on getting both the law school and the dean through with minimal damage. Crisis management is not part of a dean's usual job description. Yet major crises—unanticipated events with significant media coverage and with the potential to damage both the law school and the dean—occur more frequently than commonly assumed. My own cursory survey suggests that any dean in a typical five-year term has about a fifteen percent chance of encountering a major problem. When such events do occur, any stereotypic notions of a dean as an ivory tower administrator safely removed from the slings and arrows of the real world quickly evaporate. This article defines what constitutes a major crisis and how to handle them.

Keywords: leadership, legal education, symposium, dean, crisis manager, law school, U. S. News

JEL Classification: K00