Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan
Born: April 28, 1960 (age 47)
Place: New York City
from wikipedia:
Elena Kagan is the dean of Harvard Law School and the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law at Harvard University. She previously served as a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. From 1995 to 1999, Dean Kagan served as Associate Counsel to U.S. President Bill Clinton and Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Counsel.
Kagan was born 28 April 1960 in New York City. She graduated from Hunter College High School in 1977, received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1981, an M. Phil. from Worcester College, Oxford University, in 1983, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1986. She was a law clerk for Judge Abner Mikva on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In private practice, Kagan was an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams & Connolly. She then launched her scholarly career at the University of Chicago Law School, where she became an assistant professor in 1991 and a tenured professor of law in 1995.
Kagan's scholarly work focuses on administrative law, including the role of the President of the United States in formulating and influencing federal administrative and regulatory law. Her 2001 Harvard Law Review article, "Presidential Administration," was honored as the year's top scholarly article by the American Bar Association's Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and is being developed into a book to be published by Harvard University Press. Kagan has also written on a range of First Amendment issues.
In 1999, President Clinton nominated Kagan to serve as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but the Republican led Senate Judiciary Committee declined to bring her nomination forward for a hearing.
Kagan has been dean of Harvard Law School since 2003 when she took over from Dean Robert C. Clark who had served as dean for over a decade. The focus of her tenure has been improving student satisfaction, constructing new facilities, and reviewing the legal curriculum. She has been credited for bringing new vigor to her post and for employing a consensus-building leadership style.
She also kicked off a $400 million capital campaign in 2003; it is scheduled to end in 2008. Reports are that the Law School has raised about $260 million to date, putting it slightly ahead of schedule. Kagan is also credited with overcoming ideological disputes among the Law school faculty that had hindered new faculty appointments.
Kagan has been the subject of repeated speculation that she might be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States if a Democratic president is elected.