These key players are major forces in shaping legal education. As in years past, in creating our list, we sought nominations from the nation’s law schools and added our own nominees. We then narrowed the list and asked every law school dean to rate them. Here are the top 20.
*Full story, including information about each of these individuals, will appear in the Spring issue of The National Jurist and on NationalJurist.com.
No. 20
Jerry Organ
Professor, University of St. Thomas School of Law
No. 19
William Henderson
Professor, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
No. 18
Anthony E. Varona
Dean, Seattle University School of Law
No. 17
Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge
Dean, University of Georgia School of Law
No. 16
Megan Carpenter
Dean, University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law
No. 15
William Treanor
Dean and Executive Vice President, Georgetown University Law Center
No. 14
Melanie Wilson
Dean and Professor, Washington and Lee University School of Law; 2024 AALS president elect
No. 13
Andrew Perlman
Dean and Professor, Suffolk University Law School
No. 12
Eugene Volokh
Professor, UCLA School of Law
No. 11
Jenny Martinez
Provost, Stanford University; former dean of Stanford Law School
No. 10
Darby Dickerson
President, Dean and Professor, Southwestern Law School
No. 9
Michael Hunter Schwartz
Dean, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law
No. 8
Meera E. Deo
Professor, Southwestern Law School; Director, Law School Survey of Student Engagement at Indiana University-Bloomington
No. 7
Brian Leiter
Professor, University of Chicago Law School
No. 6
Aaron Taylor
Executive Director, AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence
No. 5
Robert Ahdieh
Dean, Texas A&M University School of Law
No. 4
Paul Caron
Dean and Professor, Pepperdine University Rick J. Caruso School of Law
No. 3
Mark Alexander
Dean, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law; 2023 AALS president
No. 2
Kellye Testy
President and CEO, Law School Admission Council
No. 1
Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Comments (2)
Congratulations Robert.
Hello–what was the methodology for narrowing the list? What guidance was given to law school deans on voting for most influential? How many deans voted? How many nominations were there? How many did you narrow it down to?