Michael T. Cahill Named Next President and Dean of Brooklyn Law School

Michael T. Cahill, who previously served as Co-Dean and Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School and as Vice Dean at Brooklyn Law School, will become the next Dean and President of Brooklyn Law School effective July 1, 2019. He also will be a tenured Professor of Law on the faculty.

Cahill is a prominent criminal law scholar and experienced law school leader. He was appointed Co-Dean at Rutgers Law School in July 2016. Before that, he was a member of the faculty at Brooklyn Law School for 13 years, serving as Vice Dean from 2013 to 2015 and Associate Dean for academic affairs from 2010 to 2013.

“We are very excited to welcome back Dean Michael Cahill to lead our great Law School forward,” said Stuart Subotnick ’68, chairman of the Board of Trustees. “His wealth of experience in legal academia, his deep knowledge of the Law School from his many years here as Vice Dean, Associate Dean, and faculty member, and his vision to advance the School’s academic excellence while maintaining financial strength made him the clear choice among a field of exceptionally strong candidates.”

During his time with Brooklyn Law School’s leadership team, Cahill was involved in nearly every aspect of the Law School’s operation, including curricular oversight and reform, support for faculty research, admissions and financial-aid policy, budgetary planning, maintenance and improvement of school facilities, external relations, fundraising, and close collaboration with administrators and staff.

“I could not be more thrilled, personally and professionally, to have been given this opportunity to lead Brooklyn Law School,” said Cahill. “I am honored and grateful to have received the support of the Board, faculty, and administration, and I am determined to make good on the investment this school has made in me. While I am hardly eager to leave Rutgers Law School, itself an outstanding institution, the chance to return to Brooklyn Law School is a dream come true and an opportunity I could not pass up. I greatly look forward to working with the Board and faculty to ensure that Brooklyn Law School’s profile and reputation reflect its true value, and that its future will respond to a dynamic legal landscape while respecting its proud history.”

Cahill received a B.A. from Yale University, and J.D. (magna cum laude) and M.P.P. degrees from the University of Michigan. After graduating from law school, where he was a note editor for the Michigan Law Review, he served as a law clerk to Judge James B. Loken of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was then involved as staff director and consultant, respectively, for major criminal-code reform projects in the states of Illinois and Kentucky. Before joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty in 2003, he taught at Chicago-Kent College of Law as a visiting assistant professor of law.

His scholarly work focuses primarily on criminal law, and he also has written about and taught health law and policy. He has co-authored three books with University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Paul H. Robinson: the general one-volume treatise Criminal Law (Aspen, 2d ed. 2012), the casebook Criminal Law: Case Studies and Controversies (also with Shima Baradaran Baughman; Wolters Kluwer, 4th ed. 2016), and Law Without Justice (Oxford University Press, 2006). Cahill’s work has also appeared in top law reviews, including Texas Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, and American Journal of Law & Medicine, among other publications.

“Michael Cahill is a beloved colleague, noted scholar, skilled administrator, and wise counselor,” said Interim Dean Maryellen Fullerton, who will continue to lead the Law School until July 1, 2019. “His scholarship embodies the longstanding Brooklyn Law School commitment to theory and practice by closely examining the implementation of moral theories of punishment in real life settings. Speaking on behalf of myself and all the faculty, we are delighted that he is coming back to Brooklyn.”

“We are tremendously grateful as well for the ongoing strong leadership and dedication of Interim Dean Maryellen Fullerton,” Subotnick said. “She has been an extremely effective ambassador and advocate for the Law School these last six months, and as a result, when she hands over the leadership to Dean Cahill, the school will be in a strong position on which to build an even greater future.”

Cahill was chosen following an extensive national search with outreach to almost a thousand potential candidates. The Dean Search Committee conducted 10 first-round interviews with candidates and invited four outstanding finalists to campus for full days of interviews and presentations in late November and early December.

Subotnick applauded the work of the committee and the enthusiastic participation of the entire Law School community in the search process: “I want to thank the tireless and diligent work of the Dean Search Committee, which included Trustees Francis J. Aquila ’83, Debra Humphreys ’84, Hon. Claire Kelly ’93, and Eileen Nugent ’78; and faculty members Christopher Beauchamp, I. Bennett Capers, Christina Mulligan, and David Reiss. In addition, we greatly appreciate the thoughtful contributions and feedback of students, faculty, staff, and alumni through attendance at town halls and written evaluations of the candidates. This truly has been a community effort.”