Law Schools

Harvard Snags Sunstein; Nussbaum Stays at Chicago

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Speculation over the past few years that an academic power couple at the University of Chicago Law School might be headed to Harvard apparently is half-right.

Although both Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum have received recent offers from Harvard Law School, only Sunstein has accepted, according to the Harvard Crimson and a Chronicle of Higher Education blog. However, Sunstein reportedly plans to continue to maintain an office at the U of C and may teach some classes there, too.

Sunstein, who is a graduate both of Harvard College and the university’s law school, has agreed to begin teaching at Harvard in the fall, reports the Boston Globe.

He will also serve as director of a new Program on Risk Regulation, focusing on law and policy concerning 21st-century issues such as climate change and terrorism.

Elena Kagan, Harvard’s law school dean, was ecstatic about the move, describing Sunstein in a press release as “the pre-eminent legal scholar of our time—the most wide-ranging, the most prolific, the most cited and the most influential.”

“If I could add only one person to the faculty, Cass would be that person,” Kagan says.

News of the appointment has been observed with interest in the legal and academic blogging world. Among those that have posted on it are Above the Law, Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, University Diaries and the Volokh Conspiracy.

Other coverage:

02138: “Power Couples”

Harvard Law School (press release): “Sunstein to join Harvard Law School faculty”

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