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| Elena Kagan | |
| Born | April 28, 1960 New York City |
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| Nationality |  United States |
| Fields | Administrative law |
| Alma mater | Princeton University Worcester College, Oxford Harvard Law School |
Elena Kagan (born April 28, 1960) 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.
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Education and Legal Training
Kagan was born 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.
Career
Academia
She 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.
White House
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.
1999 Nomination to the D.C. Circuit
On June 17, 1999, President Clinton nominated Kagan to serve as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace James L. Buckley, who had taken senior status three years earlier. However, the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee declined to bring her nomination forward for a hearing. Kagan was one of two D.C. Circuit nominees whose nominations were not acted on before Clinton's term ended in January 2001; the other was Allen Snyder. In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated John G. Roberts to the seat to which Kagan had been nominated; Roberts was confirmed in 2003 but resigned from that seat in 2005 upon his confirmation as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The seat to which Kagan had been nominated currently is vacant.
Tenure as Dean of Harvard Law School
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.
Possible Nomination to the Supreme Court
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 ([1],[2],[3],[4] ).
See also
- List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
- President Clinton's judicial appointments controversy
Sources
- Harvard Gazette Article
- 2005 State of the school address
- Hemenway Gym Opens
- Dean Kagan off to a promising start
- As Harvard Seeks a President, Dean Kagan's Star Is Rising
