By Sam Favate
- University of Virginia
- Mary Elizabeth Magill
Stanford University Law School has a new leader – Mary Elizabeth Magill, vice dean at University of Virginia School of Law.
Ms. Magill, 46, is the Joseph Weintraub-Bank of America Distinguished Professor of Law and the Elizabeth D. and Richard A. Merrill Professor at Virginia. She will assume the deanship at Stanford Law on Sept. 1, the university said.
She succeeds Larry Kramer, who is leaving to head the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and has been dean since 2004.
“At a time when law schools must adapt to fundamental changes in the legal profession, it is hard to imagine finding a more capable dean to lead the school and the legal academy into the future,” Provost John Etchemendy said in his statement.
Ms. Magill wasn’t always destined for law.
“I thought seriously about studying history,” Ms. Magill said in a 2008 interview, according to the San Jose Mercury News. “But I decided I wanted to become a legal academic because my work could be connected to the everyday world and I would also have the capacity to advocate on behalf of others.”
At Stanford, Ms. Magill will oversee 650 law students and 55 faculty members, according to the school.
At the University of Virginia, Ms. Magill taught administrative law, constitutional law, food and drug law and seminars in constitutional structure and administrative law. She earned her bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 1988 and completed her law degree at University of Virginia School of Law in 1995.
Stanford Law is currently at No. 2 on U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of “best law schools.”