© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate and Mark Curriden
Staff Writers for The Texas Lawbook
Southern Methodist University senior leaders have informed John Attanasio that they no longer want him to be the dean at the Dedman School of Law, The Texas Lawbook has learned.
SMU Provost Paul Ludden informed Attanasio in mid-December that his contract with the university, which expires in May, would not be renewed and that the university was taking immediate steps to find a successor, according to alumni and internal SMU documents.
In a Dec. 12 internal memo, Ludden told Attanasio that “it is now time for another individual to take on the leadership of the law school at SMU and to provide leadership for the challenge necessary in the current climate of legal education.”
Attanasio, the second longest serving law school dean in the state, declined to comment. In response to inquiries sent to Ludden and SMU President R. Gerald Turner, SMU spokesman Kent Best said that “SMU does not comment on personnel matters.”
Ludden announced to Dedman faculty and staff the news about his decision in a Jan. 3 memo. In the letter, Ludden states that Dean Attanasio “will continue as the Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law, with the opportunity to get in a well deserved one year leave beginning June 1, 2013.”
While the public announcement of the decision is not expected until next week, early news of the decision produced a significant backlash from alumni, faculty, financial supporters and the law school’s executive committee, whose members contend that they were not informed of the decision in advance.
“I think everyone is stunned and upset,” says Darrell Jordan, a partner at the Dykema law firm in Dallas and a major SMU supporter. “No one – not the Provost nor the President – has given us a reasonable explanation about why this has happened. How it was done seems pretty shaky, too.”
Fifty-six prominent alumni, including two former Texas Supreme Court judges, a federal judge, a former federal bankruptcy judge, the current U.S. Attorney, and the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have signed a letter to Turner supporting Attanasio and asking him to reconsider.
A member of the Dedman Law School executive board has resigned and two others have said they are considering resigning because they were not informed by Ludden or Turner about the move and think that it is the wrong decision.
The executive board member who resigned is Leslie Ware, a Dallas intellectual property lawyer who donated $1 million to the law school in December.
“I am saddened to see my alma mater treat Dean Attanasio this way and will not have my name associated with it,” Ware wrote in a resignation letter to Turner on Jan. 3.
In addition, a majority of the law school’s faculty wrote a letter to SMU leadership supporting Attanasio.
“I think everyone has been surprised and disappointed,” says Alan Feld, a named partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and the chairman of the law school’s executive board. “There is a great deal of support for the dean among our alumni.”
U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn, who sits on the executive board and has taught and lectured at the law school, says she was stunned by the news.
“I have a very high opinion of Dean Attanasio and I am very disappointed that he will not continue to be the dean of our law school,” says Judge Lynn.
A 1979 graduate of the New York University School of Law, Attanasio became SMU’s law dean in 1998. Attanasio, who also holds an advanced master’s degree in law from Yale University, is the Judge William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional and has developed a global reputation for working with emerging democracies on developing their own constitutions.
According to SMU faculty members, alumni and memos obtained by The Texas Lawbook, Ludden asked Attanasio at a Dec. 12 lunch to agree to publicly not seek a contract extension, to support a change in leadership and to craft the public announcement. The same day, Ludden put his decision in writing – a memo which members of the law school executive committee who have read it described as “remarkably awful” and “shocking in tone, timing and complete absence of explanation.”
Attanasio, in a memo dated Jan. 2, rejected Ludden’s offer.
“I expressed shock and asked you for reasons for your decision three times,” Attanasio states in the memo. “I would have thought that especially in these changing times in legal education, in the middle of a major capital campaign, with the Texas A&M purchase of the Texas Wesleyan Law School in Fort Worth and the opening of the University of North Texas College of Law in Dallas, the law school would need an experienced, proven dean.”
“As I continue to disagree with both the decision itself and the way in which this matter has been handled, I think it is imprudent for me to advise you as to how to announce it,” Attanasio wrote in the memo.
During the Christmas holiday, news about the decision circulated quickly among alumni. On Dec. 28, 56 law school supporters signed a two-page letter to Turner stating the decision “would be very detrimental” to the law school and the university.
The letter highlights the successes of the law school during Attanasio’s tenure, including significantly higher LSAT scores and GPAs of applicants, significantly increased fundraising, reopening of the night law school program and raising the profile of the law school globally.
In a letter dated Jan. 2, Turner agreed to meet with the members of the law school’s executive board, but he said the decision by the Provost is “final based on his belief that it would be in the best interest of the school to be under new leadership for the next five years.”
Mike Boone, a named partner at Haynes and Boone and a member of the SMU Board of Trustees, says that he is in “100 percent support of the decision of the university.”
“The provost, in my conversations with him, went through a vigorous review and I’m confident that he followed a reasonable process,” says Boone, an early supporter of Attanasio. “I’m focused on the future, creating the search team and selecting the new dean.”
Boone describes the provost’s actions as “very courageous.”
“John is very popular, but the provost is willing to take the heat to do what he thinks is right for the university,” says Boone.
AT&T General Counsel Wayne Watts, who is a close friend of Attanasio and major supporter of the SMU Dedman Law School, said he was surprised by the news.
“No one called me and asked me for my advice,” says Watts. “But the university has made its decision. We are going to find a new dean who can move the school forward.”
Mark Curriden also holds the position of Writer in Residence at the SMU Dedman School of Law.
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