Reflections on a Decade As Law School Dean

On July 31. Albert Sacks will walk out of his office on the second floor of Griswold Hall at the Law School. It will be about 7 p.m., his usual departure time. He will tell a couple of jokes to his secretaries and assistants. to whom he has grown so close, and then he will leave. It will seem like an ordinary evening. but it won't be.

At the end of July. Sacks will resign after ten years as dean of the Law School. He is quitting to give another person an opportunity to inject new ideas into the school. He will return after a year-long sabbatical to teach again at the Law School. but when he returns, things will be different--for the school and especially for Sacks.

The job of dean is often thankless: the only glamour is in the title. While most professors publich articles and acquire expertise in important areas of the legal profession, the dean must devote his time almost exclusively to administrative duties. He is ultimately responsible: if something goes wrong. it is his fault.

But in this job where thank yous are hardearned. Sacks is liberally praised by his associates.

"He has been a superb dean. He is careful and deliberative, has a good relationship with the faculty. and has always been willing to discuss problems at great length," S.M. Bernardi, professor of Law and associate dean of the Law School, says.

Mary D. Upton, dean of students, echoes those sentiments: "He is terrific. He is very thoughtful and always cares about the quality of life at the Law School."

And Daniel Herschman, a third-year law student, says. "He has run a professional operation. He is really committed to the job and worked very hard at it."

Several things stand out about Sacks--his ability to talk at great length on almost any subject, his occasional absent-mindedness, and his genuine concern for people--but it is impossible to talk about him without talking about Harvard Law School. In the years he has spent at the Law School, as professor, as associate dean, and finally as dean, Sacks work has become his life. He has few hobbies and outside interests. As Sadelle R. Sacks, his wife says. "There is very little else you can do when you are dean." And Bernardi says. "Harvard Law School has really been the primary focus of his life."

As dean. Sacks says his primary accomplishment was to supervise the transition of the Law School from an institution focusing strictly on formal legal training to one that is much more open both to the liberal arts and to professional clinical training.

"What we have done is to break down the distance both to the University as a whole and the profession of law." Sacks says.

When he took office in 1971, the idea of clinical education where a student learns by practicing law either in the classroom or in an actual courtroom situation was unheard of. Now, there are established programs for this kind of training, including the Introduction to Trial Advocacy Program and the Legal Services Institute.

The institute is a key component of the clinical education program. Founded in 1979, the institute serves the dual purpose of educating students and providing legal services for the poor. Third-year students have the option of spending a year there taking courses and defending clients.

Sacks says the institute could be a prototype for legal studies similar to the function the hospital internship serves for medical schools.

Sacks is quick to disclaim personal credit for the institute and the advances in clinical education, claiming they have been gradual changes over the years, but Gary Bellow, professor of Law and head of the institute, says Sacks worked hard to establish the program and get faculty approval for it. "It wouldn't be here without him." Bellow adds.

"The clinical program is the Law School looking out to the profession." Sacks says, but the Law School has also made advances in opening up towards the University. Sacks has supported a greater focus on history, philosophy and social theory in the curriculum.

He has also encouraged law professors to teach courses at the College. Although only two professors teach full courses at the College, the dean sees the prospects for the future in this area.

Sacks says the College should have a more comprehensive legal program, explaining. "There is a perception of law that would enrich all college graduates."

The issue of expanding the Law School's curriculum is one that has interested Sacks throughout his career. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1940 and got his law degree from Harvard in 1948. He was clerk to Judge Augustus N. Hand of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, before joining the Law School faculty in 1952. Sacks became professor of Law in 1955, associate dean in 1968, Dane Professor of Law in 1969, and acting dean in January 1971. He was appointed dean five months later, in May of 1971.

Aside from his work at the Law School. Sacks drafted the Massachusetts Home Rule Amendment, legislation which gives city and town governments a broader range of initiative in their activities. He was also chairman of the Boston Home Rule Commission from 1968 to 1971. But the Law School has dominated his career.

In 1963, Sacks served as chairman of a committee on educational policy, which, in essence, provided a blueprint for the future of the Law School. Out of that committee came recommendations for a comprehensive financial aid program and greater student faculty interaction. The committee also encouraged the teaching of new courses such as comparative law and urban legal studies, which have greater student interest.

Sacks was able to follow through one some of these ideas as associate dean under President Bok, who was then dean. Sacks had broad responsibilities, especially in the areas of educational policy and planning. During his brief tenure, subjects such as clinical education and the Law School's relationship with other parts of the University were studied.

Sacks has received uniform praise for his openness to students. He enjoys talking to students and has an open-door policy for students and has an open-door policy for people with problems. In 1969, in the midst of a University-wide protest. Sacks stayed up through the night to talk to students who had occupied the Law School's library.

Upton says. "He has been the most accessible administrator we have ever had. He really cares about students."

"I have talked with him on a number of topics and he has always been very open and accessible." Melissa M. Allain, former chairman of the Women's Law Association, says.

The main complaint leveled at Sacks is his failure to increase the number of women and minority faculty members at the Law School. Duncan Kennedy, professor of Law, says. "Sacks has made a very serious, highly good faith effort to increase the number of women, minority and working class members of the faculty, but the school has failed in this respect."

"The reason is that the dean and the faculty as a whole approached it using the largely meaningless traditional criteria of excellence," Kennedy says, adding that the school's heavy emphasis on grades. Law Review and clerkships discriminates against minorities.

Allain thinks that Sacks "understands the problem of women and minority faculty members, but he has not always been able to modify his viewpoint toward selection criteria."

This is one of the problems that Sacks' successor. James Vorenberg, will have to face. Sacks points also to President Reagan's proposed cuts in students loans as a problem that all law schools will have to face.

"The government which has built up a good loan program is now about to curtain that program, and we will have a difficult time building alternative sources of funding for student loans," Sacks says.

Sacks will take a sabbatical next year and return to Harvard in 1982 to teach and write. Before becoming dean. Sacks taught courses on constitutional law and the legal process. His only major writing effort has been a 1400-page book on the legal process, which although it has yet to be published, is used by about 30 law schools.

"Teaching is his first love, Donna M. Chiozzi, his administrative assistant, says adding, "He thinks of himself as a teacher and not an administrator."

Sacks, in the meantime, will take a course on economics at Dartmouth this summer and then, go to the University of California at Berkely for the year to write about things I should have written about in the past, read to increase my intellectual development and think about spending a lot more years at Harvard."