Nicholas W. Allard to Step Down as President & Dean of Brooklyn Law School
Professor Maryellen Fullerton Named Interim Dean as Nationwide Search Commences
Brooklyn Law School has announced that President and Dean Nicholas W. Allard plans to step down effective June 30, 2018, after leading the law school for six years. The law school will launch a nationwide search in early June for a successor. Professor Maryellen Fullerton has been named the Interim Dean and will serve in that capacity during the search process.
Stuart Subotnick, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Brooklyn Law School, praised Allard’s tenure as dean and president. “We were incredibly fortunate to have Nick lead the law school through a volatile period in legal education. His many talents were just what we needed to move the Law School successfully forward. He has a great rapport with our alumni, and our students love his energy and desire to always do what is best for them. He will be difficult to replace, but we are thankful for all that he has done and respect his desire to pursue other opportunities at this time in his professional life.” The Board of Trustees is in the process of establishing a Search Committee, composed of BLS trustees and faculty, to lead the process.
Subotnick also noted that in recent years, “the Law School’s endowment has quadrupled to nearly $250 million putting the school in an extremely strong financial position.” Subotnick will serve as President of Brooklyn Law School until the next President and Dean has been selected.
Allard, who came to the law school from a very successful career in private practice and government, said: “It has been a privilege to serve as President and Dean during this period of change and innovation for the law school. This was a difficult decision that was a long time in the making. I will miss the extraordinary people of Brooklyn Law School who every day have a tremendous, positive impact on law and society. I know the school will continue to grow in prominence in the years ahead and further advance its well-deserved reputation for excellence and innovation.” Allard said that he is now pursuing other meaningful opportunities to serve in education, politics, public policy advocacy and long-postponed writing projects that have not been possible for him to fully explore while fulfilling his many responsibilities as dean. Fullerton, a longtime member of the Brooklyn Law School faculty, an expert on refugee and asylum law, also teaches Civil Procedure and Federal Courts. Fullerton will assume her responsibilities as Interim Dean on July 1, 2018.
About Nicholas W. Allard
Before joining the Law School in 2012, Nick Allard served as chair of the Public Policy Department and co-chair of the Government Advocacy Practice Group at Patton Boggs in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, he was a partner at Latham & Watkins, where he chaired the firm’s Government Relations Group. His government service includes serving as senior staff to the late Senators Edward Kennedy on the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Chief of Staff for the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Vice President Al Gore. Allard, a tenured member of the Brooklyn Law School faculty, also serves as Senior Counsel in the Public Policy and Regulation practice at Dentons, a global law firm with presence in more than 50 countries. Under Allard’s leadership, the Law School has recruited highly talented, promising scholars who together with an already excellent faculty have had a transformative impact on the institution. He established several dynamic programs and academic centers with the objective of preparing students for a rapidly changing legal field. These initiatives included the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship (CUBE), which builds on Brooklyn's emergence as a global center for high-tech entrepreneurship; Business Boot Camp, a winter session program offering dozens of students each year intensive training in financial literacy and the basics of the business world; and the Public Interest/Public Service Fellowship that allows students to finish their third year working at a non-profit or government agency with a guaranteed paid legal position the following year at that organization. He built upon the Law School’s global reputation to expand its LL.M. program and establish dozens of new partnerships with international universities to create new dual degrees and exchange programs for students and faculty.
About Maryellen Fullerton
Professor Maryellen Fullerton, an expert on asylum and refugee law, will serve as interim dean during the search. A longtime member of the Brooklyn Law School faculty, she also teaches Civil Procedure and Federal Courts. She is a prolific scholar and a frequent speaker in the United States and Europe. Her recent works include two co-authored casebooks, Forced Migration: Law and Policy and Immigration and Citizenship Law: Process and Policy, and multiple articles on migration and statelessness. She is one of the founding editors of the Refugee Law Reader, a comprehensive online resource on international refugee law available in English, Spanish, French, and Russian. Among her many distinctions, she held the Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Trento through the U.S. Fulbright program. Professor Fullerton also was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Louvain in Belgium, was a German Marshall Fund Fellow in Budapest, and was a visiting scholar at the Juan March Institute, Center for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, in Madrid. Prior to joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty, Professor Fullerton served as law clerk to Judge Frank Johnson Jr. of the U.S District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and Judge Francis Van Dusen of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.