William Treanor

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William Treanor, right, with Judge Robert L. Carter.
William Treanor, right, with Judge Robert L. Carter.

William Michael Treanor (b. November 16, 1957) is an attorney and legal scholar. He is the Dean of Fordham University School of Law and an expert on Constitutional Law, having twice been cited in Supreme Court opinions. He continues to teach as a professor. Treanor held several high-profile government positions and he is an advocate of civil service. His teaching and work evidence Treanor's commitment to his philosophy of a complete legal education: "Intellectual excellence, the craft of lawyering, and dedication to public service."[1]

Contents

[edit] Personal

Treanor graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale College in 1979. He obtained an M.A. in history from Harvard University in 1982. He then entered Harvard Law School, but transferred to Yale Law School because he felt they focused more on public service.[2] He was Article and Book Review Editor of the Yale Law Journal and graduated with a J.D. in 1985.

On October 15, 1994, Treanor married Allison Derivaux Ames, who was then director of strategic planning for corporate publicity and special events at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City.[3]

[edit] Dean of Fordham Law School

Treanor's biggest commitment remains to legal scholarship. "William Treanor represents a new generation of scholars and teachers at Fordham's School of Law," said the Rev. Joseph A. O'Hare, S.J., president of Fordham University at the time of Treanor's appointment.[4] When he first arrived to teach at Fordham in 1991, he evidenced his broad command of legal subjects in courses such as property, land use, intellectual property, constitutional law, criminal law, and legal history. In 1998, he went on leave from the university to serve as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, before he returned to assume his current position in 2002.

"As dean of the law school, you're required to do both broad-level thinking and strategic planning," said Treanor in regard to challenges as a law dean. [5] On July 17, 2006, Treanor announced to students and faculty that the school surpassed the $20 million mark for new gifts and pledges. This was in stark contrast to the levels reached in 2004 ($4.2 million) and 2005 ($6.9 million). The funds will help establish six new chairs and start the Feerick Center for Social Justice and Dispute Resolution, named in honor of Treanor's predecessor, John Feerick.[6]

Plans for a new skyscraper were unveiled to accommodate increasing enrollment numbers, and the school ranks fifth in the country in placing its graduates at top-shelf law firms.[7] But Treanor is not just concerned with growth and reputation. Like the law deans of Harvard (which built a state-of-the-art law student gym, limited class size to 80 students, and mandated individualized written feedback for every student in every course throughout the semester), and Yale (which abandoned the traditional law school grading system, does not rank its students, and has only one semester of required classes), Treanor has attempted to address the students' quality of life.[8] In a 2006 interview, Treanor reported instituting free cupcakes and ice cream to alleviate the intensity of law school finals. Gifts to students, though, are in the offing: At the end of the 2006 academic year, Treanor worked for the purveyance of free flip-flops with Fordham's imprint on the bottom. "I feel obliged to make the Fordham experience for our students as special as possible," said Treanor.[9] Fordham maintains a strict grading curve policy, class rankings, a year-long 1L curriculum, and no reading days between the end of classes and the start of final exams.

[edit] Civil Service

Treanor's career in the public sector began as a speechwriter for Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler, followed by a clerkship for Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. During the Iran-Contra Investigation, Treanor served as associate independent counsel. Later he became deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, responsible for supplying advice to the White House and attorney general.

[edit] Constitutional law scholar

Treanor has been cited in Supreme Court opinions twice, including by Chief Justice William Rehnquist in his dissent in Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.[10] He has written in-depth about some of the most controversial and complex turn-of-the-century constitutional law issues. He examined Congress' authority to define and declare war under the War Powers Clause. He focused on the original understanding of the Founders on the takings clause of the United States Constitution, also known as eminent domain in the United States. He remains a prolific author of scholarly articles.

On June 6, 2006, he debated prominent classical liberal/libertarian law professor and published author Richard Epstein on the topic "Did Progressives Rewrite the Constitution?"

[edit] Quotes

  • "With Walsh or Starr, the president and his supporters could more easily argue that a prosecutor was overzealous or irresponsible, because there had been a three-judge panel that appointed him. With Fitzgerald, you have a prosecutor who was appointed by the deputy attorney general [at the direction of the attorney general]. The administration almost has to stand behind him because this is someone they selected themselves. It is harder to criticize someone you yourself put into play." [11]
  • "Few areas of constitutional law have produced as much heated debate as the war powers area, heat produced in no small part by the passionate belief that this is a subject of incalculable consequence. But, stunningly and ironically, there is little connection between the issues that scholars debate and the constitutional issues involving war that government officials and political leaders confront.[12]
  • "The original understanding of the Takings Clause was, very simply, that the federal government had to compensate the property owner when it physically took property --such as when it took land to build a fort. The clause did not require compensation for regulations under any circumstances."[13]
  • "Despite the public prominence of the property rights argument, there is actually nothing novel or particularly controversial about the conclusion that the Takings Clause was limited to physical seizures. With some notable exceptions, prominent legal scholars of all shades of political opinion--including such leading conservatives as former judge Robert Bork and former Solicitor General Charles Fried--support the conclusion that the property rights argument has no plausible foundation in the original understanding of the Takings Clause."[14]
  • "[Fordham Law School is] pleased to rank in the top five [in placing graduates at the most successful firms]. We focus our education on practicing the law as well as knowing the law, so firms have come to realize that our graduates are prepared to work effectively right from the start. And our location in Manhattan within walking distance of many of the country's elite firms assures that there are exceptional opportunities available for students."[15]

[edit] Selected articles

  • Judicial Review before Marbury. 58 Stanford Law Review 455-562 (2005) [reprinted Fordham Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 85]
  • Deans and Stories: Leading Minds. 36 The University of Toledo Law Review 207-211 (2004).
  • The War Powers Outside the Courts, in Mark Tushnet ed. The Constitution in Wartime, 143-160. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005
  • Lochner’s New Millennium: Copyright Term Extension, Constitutional Law, and Eldred v. Ashcroft, 112 Yale L.J. (2003) (with Paul Schwartz)
  • The New Privacy, 101 Mich. L. Rev. 2163 (2003) (with Paul Schwartz) (book review)
  • Jam for Justice Holmes: Reassessing the Significance of Mahon, 86 Georgetown Law Journal 813 (1998)
  • Independent Counsel and Vigorous Prosecution and Investigation, 61 Law and Contemporary Problems 149 (1998)
  • The Armstrong Principle, the Narratives of Takings, and Compensation Statutes, 38 William & Mary Law Review 1151 (1997)
  • Learning from Lincoln, 65 Fordham Law Review 1781 (1997)
  • Fame, the Founding, and the Power to Declare War, 82 Cornell Law Review 695 (1997)
  • The Original Understanding of the Takings Clause and the Political Process, 95 Columbia Law Review 782 (1995)
  • The Case of the Prisoners and the Origins of Judicial Review, 143 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 491 (1994)
  • Prospective Overruling and the Revival of “Unconstitutional” Statutes, 93 Columbia Law Review 1902 (1993) (with Gene Sperling)
  • Taking the Framers Seriously, 55 University of Chicago Law Review 1016 (1988) (review of Walter Berns, Taking the Constitution Seriously (1987))
  • Note, The Origins and Original Significance of the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment, 94 Yale Law Journal 694 (1985)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pranay Gupte, Activist Dean Lifts Fordham Law's Profile, The New York Sun, May 11, 2006, at Section 1, page 2
  2. ^ See, above, Gupte
  3. ^ "Weddings: Allison Ames, William Treanor", The New York Times, October 16, 1994.
  4. ^ "New Law School Dean", Fordham Law School press release, 2002.
  5. ^ See, above, Gupte.
  6. ^ "Law School Fundraising Surpasses $20 Million Mark", Fordham University press release, June 30, 2006.
  7. ^ David Dunlap, "Fordham Plans Expansion at Lincoln Center", The New York Times, May 23, 2005; "Fordham Law School Ranks Fifth for Placement at Top Paying Firms", Fordham Law School press release, May 23, 2006. Only Harvard, New York University, Columbia and Georgetown place more.
  8. ^ Meredith McKee, "1l Curriculum Changes Yielding Positive Results", Harvard Law Record, February 26, 2002
  9. ^ See, above, Gupte
  10. ^ See, above, Press Release, New Law School Dean.
  11. ^ Murray Waas, Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information, The National Journal, February 9, 2006.
  12. ^ William Treanor, The War Powers Outside the Courts, 81 Indiana L.J. 1333 (2006).
  13. ^ Wiliam Treanor, The Original Understanding of the Takings Clause, Environmental Policy Project, Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute.
  14. ^ Id.
  15. ^ See, above, Press Release, Fordham Law School Ranks Fifth for Placement at Top Paying Firms.