Davis Named Law School Dean
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Law professor Kenneth B. Davis Jr. was named dean of the Law School today by Chancellor David Ward.
“After conducting a national search and considering many capable and qualified applicants, we concluded that the most talented person to lead our law school into the next century was one of our own,” Ward said.
“Ken Davis is a distinguished teacher and scholar with an impressive record of service to the Law School and the state.”
One of three finalists for the position, Davis was named interim dean by Ward Aug. 1, succeeding Daniel Bernstine, who resigned earlier this year to become president of Portland State University. The other finalists were Robert H. Jerry II, professor of law at The University of Memphis and former dean of the University of Kansas Law School, and Eric Lane, professor of law at Hofstra University School of Law in Hempstead, N.Y.
“This is where I’ve spent most of my professional life, and to be called on to lead the Law School at this critical juncture in the school’s history is both an honor and a challenge,” Davis said. “I’m very excited.”
Davis has taught at UW–Madison since 1978 in the areas of securities regulation and business organizations and is a national expert in corporate law. As dean of the Law School, he will oversee approximately 50 faculty, 100 staff, 900 students and an annual budget totaling more than $14 million. He will earn $163,000 as dean and begin his new role immediately.
One of the most well regarded professors at the Law School, Davis said he is firmly committed to improving the quality of the school’s educational process.
“We need to keep mindful that our principal mission is to prepare lawyers for the practice of law in changing times,” he said. “We will need to make sure that our curriculum and skills-training programs are responsive to those needs.”
Davis says keeping abreast of developments in the legal profession and improving the dialogue with the Wisconsin and national legal communities, in which he is well-known and active in several organizations, will enable him to meet that goal.
“We need to redefine our relationship with the practicing bar,” Davis said.
On the research end of the Law School’s mission, Davis plans to continue the school’s tradition as a national leader in conducting research “focusing on how legal institutions work in fact, as opposed to in theory.”
“I’ve emphasized that methodology in my own work in corporate law,” he added, “and I feel that it is extremely important for the Law School to recruit and retain world-class scholars as faculty members in the tradition of the great legal minds who have routinely been associated with the school in the past.”
Davis’ own scholarly work includes the publication of several articles in leading law journals on various aspects of corporate and securities law. He also co-authored the recent revision of the Wisconsin Business Corporation Law.
The UW Law School has historically been ranked among the top public law schools in the nation, but Davis says maintaining and enhancing that ranking will be a stiff challenge in the face of declining state resources for higher education.
“That is my greatest priority,” he said.
A native of Louisville, Ky., Davis earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1969 and his law degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1974.
During law school, Davis was editor-in-chief of the Case Western Reserve Law Review, and following graduation he clerked for Chief Judge Richard H. Chambers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. Davis then practiced law at the Covington & Burling law firm in Washington, D.C., before joining the UW–Madison faculty.
Davis regularly participates in the Law School’s annual “Summer Program in United States Law and Legal Institutions” for foreign lawyers, and he has been a visiting professor of law at the UCLA and University of Pennsylvania law schools. He also regularly teaches continuing legal education courses, and he has taught more than 2,000 students in his career.
In recognition of his teaching ability, Davis has received both the university’s and the Law School’s Distinguished Teacher Awards. On July 1 he was named to the Law School’s James E. and Ruth B. Doyle-Bascom Professorship. ###