May It Please the Campus: Lawyers Leading Higher Education

This book documents the exponential increase in the number of lawyers tapped to serve as college and university presidents and explores the reasons behind this trend. Many different pathways lawyers have taken to the presidency are discussed. A 2022 Green Bag Almanac & Reader Exemplary Legal Writing Honoree This is a groundbreaking study on the important and little known role that lawyers have played as leaders in higher education. The book traces the history of lawyer campus presidents from the 1700s to present, exploring dozens of topics such as: where lawyer presidents went to law school; the percentage of lawyer presidents serving at public, private, community, HBCUs, and religiously affiliated institutions; geographic concentrations of campuses led by lawyers, women lawyer presidents, pathways to the presidency for lawyers, commonalities in backgrounds, and more. The author explores reasons for an exponential increase in lawyers serving as campus leaders examining the growth of legal education and myriad legal and regulatory issues confronting higher education.