Kevin Davis is new vice dean for NYU Law's global academic efforts

Kevin DavisKevin Davis, Beller Family Professor of Business Law, has assumed a newly created position as vice dean in charge of the NYU School of Law’s global academic footprint. Davis’s assumption of the vice deanship marks the newest significant development in the Law School’s ongoing commitment to a global academic focus, which began in earnest with the official launch in 1995 of the Hauser Global Law School Program and continued with the launch of NYU@NUS, an LL.M. program at the National University of Singapore in partnership with that institution.

The Hauser Program has brought faculty, research fellows, and students from around the world to NYU Law. Its most recent faculty director, University Professor Richard Stewart, held the responsibilities that Davis will now take on in the new vice deanship. Hauser’s new faculty director is Gráinne de Búrca, Florence Ellinwood Allen Professor of Law. De Búrca will oversee the Hauser Global Faculty and Hauser Scholars and serve on the Global Personnel Committee. Former Hauser faculty director and University Professor Joseph Weiler will assume responsibility for the Hauser Global Scholars.

In more recent years, the Hauser Program has utilized research programs and partnerships with other law schools and research institutes abroad as well as international conferences and workshops to help the Law School make an impact outside the U.S. The Hauser Program’s recently approved Semester Study Abroad program, which will establish NYU Law programs in Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai where J.D. students can study for a semester, increases that influence and the opportunity for globally oriented learning through local internships, study tours, and language training. Professors Franco Ferrari, Florencia Marotta-Wurgler ’01, and Frank Upham will serve as faculty directors of the new program in Paris, Buenos Aires, and Shanghai, respectively.

“A large part of the challenge will be to maintain the quality of the programs that have been developed by my predecessors,” said Davis of his new vice dean role. “Joseph Weiler initiated a 'turn to scholarship' that significantly enhanced the intellectual value of our programs. Richard Stewart extended the global program to encompass not only bringing the world to NYU, but NYU to the world.  We have exciting plans to build on and enhance those programs, some of which will be announced in the very near future.

“My objective, however, is not only to enhance the quality of our global programs, but also to institutionalize them,” said Davis. “NYU Law is based in New York City, and many of our strengths flow from our location at the heart of the U.S. legal system and our ties to the local legal community. At the same time, I believe that everything we do at the Law School should be understood in a global context, and that many of the things we do can be done on a global scale. It should be natural for our students and graduates to work on cases or transactions that involve multiple jurisdictions and to pursue professional opportunities overseas as well as in the United States. It should also be just as natural for a faculty member to give a lecture or publish and article or initiate a research collaboration outside as opposed to inside the United States. Every member of the NYU community is a potential member of a global community of practitioners and scholars.”

Posted on June 13, 2012