The Legacy of
Dean Matthew Diller
“I walked into the building as a new professor and was wandering the halls, not quite knowing where to go, when I ran into John Feerick, who was the dean at the time,” says Diller. “And I remember him taking me to my office and, in his customary way, rounding up a stapler and a pair of scissors and other basic equipment for me. That made an impact on me in terms of how to be a leader and how to nurture people and develop the caring relationships that are the basis of building a community.”
Diller brought that same approachability with him when he became dean of Fordham Law himself in 2015. “Matthew is incredibly thoughtful and collegial,” says Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham University. “He is a man of total warmth, integrity, and empathy.”
Nurturing Connection
Reflecting on that period, Diller says the Great Recession brought him “back to basics” and “the importance of connecting with every student to make sure they are set up and pointed in the direction of success.”
To get there, Diller talked to a lot of practicing lawyers about what they were looking for in their new hires. “The feedback I was getting was nearly universal,” he recalls. “Yes, they wanted graduates with a strong knowledge of the foundational principles of law and strong analytical skills. That was a given. But what they were really looking for were people who were trustworthy, responsible, reliable, and service-oriented, and who would go the extra distance to get the job done. They wanted lawyers who view legal issues in the broader context of the client’s objectives and could provide counsel that goes beyond narrow tactical advice.”
Many of these attributes are referred to as “soft skills,” but Diller thinks of them as essential. And as dean, he was determined to make sure the Law School imparted what he calls a “broader package” of skills that would set up Fordham lawyers not just to be successful, but to be fulfilled in the profession as well.
Tania Tetlow
Casting a Lawyer’s Eye
One thing Matthew and I have in common—and another reason I like working with him—is the way he brings what I think of as a lawyer’s eye to his work. It’s a special combination of analytical skill and an ability to cut through complexity and focus on what matters most. Matthew feels intensely that we need to train our students to understand the kind of power they will have one day and seed them with the ethics and determination to make the world a more just place. The backbone of Fordham has always been creating opportunities for our students and inspiring them to do meaningful work. Matthew has made that even more manifest by putting strategies in place to make that happen.
The Courage of His Convictions
As I watch him engage with students, it’s clear how much he cares about making everyone feel a profound sense of belonging, both at Fordham and in the legal profession. He understands that some of our students come from multiple generations of lawyers and others do not, and that we have to do more to give the latter the kind of confidence it takes to unleash their unbelievable talent. His whole life embodies our motto—”In the Service of Others”—from the start of his career when he served clients as a Legal Aid attorney up until now, as dean, where he is able to be a force multiplier, training a generation of lawyers to serve their clients. His style as a leader is to find right and just solutions—his focus is on finding the right thing to do.
A Dean with a Dual Focus
Diller’s vision of reshaping the law school journey around connectedness and community became a key component of Fordham Law’s 2017 Strategic Plan, which called for the creation of the House System to foster inclusion. The program was launched in 2019 by the Office of Professionalism, which has spearheaded a wide range of programming to address the stress and disconnectedness too many law students—and lawyers—seem to feel.
With the House System, each incoming student is assigned to one of five “houses” or subcommunities of their peers led by a faculty advisor and bolstered with alumni and student mentors. Within each house, students participate in programs on wellness, career planning, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. As students advance beyond their 1L year, the Office of Professionalism steers students into Fordham’s upper-level peer mentorship program. “We pair 2Ls with 3Ls who give the second-year students extensive mentoring,” says Linda Sugin, professor and faculty director of the Office of Professionalism. The Office also hosts a workshop series for upper-level students that is a component of the Fundamental Lawyering Skills curriculum.
“Of course, knowing the law is important, but it’s often other qualities that separate out the best lawyers,” notes Diller. “While I love a brilliant lawyer with a gifted mind, the most successful lawyers are not always the most brilliant. Fordham Law students are fantastically strong academically, and our faculty do an amazing job helping them sharpen their analytical skills. I wanted us to be more deliberate about making sure Fordham lawyers are strong in the additional dimensions that make for great lawyers, rather than hoping they’d absorb those qualities through osmosis.”
His goal was to change that, with Fordham Law leading the way. “I consider Dean Diller to be a real trailblazer in this space,” says Norrinda Brown, associate professor of law, director of the Right to Housing Litigation Clinic, and a co-leader of the A2J Initiative. “Dean Diller was thinking about and doing this decades ago, when it wasn’t part of the conversation.”
She cites Diller’s landmark victory as a Legal Aid lawyer in the 1990 Jiggetts v. Grinker case, which held that housing allowances for people on public assistance had to reflect what landlords were charging. “His knowledge is so deep and wide that I consider him a real resource for those of us who are coming along now and building on the foundational work he has done.”
Lorena Jiron ’17
A Passion for Public Interest
As someone who now works as a legal provider for the city—I’m on the housing team of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, where, among other things, we help people who are in danger of being evicted—having a dean whose background was also in public interest law inspired me. I come from a community that is historically underserved and lacking in resources in terms of being able to afford legal guidance, so I wanted to contribute. I don’t know if it’s a normal thing for a top law school dean to come from the public interest side, but you can only become what you see, and to know that Dean Diller took the same legal trajectory that I’m taking really made an impact. He made me feel we were all in it together—and that public interest law students were a priority for the school. He even showed up to our weekly Stein Scholar meetings, and whenever we requested something or needed support, the answer from him was always “yes.”
Bringing Latinas into the Law
As a Latina woman in a profession where less than 2% of lawyers are Latina women, I wanted to get involved in that community and to make sure Fordham Law School was a forerunner in terms of bringing more Latinas into the law. So, when I was a 2L, I suggested to Dean Diller that we host the yearly LALSA conference at Fordham Law to show that we were really behind the cause of advancing Latino students and lawyers. And Dean Diller was 100% on board. Basically, he said, “Whatever you need, we’re going to make it happen.” That’s a huge commitment to make to a group of students, not to mention a huge undertaking. But I felt very supported, and the process went smoothly. The conference was amazing and exhausting, and I could not have done it without Dean Diller’s support.
Navigating Challenging Times
But while he says he wasn’t necessarily feeling calm, students were depending on him to be the anchor in the storm. “I can project calm—it’s part of my temperament,” he says.
Kimathi Gordon-Somers, assistant dean of student affairs and diversity, who had joined Fordham Law just four weeks before the pandemic hit, recalls, “Working with Matthew through all the challenges and stresses was enlightening. At a time when others were unable to find their footing, I was amazed at how levelheaded he was as he guided our community through what had to be one of the most difficult moments in our history. When others around him were afraid and needed information, he delivered it in a way that was informative and made us all feel at ease, beginning every Zoom meeting by genuinely inquiring how we were doing individually.”
Says Feerick, “He took us through a difficult time with grace and effectiveness, keeping the student body closely connected with their education.”
An Enduring Impact
Through it all, say colleagues, Diller’s characteristic compassion was a solace. “It was always really clear how much he cared about the students, faculty, and staff who were suffering,” says Sugin. “And I think that compassion gave people the confidence that he cared enough to get us through to the other side.”
Judge Denny Chin ’78
Acting the Part
Matthew cares deeply about our students and our society; whenever I see him interacting with our students after events, he’s warm and approachable. What defines him is his compassion. When he came on as dean in 2015, he resumed the tradition he started as a professor by commuting to work by bike all the way from his home in Brooklyn to Lincoln Center. A lot of deans tend to have big egos. Clearly, that’s not Matthew. Last year, for instance, the Black Law Students Association did a reenactment of the James Meredith case, in which the civil rights activist sued the University of Mississippi for the right to attend the racially segregated all-white school. Matthew took on the role of Judge John Minor Wisdom, and he did a terrific job. Some deans might not want to get as deeply involved, whether because of nerves or because they just want to stay a bit above it all. But he jumped in there, and it was great for students to see the dean of the Law School participating in such an important event.
Embracing Our Mission
One of the first things I did when I became a senior judge for the Second Circuit in 2021 was call up Matthew and ask how I could get more involved at Fordham Law and do more teaching. At the time, in the midst of the pandemic, there was a rise in anti-Asian violence across the country, and eventually I suggested that we start a Center on Asian Americans and the Law designed to focus on Asian American legal studies from an academic point of view. There is no other law school with a center like this one, and from the beginning, he was completely behind us, and he totally understood and embraced our mission. At our most recent event on October 4, 2023, he gave remarks on what we were trying to do, and when it was my turn to speak, I almost didn’t need to say anything because, well, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Diller has expressed his gratitude to faculty administrators and student leaders who were critical in navigating the crisis: “I am proud and grateful for the way our community came together. So many went above and beyond what could be expected at a time when people or their loved ones were ill, when care for children or elderly relatives became impossibly difficult, and when everyone was anxious and dealing with uncertainty about the future.” He is particularly grateful to a core team that led the Law School’s response: Linda Sugin (then serving as associate dean of academic affairs), Kimathi Gordon-Somers, Assistant Dean for Administration Darin Neely, and Professor Clare Huntington, chair of the faculty COVID work group.
Reckoning with Racism
Floyd’s murder rocked many students, faculty, and staff to their core—“not just politically but emotionally,” says Gordon-Somers. “I remember Matthew reaching out to me almost immediately as all this was unfolding to check in and ask if I was okay,” he recalls. “And when I mentioned that I wanted to host a listening session for our students of color to offer support, Matthew was immediately on board. I know he very much wanted to be there himself, but, being the thoughtful leader he is, he also realized that his presence might not be well received at that moment, and so he recommended other faculty for me to collaborate with.”
John D. Feerick ’61
Best Team in America
When Matthew came to the Law School as a professor in 1993, he was part of a team of professors who wanted to implement the agenda of a Fordham Law graduate named Louis Stein ’26, who felt that Fordham could be a leading law school in terms of ethics and public service. Lou Stein always said that beyond religion, there was a moral code of right and wrong, and if you could get different religions and faiths to come together, they’d have more in common than they realized. And he wanted to make Fordham a place where everyone came. Matthew was the youngest of the group of professors that included the late Mary Daly, as well as Bruce Green and Russell Pearce. That team was the best in America when it came to focusing on issues of legal ethics, social justice, and public service.
Carrying Forward the Jesuit Mission
For many years, I thought Matthew would be a good choice for dean of the Law School one day. I marveled at how someone who had graduated Harvard Law with high honors and clerked for a federal judge would then choose to have a life in the law in the service of others and become a lawyer for Legal Aid. When the search committee was looking for a new president of Fordham University, I remember someone asking how people would feel if we chose someone who was not a member of the Society of Jesus. Because, as you know, before President Tetlow, all 32 presidents going back 100 years had been priests and male. And I remember saying to the committee, “Well, Fordham Law has a dean of the Jewish faith who is carrying forward Jesuit values as strongly as anyone could. I’m talking about values like service and intellectual qualities of thinking and reasoning and a commitment to hard work.” I said that, and that’s what I felt. Years earlier, when it came time to choose a new dean of the Law School, I wasn’t surprised that I kept hearing his name come up. And I called him up and I let him know, and we started the conversation. And Matthew has done a wonderful and magnificent job. I’m sad that he’s leaving the deanship but happy that he will be on the faculty, and that I’ll now have a colleague actively teaching who was also a former dean of the Law School.
Diller’s actions during this challenging period paved the way for his mission and priorities moving forward. “He committed the Law School to becoming an anti-racist community and devoted resources and support to making that happen,” says Gordon-Somers.
First on the agenda was recruiting a greater diversity of students and hiring a more diverse faculty and staff. “As people of color, it’s important to find that community, to find people who look like you and who have had similar experiences,” says Ferrell Littlejohn ’24, vice president of BLSA from 2022 to 2023.
Gordon-Somers vividly recalls those difficult conversations between students and the administration, and how Diller responded: “I remember being in a meeting with Matthew and the leaders of BLSA, and despite their anger in the moment, they were thankful and appreciative of Matthew’s support, and that he made himself personally available to them,” he says. “Matthew’s approach was thoughtful and caring as he navigated this important moment in our history.”
Those dialogues were part of what led to the creation of new programs and initiatives, including the REAL Scholars program, which prepares incoming students from underrepresented groups for law school early on during a weeklong session that takes place before orientation. “I came in with the REAL program, so it felt as if I had a built- in family,” says Littlejohn. “It made it easy to find your group of people who will stick with you no matter what.”
Diller also created the Dean’s Advisory Council on Diversity, which provides a forum for a group of students to meet with him regularly and give feedback on how underserved and first-generation law students experience the School. “I came out of all this listening more deeply and being more sensitive to the fact that the experience of our Law School doesn’t always come across the way I want it to. I need to hear directly from students about how they perceive things,” he says. “The process requires continual work and investment.”
Building a Powerhouse Faculty
Those efforts have resulted in the addition of 17 full-time faculty members who, says Diller, “have invigorated our institution with their expertise, leadership, and dynamism. They are trailblazers in their fields, thought leaders, and sought-after national speakers.” Diller has also made important strides to ensure the faculty is more diverse, inclusive, and reflective of the student body and legal profession. Today, there are 13 Black professors on the Law School’s full-time faculty.
Linda Sugin
Focusing on the Student Perspective
In 2017, when I became associate dean, Matthew tasked me with figuring out how to make the Law School more student-centered. Since then, everything we’ve done in the Office of Professionalism has been about operationalizing that vision. Even before the American Bar Association started requiring that all law schools provide students with opportunities for professional identity formation, we were focused on connecting students with their path in the law based on what they care about and how they see themselves so they could find the kind of legal practice that meshed with what they wanted in life. And so, in 2018, I headed up the launch of the House System, as well as the upper-level peer mentorship program, along with a robust professionalism curriculum, a new January orientation, and an overhauled August orientation, all in the service of starting students on the journey of becoming the professionals they want to be. It comes down to the fact that Matthew wants our students to be happy that they’re lawyers. He feels that being a lawyer is not just a career but a calling.
Cultivating Humane Lawyers
When something happens in the world that affects students in a negative way, Matthew always leads with compassion—it’s the hallmark of who he is as a leader. That means putting himself in the mindset of whoever needs help, whether students, faculty, or a staff member. That’s unusual, and at Fordham Law, we also have a culture of community that is quite unusual. All the work we’ve done through the Office of Professionalism is about creating connections, and so, during times of challenge, our Fordham Law community is in a strong position to provide mutual support. That doesn’t mean we don’t have disagreements, but what we have tried to cultivate is a respect for disagreement in the context of caring for the individual. That makes for a very humane law school. That goes back to Matthew’s compassion and how he himself models a very human way of approaching issues and caring for individuals. Matthew is very much “other”-focused. That drives everything he does.
Diller is also proud of the strength of both the junior and senior faculty’s legal scholarship, which he views as one of the ways law professors and lawyers can have an impact on the world and the way people think about the law. “One thing that’s always been important to me is that any lawyer has the ability to make law and change law through reasoned argument—that’s a supremely democratic aspect of what we do,” he explains. “And if you have a faculty engaged in scholarship and thinking about how law could better serve individuals and society, it is empowering. It communicates to students that their teachers are not simply handing down received wisdom but, rather, equipping them to envision what the law could and should be and nurturing skills to enable them to bring about change.”
Diller acknowledges that isn’t always something you see in the legal profession. “My mission as a teacher, and as a dean, has been to imbue our students with the ideal of a lawyer who brings their full capacities to the job and leaves no stone unturned, because the stakes are often so high for clients.”
But when asked specifically about his legacy, he goes back to those qualities he first noticed in John Feerick—those unique Fordham lawyer qualities. “My goal was never to transform the identity of the Law School,” says Diller. “I wanted to focus on the qualities that people prize us for—why they look to us and what brings people to Fordham Law. I wanted to figure out how to lean into those strengths so we could build on them and better produce outstanding lawyers who care about the institutions they are part of, who are trustworthy, act with integrity, and understand the human dimensions of law. If we can do this, we can increase the demand for our graduates and help them excel in the profession. Going further, our graduates can bring these values and skills with them, transforming the culture of the legal profession and changing people’s lives, the communities they are part of, and our world.”