Bold Leadership, Boundless Energy
Fordham Law’s
Dynamic New Dean
A distinguished scholar, an inspiring teacher, and a visionary leader, Dean Joseph Landau is propelling Fordham Law School into a new era. As he wraps up his first year on the job, he has already left an indelible mark on the Fordham Law community. With his indefatigable drive, he is focused on shaping the future of legal education, positioning Fordham as a leader in the profession, and fostering an environment where every student can thrive and succeed.
By Christopher Hann
It’s 6 a.m. on what promises to be a characteristically busy day for Fordham Law School Dean Joseph Landau.
On the way to his eighth-floor office overlooking Lincoln Center, Landau chats with a gaggle of students heading to a Fordham Law symposium on law and technology, where he makes opening remarks that set the stage for a deep dive into how artificial intelligence is shaping the legal landscape.
Landau has an ambitious agenda to shape the future of Fordham’s legal education, and cultivating the philanthropic support needed to make good on those plans is one of the dean’s top priorities. On this particular morning, he has already held two productive meetings with donors and two additional strategy sessions on broadening alumni engagement.
On the return trip to Fordham, Landau will huddle with Michael Rasmussen, his senior advisor, to discuss a range of pressing administrative matters. Back on campus, he meets with faculty—stopping to congratulate Professors Jake Brooks and Rebecca Kysar for having their tax work cited by the Supreme Court. Later, he will attend an event with deans across the university to discuss strategic planning and mission. He’ll interview a promising candidate for the Law School faculty and, via Zoom, talk with a fellow law school dean. In the evening, Landau will attend a Fordham University event at which he will have a chance to catch up with Fordham University President Tania Tetlow, after which he’ll sit down to dinner with donors and alumni.
“Today,” Landau says, reflecting on the whirlwind of activity, “is a pretty typical day.”
It’s a schedule that wouldn’t surprise anyone who knows Landau. During his 15 years at Fordham, and especially since taking office as the 12th dean of the nation’s fifth-largest law school, Landau has emerged as one of the institution’s most tireless cheerleaders. Even a short visit with him leaves one convinced of two things: Landau loves the law, and he loves Fordham. “There’s a practical orientation to law that I love,” he says. “It’s why I’m so glad to be at Fordham. No other law school operates better across the theory-practice divide.”
Last fall, on the occasion of his formal installation as dean, Landau described his appointment to the Fordham faculty, in 2010, as “a dream come true” and the Law School as “a special place, an everlasting place, a magical place.” As dean, he vowed to “keep the magic going.”
Milestones
Landau is brimming with ideas for Fordham Law’s future, and he’s particularly passionate about ensuring that all members of the Law School community engage one another in a respectful dialogue across differences. At a time when civil discourse has become frayed, Landau draws inspiration from the unifying power of past social and legal movements to build community and effect durable change. In meetings with groups large and small, he emphasizes the need to listen with compassion and the importance of leaning into difficult conversations.
It’s a point he reiterated in his installation speech. “This is a time when the very capacity to engage in civil discourse, to disagree without division, to debate without destroying, seems increasingly elusive,” Landau said. “Yet it’s moments like this in the legal profession when legal institutions and institutions of higher learning, and ours in particular, come together to provide guidance and wisdom. This is why Fordham Law School’s mission right now is so vital.”
In Landau’s view, the student experience lies at the heart of that mission, and he sees it as his responsibility to ensure that experience is as positive and as productive as possible. He’s especially insistent on making sure every single student is prepared to enter the workforce upon graduation and that they consider a range of career paths.
“Our students often come to Fordham for the incredible opportunities that exist in New York,” Landau explains. “And we have great placements. But we also want students to understand the breadth of possibilities. A legal career isn’t about choosing just one area. Many of us have built careers that crisscross between government, private practice, and public interest. We serve on boards, we do pro bono, we clerk—it’s about embracing the full spectrum of legal service.”
Landau has been involved in nearly every aspect of the Law School’s operation, first as an award-winning faculty member, later as a member of the senior leadership, and now as dean. Along the way, he’s embraced opportunities to collaborate with faculty colleagues—alliances he considers something of a professional imperative. While Landau’s many admirers praise his teaching skills, his legal research, and his published record, inevitably they recount his knack for building relationships with his Fordham colleagues. “He is very collaborative,” says Professor Norrinda Brown, associate dean for experiential education and director of clinical programs. “You could have decision-makers who are convinced they have the answers themselves. That’s not Joe. He wants the best ideas, no matter where they come from.”
The Dean’s Team
When Joseph Landau became dean last July 1, Professor Pamela Bookman enthusiastically accepted his offer to serve as associate dean for academic affairs. “I was excited to work with Joe and the team he was putting together,” she says, “to help launch the Law School into its next phase under his leadership.”
Bookman traces her interest in the law to her experience as an undergraduate at Yale, where she studied Russian literature, and a summer she spent in Moscow doing research on the Soviet writer Isaac Babel.
While in Moscow, Bookman volunteered at an aid organization, teaching English to Chechens living in the Russian capital—“their equivalent,” she says, “of undocumented immigrants.” “Living in Moscow in the summer of 2000 brought into stark relief what the rule of law meant,” Bookman recalls. “That contrast was one of the things that made me want to study law.”
After law school, Bookman clerked three times, including at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As a corporate lawyer, she represented clients in complex commercial disputes, some of which arose in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse. When she arrived at Fordham in 2019, after four years of teaching at Temple Law School, she brought her broad array of experiences to the classroom, teaching civil procedure, contracts, and international litigation and arbitration.
An accomplished scholar, Bookman has published her research about courts and dispute resolution in the Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, and the American Journal of International Law, among other law journals.
In her role as associate dean, Bookman collaborates closely with Landau, the associate dean team, faculty, and administrators to run academic programs and address strategy and big-picture matters.
“I’m here to help maintain and advance our mission—our dedication to excellence, learning, scholarship, and service,” Bookman says. “In many ways, I see my job as trying to make others’ jobs and lives a little easier—and to help build collaboration and communication to make this amazing place even better. I’m dedicated to making the academic experience of our students the best it can be.”
Professor Pamela Bookman, associate dean for academic affairs, cites Landau’s “infectious” enthusiasm for Fordham Law School. “He loves Fordham, he loves our faculty, he loves our students, he loves the alumni, and he has a great vision for the future,” Bookman says. “He is the right person for the job, and the right person for the moment.”
Tetlow has described her selection of Landau to lead the Law School as the easiest decision she’s ever made. Recalling the months-long search for a new dean, she says, “Law faculties don’t always agree on much. It’s not our fault—we’re trained to argue. But this faculty agrees on just about one thing: Joe.”
Early Inspirations
Landau credits his parents for his propensity to accept people on their own terms. “My dad has always been extremely encouraging,” Landau says. “He modeled this behavior of being able to understand people where they are, for who they are, always looking to bring out the best in others, always believing in the kind of Little Engine That Could concept of ‘I think I can. I think I can.’ My mom was an exceptional teacher, and her deep belief in the power of knowledge shaped my own journey into the world of teaching.
At Duke University, Landau earned degrees in political science and French, graduating summa cum laude. After graduation, he applied for a job as a fact-checker at The New Republic. During an interview, then-editor Michael Kelly asked Landau what he wanted to write about. Landau’s answer impressed his prospective boss. At that time, Landau told Kelly, federal law did not protect victims of same-sex sexual harassment in the workplace. Landau wanted to explore why. “Whether or not you get the job,” Kelly told him, “if you write that story, I will publish it.”
As it turned out, Landau didn’t get the fact-checking job—at least at first—but he did write the story he’d pitched. And a few months later, in May 1997, that article, headlined “Out of Order,” was published in The New Republic. Landau was 24 years old.
The timing was fortuitous. The U.S. Supreme Court had recently heard arguments in a landmark case involving same-sex sexual harassment. Landau suddenly found himself being interviewed on television about a topic on which he’d just published his first article in a major national magazine.
The Dean’s Team
As associate dean for experiential education, Professor Norrinda Brown oversees the Law School’s clinics and directs Lincoln Square Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm consisting of Fordham professors and students who provide legal help to New Yorkers in need. It’s an area of law with which Brown is deeply familiar.
Brown spent nearly a decade as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, representing clients in housing discrimination cases. Prior to coming to Fordham in 2022, she taught at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law and at Rutgers Law School, where she served as director of the Civil Justice Clinic and advisor to the African and Black Law Students Association and the Newark Housing Rights Coalition. She received grants in both 2019 and 2021 for the development and oversight of the Newark Anti-Eviction Project, which studied access to justice in landlord-tenant court. At Fordham, Brown serves as director of the Housing and Environmental Justice Clinic.
“Fordham and coming to New York City offered me an opportunity to have a larger platform for the housing work I do,” Brown says. “The city has really been at the center of the public housing movement for decades. When you’re doing the work with the students, what’s really lovely is you get to bring to bear a whole career and try to share that with students.”
In Fordham Law’s clinics, students work with faculty to represent clients, analyze policy and laws, and advocate for legislative reforms. As associate dean, Brown says, “My role is to consider our program as a whole, and how it might compare to our peer schools. Internally, I think about what long-term objectives might benefit all the clinic students, adding certain clinic-wide components to our program. I’m thinking about what those things might be, the ways in which we can all work together to elevate the substance of our program.”
She says she sees herself as a “connector” between the faculty who teach in Fordham clinics and counterparts at other leading law schools and the New York community. “It makes sense to have someone thinking about all the clinics,” she says, “trying to think about ways in which our Law School might support the work of communities on the ground.”
Looking ahead, Brown says the Law School is planning to resurrect a fellowship program funded by a gift from James Quinn ’71. The school will conduct a national search for prospective fellows with three to five years of professional experience. Quinn’s gift will enable the Law School to make three hires for two-year fellowships. The fellowship program, Brown says, is scheduled to resume this fall.
“I had a very interesting role,” he recalls. “You’re often chasing down authors, running against deadlines, convincing colleagues, and keeping the place moving. It required me to draw on certain characteristics that, it turned out, were very important in my professional advancement.”
After two years at The New Republic, Landau found himself drawn more to the legal issues of the day that occupied his work life. He knew he needed further training, but in which field? While he applied to Ph.D. programs in political science, he also applied to law schools. “I realized by the end that it was the law part that was most interesting to me,” he says. “I think the practical dimension of legal practice—a method that really leans into problemsolving—was a better fit for me.”
In the fall of 1999, Landau enrolled at Yale Law School. There, he met classmates who would come to be some of his closest friends. “Through those relationships,” he says, “I was inspired to think both deeply and broadly about my path—not just about becoming a lawyer, but also about how to use my legal education to find my own distinct path in the law. While the idea of becoming a professor did come up, and professors encouraged it, I felt strongly about practicing law first.”
Among his classmates was Jedediah Purdy, who had grown up in West Virginia, was homeschooled until 14, and later enrolled at Exeter and Harvard. Purdy published his first book, For Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today, to much acclaim when he was just 24. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Landau and Purdy became fast friends.
Now a law professor at Duke University School of Law, Purdy recalls Landau’s singular pursuit of a law school education. “That really was an important decision for him, to be at Yale and be serious about being a lawyer,” Purdy says. “It certainly encouraged his breadth of mind.” As a teaching fellow, Purdy says, Landau was “beloved” by his students. “He had them spilling out of his little office,” he says.
Landau was named co-director of Cleary’s pro bono practice group in immigration and international human rights, and his busy workload included representing a large number of immigrant clients. He joined the board of directors of Immigration Equality, a national nonprofit that works on behalf of LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants. He volunteered with teams preparing cases for asylum offices and immigration courts, and he also became very invested in the growth of the organization, helping to lead its fundraising efforts. “This combination of hands-on casework and strategic organizational development was deeply meaningful,” Landau says, “and shaped my broader understanding of the dynamics of legal and policy change.”
For seven years he served on Immigration Equality’s board, including four years as chair. Upon stepping down in 2014, he received the organization’s Global Vision award.
Drawn to Teaching
Landau was still working at Cleary when he first tried his hand at adjunct teaching at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He embraced the new role, leading him to consider another career pivot, this time into the classroom. After a two-year fellowship at Columbia University, he was hooked. “Academia felt right for me,” Landau says. “I love teaching. I love explaining hard concepts and breaking them down with other people—students, colleagues, and practitioners. And I love helping students transform their mastery of complicated concepts into great legal careers.”
Landau had already received several job offers when Fordham called. He still remembers the day he arrived on campus to be interviewed for a position on the law faculty. “It was a great day,” he says. “I remember my job talk and the insightful questions people asked. I remember my office interviews. I remember my meeting with the dean and the associate dean. Fordham felt like it would be a place where I could really immerse myself in the School and create new connections within the profession, with the judiciary, with public interest organizations, with alums. It just felt like a great place to be, if they would have me. It felt like home, and I haven’t looked back.”
Landau also had a role in many strategic initiatives that extended well beyond the classroom. In the 2016–2017 academic year, he led the Law School’s strategic planning process, helping to launch the House System, in which all incoming students are assigned to a House, a close-knit subcommunity within the Law School that offers peer mentoring and fosters connections among students, faculty, and administrators. In 2021, he was appointed associate dean for academic affairs. Working closely with Matthew Diller, his predecessor as dean, he focused on budget and financial-planning matters and initiatives to develop new offerings by adjunct faculty. He also played a key role in fundraising efforts, supporting the Law School’s financial stability and growth. He led initiatives in information technology, marketing, public interest, and career planning. Yet, for all his extracurricular work, Landau never lost enthusiasm for the classroom.
“The way I approach teaching,” he says, “is to emphasize to students that some people focus solely on ‘the law’—the principles, doctrines, and frameworks—while others concentrate only on ‘the facts’—the specific details and outcomes of cases. Being a Fordham lawyer means mastering both. We must understand not only the facts of specific cases but also the deeper legal principles that drive those outcomes. Most importantly, we must appreciate the connections between theoretical and practical components. By bridging that critical gap between law and fact, our students gain the ability to apply legal principles in new and unforeseen contexts with clarity and confidence.”
The Dean’s Team
As associate dean for research, Professor Bennett Capers divides his responsibilities into internal and external priorities.
Internally, he says, “It’s really trying to ensure that the faculty can be as productive, as scholars, as possible.” The external role, Capers says, “is to show the world what an amazing group of scholars Fordham has and what an amazing school Fordham is.”
Capers also serves as the director of the Law School’s Center on Race, Law and Justice. His work has been published (or is forthcoming) in the Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Harvard Law Review, New York University Law Review, and Yale Law Journal.
This past fall, Capers spent part of a sabbatical working on a new book, The Prosecutor’s Turn, based largely on his experience as a federal prosecutor. He spent nearly a decade as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. “It is about my own turn from being a willing soldier in the war against drugs and the war against crime to being increasingly skeptical about our criminal justice system,” Capers says. “The Prosecutor’s Turn is partly my turn away from our criminal justice system, which I now think is almost irredeemably flawed.” The title, he says, has a second meaning: “Maybe it’s time for more prosecutors to step up and really try to completely reform the system.”
Capers says the idea for the book came in part from his classroom interactions at Fordham. “Students have pushed me to question the system and pushed me to think in terms of abolition,” he says.
As associate dean, Capers is passionate about advancing scholarship at Fordham. He reviews applications for summer research grants and sabbaticals, advises colleagues on publishing, mentors new faculty, and works with the Law School’s Scholarship Committee to plan workshops. He also promotes the Law School and its faculty, working collaboratively with Fordham Law’s marketing and communications team.
“As I’m constantly telling my colleagues, we have an amazing faculty, with colleagues writing groundbreaking monographs and casebooks and publishing in the top journals in the country, and doing so in a range of areas,” Capers says. “Part of my job is ensuring the rest of the academic legal community knows that as well, whether that’s through celebrating on social media faculty members’ newly published books or articles, or helping organize scholarly conferences at the school, or making sure our colleagues have opportunities to get their scholarship before the public and influence courts and legislators.”
Landau later wrote recommendations for clerkships and advocated to judges on behalf of Abowd, who landed law clerk positions with two federal judges. “I’m quite sure he was a big reason why I got both of my clerkships,” Abowd says. “On so many occasions, he has given me way more time and attention than I should have reasonably expected, and I don’t get the sense that I’m the only person he’s done that for.”
As a scholar, Landau has published in major law reviews: Columbia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Vanderbilt Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and Fordham Law Review, among others. He has written on a range of constitiutional topics for major outlets, including The New York Times, The New Republic, and The Hill.
When Diller announced in 2024 that he would return to the faculty after nine years as dean, another opportunity arose for him to to play a pivotal role. “I feel so close to this institution,” he says, “and wanted to contribute in every way I could. Taking on the role of dean felt like a meaningful way to continue that commitment.”
As Fordham Law’s dean, Landau has set a bold agenda, from boosting bar passage rates to expanding faculty research to broadening international programs. But he ranks three issues as his top priorities: expanding scholarships for students with financial need, preparing students for the impact of technology on their legal careers, and supporting their pursuit of broad career paths.
Fueling the Future
Among them is John McManus, FCRH ’84, LAW ’87, a member of the Dean’s Planning Council, and the founder of McManus & Associates, an estate tax–planning law firm with offices in New York City and New Jersey. Last year, McManus and his wife, Rosemary, provided a significant multiyear gift to the Law School. McManus says he was drawn to Landau’s leadership skills even before he became dean. During a presentation that then–associate dean Landau delivered to members of the Dean’s Planning Council, McManus says he was struck by Landau’s “joyful interest in using data to bring out the best of Fordham Law.”
The Dean’s Team
On July 1, 2024, Professor Ron Lazebnik stepped into a new position created by Dean Joseph Landau to increase the Law School’s efficiency and effectiveness. Lazebnik’s background, which includes a master’s in engineering, a Harvard Law degree, experience at a large corporate law firm, and management of two Law School clinics, positions him perfectly for this challenge.
His legal career has centered on the intersection of law and technology. “What interested me in going to law school was protecting creativity,” Lazebnik says. “Seeing all these innovations that were occurring in the space of engineering, I became curious: How do we protect them and other forms of creativity, particularly music? So I went to law school to learn more, with the idea that potentially that’s the kind of lawyer I would be.”
That’s just the kind of lawyer he’s become—with a deep commitment to service. At Harvard Law School, Lazebnik dedicated more than 1,000 hours to pro bono work, receiving the Betty Allebach Award for outstanding commitment and service to the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.
Since coming to Fordham in 2009, Lazebnik has directed the Samuelson-Glushko Intellectual Property and Information Law Clinic and helped launch the new Law and Technology Clinic. “There’s always new technology that’s driven less from the law and more from other market forces,” he says. “When we look at the intersection of law and technology, we’re thinking about to what extent the current law is able to adjust to the new technologies.”
The new role encompasses operations, data analytics, budget, and finance at the Law School, and it requires a unique blend of skills. “I know Dean Landau championed this role so that I could help him focus on other matters,” Lazebnik says. “I’m honored to take on that responsibility for him. He has identified a number of new opportunities for the Law School, both internally and externally, and I’m excited to be part of those efforts.”
It’s a multifaceted role. Lazebnik is responsible for overseeing key administrative functions, such as finance and budgeting, human resources, information technology, and public programs. “A core part of my work involves ensuring the Law School’s resources—whether physical spaces or technological assets—are effectively utilized to support our operations and advance strategic goals,” he says.
Working closely with Dean Landau and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Pamela Bookman, Lazebnik is helping develop policies and strategies that embrace new technologies to meet the wide-ranging needs of the Law School and foster its long-term growth. “I’m overseeing several data-driven projects to help connect the various resources at the school, enrich the student experience, foster greater collaboration, and bring efficiencies to various departments,” he says, “so that we can grow as an institution while maintaining our level of excellence.”
Another crucial supporter is Eric Grossman ’93, chair of the Dean’s Planning Council and chief legal officer and chief administrative officer at Morgan Stanley. “I’ve known Joe for years,” Grossman says, “and what stands out is his passion for Fordham Law School and his incredible commitment to engaging our alumni as a force for positive change.”
Grossman is a generous benefactor of the Law School who has provided vital philanthropic support across multiple areas. He is a key funder of the Dean’s Strategic Initiatives Fund, which supports needs identified by Landau during his first year as dean. Grossman’s philanthropy has also benefited Fordham Law’s Realizing Excellence and Access in the Law (REAL) Scholars program, a leadership program that promotes academic, professional, wellness, and social opportunities for first-year law students who have faced barriers to a legal education. Additionally, he established an endowed scholarship to expand access to legal education by supporting students with financial need.
In 2024, the Fordham Law Alumni Association awarded Grossman the Medal of Achievement, the association’s highest honor. Of Landau, Grossman says, “He inspires me, and all of us, because he knows the value of collaboration to propel our Law School forward to meet the challenges of today and prepare for the opportunities of tomorrow.”
Expanding Opportunity
Landau, ever the visionary, wants to make legal education more accessible. He sees affordability as one of the biggest challenges, and he especially wants to increase need-based aid for students from low-income families. “We’re a school that is about upward mobility,” Landau says. “We’re a school that is about democratizing the profession. Focusing on need-based aid—focusing on making a Fordham education possible for people who do not come from means—is something we have to continue to advance.”
Preparing Students for a Changing Profession
“I want our students not just to get the new jobs, but to be leaders in those jobs,” he says. “They’re going to have to understand how these technologies function, what systems they’re running on, how they’re changing things for government offices, for businesses, for law firms, and for the clients of those law firms. And they also need to appreciate the deep, profound problems that technology is raising—across vast legal arenas, both domestically and internationally. These are critical questions that we need our students to engage with now so that they can take the lead when they enter the profession.”
To better prepare students, Landau says, the Law School will be creating more experiential opportunities at the intersection of law and technology, such as competitions in which teams of students work together to solve tech-based legal problems. “It’s a creative effort,” Landau says. And a collaborative one: “It involves finding coaches, fielding teams, and giving students hands-on exposure to the kinds of issues many of them will face in practice.”
Landau has also convened the faculty to discuss the implications of AI in the classroom and the profession writ large. Even before becoming dean, Landau engaged with faculty around advancements in AI, cybersecurity, and related matters, aiming to expand opportunities for students to learn about technology and the law. “Our faculty really understand how to engage students in the major conversations that are going on in law and technology,” Landau says, “from the responsible use of AI, to the global regulation of tech, to the way technology is changing fields of law like antitrust and consumer protection. We have become a true leader in law and technology, and that is not going to change.”
As he approaches his one-year anniversary as dean of Fordham Law School, Landau’s agenda is wide, deep, and unapologetically aspirational. “We must ensure students understand what distinguishes Fordham,” he emphasizes, “including our programs, career placements, student success, and the extraordinary engagement of our alumni. These are the hallmarks of a Fordham education.”