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Southern Methodist University leaders have taken steps to remove John Attanasio as dean of the Dedman School of Law.

SMU provost Paul Ludden informed Attanasio in mid-December that his contract with the university, which expires in May, would not be renewed, and that the university was taking immediate steps to find a successor, according to alumni and internal SMU documents.

In a Dec. 12 internal memo, Ludden told Attanasio that “it is now time for another individual to take on the leadership of the law school at SMU and to provide leadership for the challenge necessary in the current climate of legal education.”

Attanasio declined to comment. In response to inquiries sent to Ludden and SMU President R. Gerald Turner, SMU spokesman Kent Best said that “SMU does not comment on personnel matters.”

Ludden announced his decision to Dedman faculty and staff in a Jan. 3 memo. A public announcement of the decision is expected next week.

Early word of the decision produced a significant backlash from alumni, faculty, financial supporters and the law school’s executive committee, whose members say they were not informed of the decision in advance.
“I think everyone is stunned and upset,” says Darrell Jordan, a partner at the Dykema law firm in Dallas and a major SMU supporter. “No one — not the provost nor the president — has given us a reasonable explanation about why this has happened.”

Fifty-six prominent alumni, including two former Texas Supreme Court judges, a federal judge, a former federal bankruptcy judge, the current U.S. attorney and the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have signed a letter to Turner supporting Attanasio and asking him to reconsider.

For the rest of the story:

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/headlines/20130111-smu-ousts-law-school-dean.ece

Saw that this morning. Did this come out of nowhere?

My wife likes him a lot, but while I was there, I didn't think he was anything special. Hopefully we can find a qualified, dynamic Texan to take the reigns.

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We fire the Dean of the Law School, the Chairman of the Board of the Law School resigns, the rest of the board is upset and the Provost and President say it doesn't matter what these people say?

Is the entire school run on the basis of manipulated numbers so as to acheive enrollment statistics or for the students? Is the school simply judged upon ACT scores, a test that most educators have debuncted? or the quality of the education?

Statistics are for loosers and small men looking for excuses.

Now I am beginning to understand Orsini's problem with athetics, admissions and athletic friendly courses--statistics!

Now that is something to be proud of!

According the my friends, the Emperor didn't like the Dean's money raising successes and wanted the money flowing into his campaign, rather than the law school. Statistics were only the excuse Gerald could publicly use. Orsini's success in raising the C of C also conflicted with the Emperor's fund raising "credits".

"I will meet with the Law Board, but my decision is final." An Emperor without any constituency? Ego unchecked!

Maybe it is time for the Letterman's Club to actually do something and strike on behalf of his broken promises? Tough sledding for even an Emperor to fight on two fronts!

Time to take our school back!

Of all things, you're choosing "statistics" to rail on about? I've only read bits and pieces of the law school story (mostly because of limited interest) so I don't have anything to add there, but the gist of your comments are, frankly, ridiculous.

You know what else is "for loosers and small men looking for excuses"? Words...oxygen...spelling...

It says as Dean you've been here for a decade and a half and your school keeps slipping in the rankings to the point where it's now considered a Tier 2 law school, so get your sh*t together?

Law school rankings may be the biggest fraud in the United States. Within a few years, the Aggie Law School will be ranked higher than SMU, Houston and Baylor. Just watch.

Over Under: 10 Years

I always like him when I was in law school - he came to Oxford for the summer abroad program. There must be something more to this than just a slip in the rankings, right?

John made sure the law school was a part of the football weekend...the law school always has a tent,always is crowded and john was always there....he was a college athlete and knows the technical issues of football and was often at smu games,with his wife....John brought a lot to smu...firing him was a great mistake and his absence a great loss to the legal community...reallocation of funds away from the law school has been a hot issue for decades...I believe the law school makes money for smu,but fights to keep it...

I'm personally not much of a fan of keeping deans (and Presidents) for more than 10 years because complacency can set in and it's always good to bring in new perspectives to keep advancing. I think that's what has set in for SMU and for many of its schools, including the law school and business school. However, it sounds like the handling of this situation was handled very poorly by Turner and the provost. Should try to get support for these decisions by key faculty members and key alums so the fact that there was discord among these constituents does not bode well for how it was handled.

Hopefully, we bring in good candidates. We're in one of the key markets in the US and the world; any international law firm will have an office in Dallas so we should strive to be a premier law school competing directly with UTLaw. Hopefully, the next dean has a vision and plan in place to improve our reputation and rankings from top 50-60 to top 25 in the US.

Every single law school, save for SMU, gladly waived their application fee. SMU also won first place for having the most expensive application by far over a dozen other schools. So its got that going for it.

From Above The Law. One student's perspective:

Sure, he’s raised money, and lots of it. But raising money at SMU is as much of a challenge as getting laid at a whore house. The bottom line is that Dean Attanasio is immensely arrogant (his image once appeared on half the pages in the annual alumni magazine), he is a relic of the past (he cannot use a computer, so his emails are printed and hand-delivered to him by his secretary), he is unpopular with the faculty (a few promising, young tenure-track professors have left for other similarly-ranked schools in search of healthier administration), and he is incredibly unpopular with students (should he be bothered to acknowledge their painful presence). These aren’t characteristics that can keep SMU in its preferred “second best in Texas” niche, or in the US News top 50. So, good riddance Dean A.

http://abovethelaw.com/2013/01/deans-ouster-inspires-outrage-from-trustees-joy-from-students/

Saturday's DMN had alot of quotes from SMU alumni and Law Board Members on the firing of the Dean. Why was ours taken off? I knew Brad patrolled the board but I wasn't aware he had the power to censor it.