William Treanor

William M. Treanor

William Michael Treanor (b. November 16, 1957) is an attorney and legal scholar. He is the dean of Georgetown University Law Center, the former dean of Fordham University School of Law and an expert on constitutional law, having twice been cited in Supreme Court opinions. He continues to teach as a professor. Treanor held several high-profile government positions and he is an advocate of civil service. His teaching and work evidence Treanor's commitment to his philosophy of a complete legal education: "Intellectual excellence, the craft of lawyering, and dedication to public service."

Personal

Treanor graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale College in 1979. He obtained an M.A. in history from Harvard University in 1982. He then entered Harvard Law School, but transferred to Yale Law School because he felt they focused more on public service. He was Article and Book Review Editor of the Yale Law Journal and graduated with a J.D. in 1985.

On October 15, 1994, Treanor married Allison Derivaux Ames, who was then director of strategic planning for corporate publicity and special events at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City. He now has two children, Liam and Katherine.

Dean of Georgetown Law (2010-present)

Georgetown Law campus

Since Treanor became Georgetown Law dean,

• The number of experiential learning courses has grown to 16.
• The number of students taking externships increased to more than 70% what it was in previous years.
• Six new faculty members have been hired.
• Two congressional clerkships for Georgetown Law graduates have been created.
• An LL.M. degree (Master of Laws) program in national security law has been established.

Treanor has been featured in the following articles:

• "The Transformation of Legal Education," DC Bar magazine, May 2011
• "Educators: Congress Needs Law Clerks," The National Law Journal, May 5, 2011
• "Law Schools Go Global," U.S. News & World Report, March 29, 2011
• "No Humbugs Here," The National Law Journal, December 20,2010
• "A Conversation with Dean William Treanor," Georgetown Law magazine, Fall/Winter 2010
• "Q&A: Georgetown Law Center's New Dean Discusses School's Steps to Help Students in a Time of Law Firm Cutbacks," Washington Post, August 23, 2010

Dean of Fordham Law School (2002-2010)

"William Treanor represents a new generation of scholars and teachers at Fordham's School of Law," said the Rev. Joseph A. O'Hare, S.J., president of Fordham University at the time of Treanor's appointment. When he first arrived to teach at Fordham in 1991, he evidenced his broad command of legal subjects in courses such as property, land use, intellectual property, constitutional law, criminal law, and legal history. In 1998, he went on leave from the university to serve as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, before he returned to assume his position as dean in 2002.

"As dean of the law school, you're required to do both broad-level thinking and strategic planning," said Treanor in regard to challenges as a law dean. On July 17, 2006, Treanor announced to students and faculty that the school surpassed the $20 million mark for new gifts and pledges. This was in stark contrast to the levels reached in 2004 ($4.2 million) and 2005 ($6.9 million). The funds would help establish six new chairs and start the Feerick Center for Social Justice and Dispute Resolution, named in honor of Treanor's predecessor, John Feerick.

Plans for a new skyscraper were unveiled to accommodate increasing enrollment numbers, and the school ranked fifth in the country in placing its graduates at top-shelf law firms. But Treanor was not just concerned with growth and reputation. Like the law deans of Harvard (which built a state-of-the-art law student gym, limited class size to 80 students, and mandated individualized written feedback for every student in every course throughout the semester), and Yale (which abandoned the traditional law school grading system, does not rank its students, and has only one semester of required classes), Treanor attempted to address the students' quality of life. In a 2006 interview, Treanor reported instituting free cupcakes and ice cream to alleviate the intensity of law school finals. At the end of the 2006 academic year, Treanor worked for the purveyance of free flip-flops with Fordham's imprint on the bottom. "I feel obliged to make the Fordham experience for our students as special as possible," said Treanor. Fordham maintains a strict grading curve policy, class rankings, and a year-long 1L curriculum.

On June 29th, 2010, it was announced that Dean Treanor would become the new executive vice president and dean of Georgetown University Law Center, beginning August 16th, 2010.

Civil Service

Treanor's career in the public sector began as a speechwriter for Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler, followed by a clerkship for Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. During the Iran-Contra Investigation, Treanor served as associate independent counsel. Later he became deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, responsible for supplying advice to the White House and attorney general.

Constitutional law scholar

Treanor has been cited in Supreme Court opinions twice, including by Chief Justice William Rehnquist in his dissent in Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. He has written in-depth about some of the most controversial and complex turn-of-the-century constitutional law issues. He examined Congress' authority to define and declare war under the War Powers Clause. He focused on the original understanding of the Founders on the takings clause of the United States Constitution, also known as eminent domain in the United States. He wrote an article chronicling understanding of the scope of constitutional judicial review before Marbury v. Madison. He remains a prolific author of scholarly articles.

On June 6, 2006, he debated prominent classical liberal/libertarian law professor and published author Richard Epstein on the topic "Did Progressives Rewrite the Constitution?"

Quotes

• "This is a time of change for legal practice. The change in the economy precipitated changes that would have come inevitably...It does cause us to rethink how we prepare lawyers."
• "Georgetown is a law school with incredible strength, so both in the first year and longer term, what I see as my mission is to build on those strengths. We'll be focusing on experiential learning, externships and increasing opportunities in those areas. We're going to be focusing on the academic depth and intellect strengths of the law school and continue to build on that with new hires. I consider myself incredibly privileged to be here at this moment."
• "Georgetown has unrivaled academic richness and scholarly excellence. Many of the leading legal thinkers in the country are here, and I'm privileged to be in their company."
• "With Walsh or Starr, the president and his supporters could more easily argue that a prosecutor was overzealous or irresponsible, because there had been a three-judge panel that appointed him. With Fitzgerald, you have a prosecutor who was appointed by the deputy attorney general [at the direction of the attorney general]. The administration almost has to stand behind him because this is someone they selected themselves. It is harder to criticize someone you yourself put into play."
• "Few areas of constitutional law have produced as much heated debate as the war powers area, heat produced in no small part by the passionate belief that this is a subject of incalculable consequence. But, stunningly and ironically, there is little connection between the issues that scholars debate and the constitutional issues involving war that government officials and political leaders confront.
• "The original understanding of the Takings Clause was, very simply, that the federal government had to compensate the property owner when it physically took property --such as when it took land to build a fort. The clause did not require compensation for regulations under any circumstances."
• "Despite the public prominence of the property rights argument, there is actually nothing novel or particularly controversial about the conclusion that the Takings Clause was limited to physical seizures. With some notable exceptions, prominent legal scholars of all shades of political opinion—including such leading conservatives as former judge Robert Bork and former Solicitor General Charles Fried--support the conclusion that the property rights argument has no plausible foundation in the original understanding of the Takings Clause."
• "[Fordham Law School is] pleased to rank in the top five [in placing graduates at the most successful firms]. We focus our education on practicing the law as well as knowing the law, so firms have come to realize that our graduates are prepared to work effectively right from the start. And our location in Manhattan within walking distance of many of the country's elite firms assures that there are exceptional opportunities available for students."

Selected articles

• "The Story of Marbury v. Madison: Judicial Authority and Political Struggle" in Federal Courts Stories 29-56 (Vicki C. Jackson and Judith Resnik eds., New York: Thomson Reuters/Foundation Press 2010)
• "Against Textualism," 103 NW. U.L. Rev. 983-1006 (2009)
• "Supreme Neglect of Text and History," 107 Mich. L. Rev. 1059-1092 (2009) (reviewing Richard A. Epstein, Supreme Neglect: How to Revive Constitutional Protection for Private Property (2008))
• Judicial Review before Marbury. 58 Stanford Law Review 455-562 (2005) [reprinted Fordham Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 85]
• Deans and Stories: Leading Minds. 36 The University of Toledo Law Review 207-211 (2004).
• The War Powers Outside the Courts, in Mark Tushnet ed. The Constitution in Wartime, 143-160. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005
• Lochner’s New Millennium: Copyright Term Extension, Constitutional Law, and Eldred v. Ashcroft, 112 Yale L.J. (2003) (with Paul Schwartz)
• The New Privacy, 101 Mich. L. Rev. 2163 (2003) (with Paul Schwartz) (book review)
• Jam for Justice Holmes: Reassessing the Significance of Mahon, 86 Georgetown Law Journal 813 (1998)
• Independent Counsel and Vigorous Prosecution and Investigation, 61 Law and Contemporary Problems 149 (1998)
• The Armstrong Principle, the Narratives of Takings, and Compensation Statutes, 38 William & Mary Law Review 1151 (1997)
• Learning from Lincoln, 65 Fordham Law Review 1781 (1997)
• Fame, the Founding, and the Power to Declare War, 82 Cornell Law Review 695 (1997)
• The Original Understanding of the Takings Clause and the Political Process, 95 Columbia Law Review 782 (1995)
• The Case of the Prisoners and the Origins of Judicial Review, 143 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 491 (1994)
• Prospective Overruling and the Revival of “Unconstitutional” Statutes, 93 Columbia Law Review 1902 (1993) (with Gene Sperling)
• Taking the Framers Seriously, 55 University of Chicago Law Review 1016 (1988) (review of Walter Berns, Taking the Constitution Seriously (1987))
• Note, The Origins and Original Significance of the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment, 94 Yale Law Journal 694 (1985)