“Matthew Diller possesses a rare combination of vision, practicality, experience, integrity, and a deep (and proven) commitment to justice and the service of others that makes him the ideal dean to lead Fordham Law School into the future,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “In Dean Diller we have someone who has met many of the challenges facing legal education in the current climate and who has built a reputation as a strong fundraiser. Moreover, he is a consensus builder who can bring people together to move an institution forward. We are delighted to have him back home at Fordham.”

A scholar of social welfare law and policy, Diller has published articles in leading law reviews including Yale Law Journal, UCLA Law Review, Texas Law Review, and Michigan Law Review. His service to the legal profession includes membership on the Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services in New York, for which he chairs the Committee on Law School Involvement. He is also a member of the Board of The Legal Aid Society and the Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (ABCNY). He served on ABCNY’s Task Force on New Lawyers in a Changing Profession from its inception in July 2012 through November 2013, when the Task Force issued its report. In addition, from 2000 to 2008, he was a member of the board of directors of The National Center for Law and Economic Justice.

Jonathan Lippman, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, said, “He is one of the truly exceptional deans in our state and in the country. … Matt is a great thinker and an example of someone who understands what being a lawyer is all about. He is writing the script of what deans should be doing today.”

Diller received his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in European History from Harvard College in 1981 and his J.D., also magna cum laude, in 1985 from Harvard Law, where he was an editor at the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for the late Honorable Walter R. Mansfield on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Before coming to the Fordham Law faculty, he was a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Civil Appeals and Law Reform Unit in New York City.

He came to Fordham Law in 1993. Diller was named the Cooper Family Professor of Law and served as co-director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics. While at Fordham Law, he received the 2000 Louis J. Lefkowitz Award for the Advancement of Urban Law from the Fordham Urban Law Journal and the 2002 Eugene J. Keefe Award for outstanding contributions to the School. In 2009, he was recognized with the Dean’s Medal of Recognition, the highest honor bestowed by the dean for outstanding contributions to Fordham Law.

“Matthew Diller has earned respect for his scholarship on social welfare policy and his strong leadership in legal academia,” said Stephen Freedman, Ph.D., provost of the University. “He is primed to engage and inspire the faculty, alumni, and students of Fordham Law to new heights of innovation and achievement.”

Michael M. Martin, who has served as the dean of Fordham Law since 2011, will return to the Law faculty in 2015. Martin joined the faculty in 1972. In addition to serving on numerous Law School and University committees, he was associate dean from 1995 to 2001, and interim dean from 2010 to 2011. In 2001 and 2010 he received the Dean’s Medal of Recognition, and in 2005 he was named Teacher of the Year.

“Fordham owes a debt of gratitude to Mike Martin. Under his tenure the Law School completed its fundraising campaign and moved into a new state-of-the-art building at the Lincoln Center campus,” Father McShane said. “He has seen the Law School through tremendous upheavals in the legal profession and legal education while ensuring that a Fordham Law education retained its integrity and focus on ethics and service. I know the Law School and the University communities are thankful for his steady leadership and unstinting devotion.”

During his tenure at Cardozo, Diller initiated new programs designed to better prepare graduates for practice in the new environment, strengthened the clinical and experiential programs, and worked with the alumni leadership and the Yeshiva University community to advance the school’s mission in a difficult climate for the legal profession and legal education.

“I have loved being part of the extraordinary Cardozo community. Returning to Fordham where I began my career in teaching has special meaning to me and am honored to have the opportunity to follow Mike Martin and other great academic leaders who have served as deans at Fordham Law,” Diller said. “I look forward to working with Father McShane, my colleagues on the faculty and in the administration and with Fordham’s vibrant students and alumni.”

At 8:52 a.m. this morning, November 12, the final steel beam of the new law school building was fastened into place. The new structure has been gaining steady attention over the the past two and a half years as it continues to steadily rise. The cast stone panels cladding the facade are quickly racing up after the steel, leaving quite an impression on theatergoers at Lincoln Center Plaza. The $250 million building, designed by the firm of Pei Cobb Freed, broke ground on February 3, 2011, and is scheduled to be completed by Fall, 2014, and will add 468,000 square feet to the Lincoln Center Campus.

The northwest corner receives the final beam.
Photo by Thomas Walsh

A ceremony commemorating the topping out will be held this Friday and will be officiated by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., the president of Fordham, and Michael M. Martin, dean of Fordham Law School.  

“Without question, Sheila is an outstanding scholar-professor and an extraordinarily gifted administrator, and this appointment is a fitting recognition of her contributions to our School,” said Fordham Law Dean Michael M. Martin. “Since assuming the mantle of academic affairs, Sheila has provided principled and effective leadership that has strengthened our curriculum and our centers, institutes, and programs. She also is a fierce advocate for our faculty and students, as well as a champion for our alumni.”

Foster joined Fordham Law in 2002 after visiting the prior year from her post on the tenured faculty at Rutgers Law. A graduate of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Berkeley Law at the University of California, and a former associate at Morrison & Foerster, she is an expert on the intersection of land use and environmental law, particularly in urban settings. Her authoritative work on environmental justice and urban land use led to her appointment as the inaugural holder of the Albert A. Walsh ’54 Chair in Real Estate, Land Use and Property Law in 2005. She also serves as a co-director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics and has served as faculty moderator of the Fordham Urban Law Journal. In 2008, she was appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

Foster is the author of numerous publications on land use, environmental law, and antidiscrimination law. She is the co-author, with Luke Cole, of From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement (N.Y.U. Press, 2001) and co-editor, with Michael Gerrard, of the 2nd edition of The Law of Environmental Justice (ABA, 2009). She has consulted with many community-based groups in New Jersey and New York on environmental justice issues. She has also received two Ford Foundation grants for projects related to her work on environmental justice and urban development.

Her most recent work explores and challenges the legal and theoretical frameworks in which land use decisions are made, especially in the urban context. These works include Collective Action and the Urban Commons (Notre Dame Law Review, 2011), Urban Informality as a Commons Dilemma (U. Miami Inter-American Law Review, 2009), Integrative Lawyering: Navigating the Political Economy of Urban Development (California Law Review, 2007), andThe City as an Ecological Space: Social Capital and Urban Land Use (Notre Dame Law Review, 2006).

“There are many reasons why Mike Martin is the ideal dean for the Law School,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “He is widely respected within the Law School and University, and in the greater legal community. He has a stellar record of achievement as a scholar and author, and he has already provided the Law School with strong and steady leadership during a period of great transition. We are, therefore, delighted that he has accepted the dean’s position.”

Martin’s scholarship is as distinguished as his commitment to Fordham Law. He earned a B.A. and a J.D. with High Distinction from the University of Iowa, where he was editor-in-chief of the Iowa Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.  Following law school, he studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He is a co-author of the five-volume Federal Rules of Evidence Manual and of the New York Evidence Handbook. He has also written other books, law review articles and, for 26 years, a column on evidence for the New York Law Journal.

For the past 38 years, Martin has displayed unflagging dedication to Fordham Law. He served as associate dean from 1995 to 2001 and twice as associate dean for administration. During the past year, while he was serving as interim dean, the Law School has risen in the national rankings, hired an outstanding roster of new faculty members and enrolled the most talented incoming class in the School’s history.

“I have spent close to 40 years working with the people of Fordham University and the Law School, and my wife Ellen is a Fordham Law graduate,” said Michael M. Martin. “In these last eight months as interim dean, I have been impressed by the tremendous support of the School’s alumni, faculty, staff and students. When I was asked to become a candidate in the dean search, I came to see that I could not only maintain the trajectory and momentum that had been established at Fordham Law, but also provide the stability and focus needed to achieve the goals the university has for the Law School.”

Because Martin was the lead faculty member on the committee appointed to plan for the construction of the new $250 million Law School building on the University’s Lincoln Center campus, he is uniquely qualified to prepare the Law School community to move into the building, which is presently under construction and scheduled to open in the Fall of 2014.

“Mike Martin’s scholarship, his conspicuous success as a teacher and his demonstrated ability to lead one of the nation’s top Law Schools have rightfully earned him tremendous respect from colleagues in and out of the academy,” said Stephen Freedman, Ph.D., provost of the University. “His impeccable academic credentials, coupled with his distinguished record of publication, make Professor Martin the ideal choice to head the Law School as it prepares to move into new quarters and even greater prominence.”

– Carrie Johnson