Hot HLS Hiring Streak Continues: Lessig to Leave Stanford for Harvard

A renowned cyberlaw expert is leaving Stanford Law School, after nearly nine years, to return to Harvard Law School.

Lawrence Lessig will not only serve as a law professor at Harvard but direct the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, reports the Harvard Crimson.

Elena Kagan, the Harvard Law School dean, announced the move on Friday, calling Lessig “one of the most brilliant and important legal scholars of our time,” reports the Chronicle of Higher Education (sub. req.). She added: “His work has recast the very terms of discussion and debate in multiple areas of law, ranging from intellectual property to constitutional theory,” Kagan stated.

Fueling a hot HLS hiring streak, "Kagan has aggressively pursued the lateral hiring market during her tenure, snagging 20 tenured professors since her deanship began in 2003, compared to 18 in the preceding two decades," the Harvard newspaper notes. "Last year alone, the Law School landed six tenured professors, including then-University of Chicago professor Cass R. Sunstein ’75, the most-cited American law professor."