Harvard Law School names new dean, a leader who 'cares deeply about the legal profession'
John C.P. Goldberg, who has been Harvard Law School’s interim dean since March 2024, was formally appointed to the position, effective immediately.
Known as a scholar in tort law and political philosophy, Goldberg, who has been a faculty member since 2008, was the deputy dean from 2017 to 2022, according to a June 30 press release. He has been chair of the university’s Electronic Communications Policy Oversight Committee and was on other committees including the University Discrimination and Harassment Policy Steering Committee.
“He has an unwavering belief in excellence and inclusion and the essential role that academic freedom plays in nurturing both of those aims,” said Alan M. Garber, the president of Harvard University, in the press release. “We sought a leader who could navigate today’s complex landscape and continue to build on the law school’s academic strengths and impact. John is that leader.”
Before arriving at Harvard, Goldberg taught at the Vanderbilt University Law School and was the associate dean for research from 2005 to 2008, according to the press release. After graduating from the New York University School of Law, he clerked for then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White and for Judge Jack B. Weinstein in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He also was an associate at Hill and Barlow in Boston.
“He cares deeply about the legal profession and about Harvard Law School, and he approaches everything he does with integrity, humility and wisdom,” said John F. Manning, who was in the dean’s post until becoming the school’s interim provost, in the press release. Manning was named as the school’s permanent provost in August.
“I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to serve the students, faculty, staff and graduates of Harvard Law School, particularly at a moment in which law and legal education are so salient,” Goldberg said in the press release. “Working together, we will continue to advance our understanding of the law and to explore how it can best serve constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the bedrock American principle of liberty and equal justice for all.”
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