LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center students, faculty and administration are welcoming back one of their own this fall with new Dean Thomas Galligan Jr.
Galligan began his tenure July 1 after accepting the Law Center’s offer in February. The offer came at the end of an eight-month search process. The 17-member search committee convened in July 2015 and included Law Center faculty, staff, administration, a student representative and alumni.
Senior Vice Provost Jane Cassidy chaired the hiring committee.
“It’s really rare when you’re doing a search like this that you find the perfect person, but we found the perfect person,” Cassidy said.
Galligan taught at the Law Center 18 years ago, which Cassidy said was part of what made him the right fit for the school.
“It’s so rare that you find a person who has a good amount of knowledge of LSU, wants to be in Baton Rouge and has all of this really great experience,” Cassidy said. “Frankly, he would have been hard to beat.”
The committee voted unanimously to extend the position to Galligan. While a professor at the Law Center from 1986-1998, Galligan won the Outstanding LSU Professor award six times.
Galligan served as president of Colby-Sawyer College for the past ten years, and he presided as dean at the University of Tennessee College of Law from 1998 to 2006.
“It’s just welcoming one of our own back and welcoming a friend back,” former interim co-dean William Corbett said.
Recent Law Center graduate Clare Sanchez served as the Board of Supervisors student representative on the committee during her 3L year.
Sanchez said Galligan has been a unifying figure in the school since the beginning, and his accessibility and heavy focus on student involvement have been essential in making students feel heard.
“He understands that the reason he’s here and the reason he does this job every day is for students,” Sanchez said. “That is his primary focus, but it’s also the overarching theme for everything he does.”
With the resignation of the school’s former chancellor Jack Weiss and the passing of interim co-dean Cheney Joseph Jr. last December, the past year has been filled with uncertainty for the Law Center. Many are looking forward to the stability Galligan brings to the table, Sanchez said.
The transition in leadership has been seamless for students and faculty, Cassidy and Sanchez agreed.
“He has such an incredible track record of being someone who bridges the gap between administrators, faculty and students,” Sanchez said. “We ultimately ended up with the best possible candidate.”
While Galligan is already familiar with the Law Center, he knows certain things have changed in his absence.
“The most important thing for me to do is learn. I was here 18 years ago, and so I keep telling myself I know very little about today,” Galligan said. “I stop in the hall and think about it sometimes, like I’m walking down the same hall I started teaching at. I kind of stop and go, ‘Wow.’”
Cassidy, Sanchez and Corbett all emphasized the importance of Galligan’s ability to fundraise for the Law Center. Although the Law Center is state-assisted, it is not a state-supported school, meaning most of its funding comes from tuition, private donations and endowments.