Michael Reisman, Dean of the New Haven School of International Law

Abstract

I am Dean of the Yale Law School. I like to think of myself as Michael Reisman's "other Harold." His first Harold was, of course, the great political scientist Harold Lasswell who, along with Myres McDougal, founded the New Haven School of International Law. But for nearly twenty-five years, Michael Reisman has also been my senior colleague, and by osmosis, my teacher, as we have served together on the Yale Law School faculty. I like to think that he has granted me, a lifelong New Havener, admission as a "special student" in the New Haven School of International Law. That is an intellectual school in which I have been a fellow traveler and of which Michael has been the acknowledged Dean. And so, the irony: while I have been his "other Harold," Michael has been my "other Dean!"