Legal Services NYC Board Member Matthew Diller Named Dean of Cardozo School of Law

Longtime Legal Services NYC Board member Matthew Diller will become the sixth dean of the
Benjamin A. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University on August 1st. 

Legal Services NYC Executive Director Andy Scherer said “Matt’s
commitment to social justice has been an enormous asset to our
organization for the past ten years. We are thrilled that Cardozo Law
will also benefit from his vision and his example, and we wish him
great success in his new role.”

A full press release from Cardozo follows: 

Matthew Diller Named Dean of Cardozo

Yeshiva University
Appoints New Dean at Benjamin
N. Cardozo
School of Law;

Matthew Diller, Distinguished
Fordham Law Professor and Administrator, Named

Matthew
Diller, a prominent scholar of social
welfare law and policy, who from 2003
to 2008 was associate dean for academic affairs at Fordham
Law School, has been named dean of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva
University, announced Yeshiva President Richard Joel. Diller is the Cooper
Family Professor of Law and co-director of the Louis Stein
Center for Law and Ethics
at Fordham Law, where he has taught since 1993.

According to President Joel,
“Matthew Diller is a scholar and administrator of the highest order and brings
to Cardozo an enduring commitment to social justice. He embodies the values and
vision that inform and propel the Yeshiva
University educational
experience.”

Diller, who will begin his
duties on August 1, 2009, is the sixth dean to lead Cardozo. He succeeds David
Rudenstine, who has been in the position since 2001 and who will return to teaching
at Cardozo full time as the Sheldon H. Solow Professor of Law.

The youngest of Manhattan’s law
schools, Cardozo has achieved national acclaim for its programs in intellectual
property law and alternative dispute resolution and is home to The Innocence
Project, the world-renowned clinic that has used post-conviction DNA testing to
free hundreds of wrongly-convicted individuals. Since its founding in 1976, the
law school has graduated more than 10,000 J.D. and LL.M. candidates who are now
living and working throughout the United States and internationally

Diller said, “Cardozo is one
of the remarkable success stories of legal education over the past half century.
I am excited at the prospect of working with the superb faculty, administration,
students, and board members who always conveyed great love for the law school
and excitement about the possibilities for its future. I was especially struck
by the energy, dynamism, and leadership of President Joel and his and the
University administration’s commitment to helping Cardozo flourish.” He
continued, “I’m coming to Cardozo at a time when I can build upon the
extraordinary example set by David Rudenstine, during whose remarkable deanship
Cardozo has blossomed.”

Diller, who has lectured and
written extensively on the legal dimensions of social welfare policy, including
public assistance, social security, and disability programs, was from 1986 to
1993 a staff attorney in the civil appeals and law reform unit of the Legal Aid
Society in New York. He received his A.B. and J.D. degrees magna cum laude from
Harvard University and then clerked from
1985-1986 for the late Honorable Walter R. Mansfield of the US Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit. In the fall of 1999, Diller was scholar in residence at
the Brennan Center for Justice at New York
University School of Law. His articles have been published in the Yale Law Journal, UCLA Law Review, Texas Law
Review, Stanford Law & Policy
Review, among others.

Cardozo Board Chair Kathryn
O. Greenberg, a member of Cardozo’s class of 1982, said “I am excited and fully
supportive of this outstanding appointment and look forward to working closely
with Matthew Diller. I am particularly pleased that he will continue to build
upon the solid foundation and emphasis on legal ethics and public service that
was strengthened so gloriously by Dean David Rudenstine.”

In addition to his
responsibilities at Fordham, Diller has been a member of the board of directors
of Legal Services [NYC] since 1999 and was its vice chair from 2003-2007.
He has been a member of the executive committee of the poverty law section of
the Association of American Law Schools and was chair of the committee in
1999-2000. From 2000 to 2008, he was also a member of the board of directors of
The National Center for
Law
and Economic Justice.

At Fordham, Diller was
recognized by the 2002 graduating class with the Eugene Keefe Award for
outstanding contributions to the law school and in 2000 received the Louis J.
Lefkowitz Award for the Advancement of Urban Law from the Fordham Urban Law Journal. In 1991 he received the legal services
award from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.