David E. Van Zandt

David Van Zandt joined the Northwestern University School of Law faculty in 1985 and became dean in 1995. Soon after becoming dean, he embarked on a two-year strategic planning process that involved faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

The resulting Strategic Plan, completed in 1998, analyzed the changes in the increasingly competitive world and the resultant changes in the practice of law. Based on that analysis, the Plan set specific goals for the Law School to be in a position to produce graduates who can effectively meet the needs of the changing world. Dean Van Zandt has spent the past several years leading the Law School in implementing the plan to set a new standard in legal education. In addition, he has led a very successful $78 million capital campaign to support strategic initiatives.

Prior to joining the Northwestern faculty, Dean Van Zandt was an associate with Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. He graduated from Yale Law School and earned his PhD in sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is an expert in corporate law and international finance and teaches courses in International Financial Markets, Business Associations, Property, Practical Issues in Business Law, and Legal Realism.

He has published articles and written and presented papers on the regulation of international financial markets, the sociology of religion and deviance, social theory (in particular the microsociological aspects of law), the economics of common sense, and strategic planning in legal education. His book, Living in the Children of God, Princeton University Press (1991), is an analysis of the time he spent with the radical religious group, Children of God.

Dean Van Zandt also clerked for Judge Pierre N. Leval, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (now on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit), and Justice Harry A. Blackmun, United States Supreme Court.

He is a member of the planning committees for the Northwestern University Corporate Counsel Institute and the Northwestern University Corporate Counsel Center and a member of the Dean's Advisory Council of the Kellogg School of Management. Dean Van Zandt is also the treasurer and a director and member of the Executive Committee and the Research Committee of the American Bar Foundation and a director of several private companies.

Revised February 11, 2004