At the Pinnacle of the Profession

Edward Kleinbard installed as Johnson Professor of Law and Business

-Story by Lori Craig; photos by Tom Queally

The USC Gould community celebrated the installation of Edward Kleinbard as the Ivadelle and Theodore Johnson Professor of Law and Business Oct. 22 at USC’s Town and Gown.

Kleinbard, a renowned tax practitioner and policy advisor who quickly became a leader in academia, reflected on the intellectual mission of any great law school. A law school’s faculty must balance investigating law as an object — using other disciplines to help examine legal problems from an external vantage point — and investigating law as a subject — studying the legal system’s core values from the inside, he said.

Edward D. Kleinbard

“All these ingredients that together describe the academic interests of a law school should be leavened by a predilection for action: a law school should be more than an observer of social phenomena,” Kleinbard said. “I believe that one feature of a great law school that distinguishes it from other schools or departments is that the law school’s tenured faculty should find ways to engage directly with the larger world through the medium of law, for example through litigation projects, government service, applied papers aimed at influencing policy makers, or clinical work.

“I think it is a mistake to believe that the esteem in which a law school is held is directly proportional to the extent to which it has withdrawn from the quotidian world.”

In examining USC Gould’s role and place within the university and greater community, Kleinbard proposed a motto: “Small school, big tent.”

“I view both our manageable size and the eclecticism of our faculty’s interests as two of our greatest strengths,” Kleinbard said.

More strength could be drawn from exploiting the law school’s location and aggressively partnering with the legal practice community and other professional schools on campus, he said.

Kleinbard, who joined USC Gould in 2009, previously served as chief of staff of U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. Prior to that appointment, he for more than 20 years was a partner in the New York office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.

His experiences in government, private practice and academia culminated in the recent publication of his book, “We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money” (Oxford University Press, 2014), which will be celebrated on the USC campus on Dec. 4.

Dean Robert K. Rasmussen

Dean Robert K. Rasmussen said that the book’s positive reviews are testament to the stature Kleinbard has gained in the field. Rasmussen also noted the popularity of Kleinbard’s academic articles and commended his ability to “penetrate into the public consciousness” with editorials or as an often-quoted source in popular news sources.

While an endowed professorship is based primarily on scholarly attainment, Rasmussen reflected on Kleinbard’s positive impact on the USC Gould community.

“Ed has shared with us his ideas; he has reminded us on multiple occasions that our primary mission is to take our ideas and instill them in our students so our students become effective practicing lawyers,” Rasmussen said. “He has taught successfully in the classroom, going so far as to write memos to students playfully entitled, ‘What was he thinking?’ just to make sure that students understand what the point of a lecture was. So I personally would simply like to thank Ed for being part of this community, for sharing his ideas, his passion … [being] an inspiration for us. And we are lucky to have you as a friend and colleague.”

USC Provost and Senior Vice Pres. Elizabeth Garrett

USC Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Elizabeth Garrett, who also holds an endowed professorship at USC Gould, said that bestowing a chair is one of the most important things the university does as an institution.

“It is celebrating our academic faculty’s work and their teaching, and in the case of Ed Kleinbard, it’s really celebrating somebody who has been integral to bringing our tax program — already highly ranked — to even greater heights,” Garrett said.

Garrett praised Kleinbard’s work on the Joint Committee on Taxation, but noted he was “destined for the academy,” where he would find an environment conducive to thoughtful analysis.

“He has produced tremendously important work in our own field of tax, but it is the book that has just come out that I think will mark an entirely new phase in Ed’s career,” Garrett said. “It is a great book and it approaches complex problems from a sophisticated direction. And he argues that government, which is to say all of us acting collectively, … can make our country healthier, wiser, a better place, if we put government to work in those areas where it can make a positive difference.

“It is an optimistic book about government, but it is a realistic book about government.”

Kleinbard concluded the festivities by shifting the praise to USC Gould’s more recently hired faculty members, including Sam Erman, Alex Lee, Emily Ryo and Abby Wood.

“I cannot let this opportunity go by without observing how extraordinarily talented our junior faculty are, and how lucky we are to have you here,” Kleinbard said. “I am overwhelmed by the weight of the great honor of being awarded the Johnson Chair in Law and Business, and I very much hope in turn that in a few years’ time I will sit in the audience as each of you is invested with a chair for your distinguished contributions to legal scholarship and to the life of our community.”