Brooklyn Law School Dean Nicholas Allard writes smug and jokey law review article bragging about how he refused to allow a nine-year-old girl to have a pet dog.

Last November, if you recall, Brooklyn Law School [BLS] Dean Nicholas Allard wrote a letter to Erica Moeser, President of the National Conference of Bar Examiners, imperiously demanding that Moeser provide a "sincere apology" for her "not only surprisingly defensive, but offensive" comment that the decline in bar passage rates was attributable to less able law grads, and also demanding that Moeser provide a "complete explanation" of her motives and timing.

 

In his letter to Moeser, which he cc’d to every other law school Dean, Allard instructed Moeser that there had to be a problem with the integrity and fairness of the bar exam when "more than a small number" do not pass since "graduating from an ABA accredited law school requires intelligence and hard work." Allard did not mention, in his pompous rebuke, that the 25^th percentile LSAT score of incoming Brooklyn law students has declined by nine points between 2010 and 2014, prima facie evidence from his own institution that Moeser’s assessment was correct.

 

At the time, Allard’s letter to Moeser struck me in tone and substance as a thuggish attempt to deflect well-deserved blame from himself and fellow law deans by trying to bully and humiliate Moeser for the crime of stating the very, very obvious. However, Allard has a gentler and more personable side, which he exhibits in his recent boosterish law review article "A Dean Grows in Brooklyn," 46 University of Toledo Law Review 273 (2015). This light-hearted article about his first couple of years as Dean is filled with cutesy witticisms and mildly self-deprecating little vignettes meant to depict BLS as an upbeat, diverse, and tight-knit community of "thinkers, doers, leaders, and motivated bright students." Dean Grows, at 275. See e.g. Id. at 277 ("While pizza may seem like the great unifying force at the Law School, there are other common factors: namely their pride in their law school."); Id. at 275 ("Law schools are places of unbridled energy, intellectual curiosity, and unwavering purpose, preparing leaders in law, government, commerce, and education"); Id., n.20 at 288 ("Oprah Winfrey once told me to stop my name-dropping").

Consider the following anecdote from the article in light of Allard’s conflict with Moeser. It seems that Allard and a law student were chatting in an elevator the day before the bar exam. The student said that there was still "so much I still don’t know," but that she would nonetheless "just handle it and wing it if need be." Id., n.9 at 279. Allard supposedly replied, "I could not be prouder of you if you knew all the material. You are ready!" Id. The student later effusively thanked Allard for giving her the confidence she needed. Id.

 

Granted, the day before the bar exam is a little late to say "You are doing it wrong," but did Allard really find her can-do attitude to be as praiseworthy as actually learning the law? I suppose if Allard had had an extra few seconds in that elevator he could have added some additional confidence-building bullshit, such as: "And if you fail the bar, I will personally admonish the chief bar examiner that the test she administers must be terribly flawed in that it did not reward your intrepid winging.

Allard's article drips with accolades for the quality and commitment of the BLS faculty, but I was drawn to the paragraph where Allard gently teases the lawprofs for throwing themselves drinking parties in the middle of the day. He states, "What other group of people will use words like oeuvre a half dozen times in a single faculty meeting, talking about a number of different agenda items? I never even knew that oeuvre was word you said out loud! And of all the different jobs I’ve had, I’ve never worked with anybody who throws an off-site going away party during the week at four in the afternoon!. . . Who has a party at 4 p.m.? You gotta love it!" Id. at 279.

Yes, you gotta. Nothing fills my heart with love like the thought of six-figure-salaried law faculty at a trap school with an appalling job placement record and a declining bar passage rate toasting their oeuvres and slurping down cocktails at off-site parties held during work hours.
 

And finally to the most compelling portion of the article. Allard writes at considerable length about denying the request of a lonely nine-year-old girl, the daughter of a faculty member, to have a pet dog in law school housing. On the surface, Allard’s response to the girl would seem contrary to the nice-guy image he seeks to create. I mean, he did tell a lonely child that she could not have the doggie she yearned for. But here is thing: He was so solicitous of the child, turned her down in such a sweet way, and told the tale so amusingly, that his decency and caring shine through anyway-- sort of like a jolly St. Nick who spreads such abundant cheer and goodwill that you don’t hold it against him when he says that he deeply regrets that you can’t have a present.  

"I’d spent most of my career in the nation’s capital with a track record of problem solving. I worked with some of the finest law firms, leading public servants, and some of the best educational institutions in the world. But frankly nothing quite prepared me for the email I received one afternoon during my first week on the job. It was from a nine-year-old, a daughter of a member of the faculty. She wrote politely, articulately, and persuasively about a dog, or, more accurately, her lack thereof. In her email, she asked that she be allowed to have a pet dog in the law school housing where her family lives, even though BLS policy forbids pets. She explained that she had recently moved to Brooklyn, had not yet made a lot of friends, and would love the company of a dog, which she promised to love and care for. Moreover, she promised to make sure the dog would never bother anyone. "Please, Dean Allard," she wrote, "let me have a dog." I handled tough matters in my career, but I never had to tell a lonely nine-year-old she couldn’t have a dog. And, as it turned out, I had to dig very deep into my reservoir of life experience to handle such a skilled advocate.  

I emailed her back and empathized with her plight. I mentioned that I had lived in Washington, D.C. for a long time and had left many friends there, and admitted that I too was trying to make new ones. I explained that, while I was getting ready to become the dean, I had lived in the very same building and hoped that she and her family would like it as much as I did. But, I continued, I thought the law school residence was a better place for humans than for dogs. I closed my email by inviting her and her family in for a meeting to get to know each other and discuss her request. The precocious child emailed back, "I can fit you in Monday between 3:45 and 4:00 p.m." I’m no dummy. I took the slot. 

On the day of the meeting, in the presence of her mother, I heard the young girl argue her case in One Dog Lover v. BLS. I patiently explained the policy reasons behind the school’s ban on pets. "I really want a dog," she replied. I made a tactical retreat. "I wanted a dog as a kid too, and my parents said, ‘No,’" glancing sheepishly at her mother. "My folks gave me a goldfish instead. Perhaps you would like a pet fish?" [13 sentences of additional repartee between girl and Dean omitted] . . . I turned to her mother: "Not sure what to tell you here. She’s a tough, capable advocate. I recommend she go to law school."

Id. at 274-275.

Dean Allard does assure his readers that the girl adjusted alright to her dogless reality, and being the child of a law professor, there is no reason to doubt that her circumstances are relatively good. Although that may not last if she takes Allard’s rotten career advice-- or, shall I call it, the fruit of the poisonous Dean.

 

However, I am wondering about the children of recent and not-so-recent BLS alumni. It just may be that many of them have to do without a lot of things they might enjoy, or even need, because they have a parent who is struggling with educational loan payments (Brooklyn Law grads accrue an average of $114,953 in law school debt) or the stigma of a toxic degree. Perhaps the ever-gregarious Allard will consent to meet with each such child for 15 minutes to bestow some insincere commiseration plus a complimentary pet goldfish. Think of all the law review articles that would yield.

 

Unfortunately, all the starry-eyed mush and gush in Allard’s article, and even the humorous poster of Dean Wormer from Animal House that he hung on the wall behind his office desk (Id., n.8 at 278), failed to alter my conclusion that this guy is one cold fish. Pre-BLS deanship, Allard was a Rhodes scholar, a Yale Law grad, counsel to a major U.S. Senator, a partner at Latham & Watkins and then at Patton Boggs, and was widely recognized as a top D.C. corporate lobbyist. That is, a serious person and a faithful servant to the powerful. My guess is that the reason that Allard acts like an overly enthusiastic buffoon now that he has made a late-career transition into a high-profile academic leadership position is because he thinks that it gives him the common touch, sort of like George W. Bush with his fake cowboy act.

 

Maybe my resistance to the jokey charm that Allard displayed in A Dean Grows in Brooklyn is due to having read yet another article that Allard wrote, this one entitled: "Lobbying is An Honorable Profession: The Right to Petition and the Competition to be Right," 19 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 23 (2008). In that article, written when he was still at Patton Boggs, Allard states that, "The simple truth is that our government cannot be bought." Lobbying, at 29.

 

I simply cannot believe that a man as sophisticated  as Allard wrote those words without experiencing a surge of duping delight, and that goes likewise for his letter to Moeser, and probably for all his law school promotional activities, not excepting recommending law school to a nine-year-old girl whom he has just screwed out of a pooch.