Meet Georgetown Law’s Interim Dean Joshua C. Teitelbaum

On July 1, Professor Joshua C. Teitelbaum became the Interim Dean of Georgetown Law, taking over the reins - for the next year or so - at the nation's largest law school. Teitelbaum, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University as well as a J.D. from Harvard Law School, came to the Law Center in 2009 to take his first full-time job teaching law, and has been here ever since. The David Belding Professor of Law and a Professor of Economics (by courtesy) at Georgetown University, he's a prolific researcher and collaborator whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of decision theory and law and regulation.

We spoke to him recently about his path into academia, his passion for his scholarship and his hopes for his time as dean.

How did you end up with graduate degrees in both law and economics?

I wanted to make a living with my mind, and I didn't want to be a doctor like the rest of my family. Doing my undergraduate honors thesis in economics was a transformative experience. I had never considered doing a Ph.D., but that experience was so enjoyable.

I applied to both law schools and Ph.D. programs, and decided to go to Harvard Law School. I ended up as both a research assistant and a teaching assistant for Professor Steven Shavell, one of the founding fathers of the law and economics field. My relationship with him continues to this day and has been hugely influential. I essentially tried to become him.

After law school, I did a judicial clerkship and worked in a law firm in New York. I had fixed in my mind to go back for my economics Ph.D., but I wanted to practice law for a while. I was doing mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, business transactions - I liked it! But then a partnership decision was coming and I felt like it would be really hard to leave if I made partner. So I went back to grad school.

My world had changed by then - I was married. Cornell was a win-win for me and my wife: I did my Ph.D. and started teaching law as a visiting assistant professor, and her auditing firm had a major client in that part of New York, so she was able to fill a senior role there. Ithaca was great. We bought this tiny little house, both our kids were born there, that was a really nice time.

How have the two disciplines complemented each other in your teaching and scholarship?

The application of economics to legal questions is my prism on the law. In my first year of law school, I felt like I was reading a bunch of opinions and it was all ad hoc. Do I just have to remember a million one-off exceptions? Economics gave me a way to create a logic. And that spills over in my teaching. When you take Torts with me, you're going to get a certain perspective that you wouldn't necessarily get in another classroom.

When I was a law student, I didn't want to be a litigator. I wanted to be a transactional attorney. And I felt like the curriculum was preparing everyone to be an appellate litigator. So when I came here, I created a class called "Deals: The Economics of Structuring Transactions." There are some versions of it at other schools. I think it fills a gap that I saw in my own law school curriculum.

In my pure economics work, I study how individuals make decisions in environments of risk and uncertainty. And then my law and economics work is still decision theory-oriented, in the sense that I'm studying legal actors, people operating in the legal system. That could just be you and me, as we're being influenced by what the legal rules are, but it could be judges or other legal actors. Studying their decisionmaking behavior and how the law influences that. So liability regimes, tort law, contract law - I've written papers about maritime law. I love my maritime stuff just because nobody else in my field writes about it, it's just kind of fun.

What attracted you to join the Georgetown Law faculty - and what's kept you here so long?

I wanted to go to a school that had a really rich intellectual life. A faculty seminar here can be really far afield from what I'm doing. And that's the whole reason you become a professor - you don't want to stop learning.

I've loved it here. I identify with Georgetown's values and mission very much. I'm not Catholic, but the Jesuit values resonate with my own: the importance of education, of educating the whole person. And my family's been happy in Washington. It's been good professionally for my wife. My kids have been happy in their schools. So there's been no reason to move. Don't try to make a happy baby happier - that never works.

What past experiences have prepared you to serve in this role?

About a decade ago, I served as Associate Dean for Research and Academic Programs. I'm quite happy doing my professor thing, but it was nice to see the bigger picture and what everybody else is doing and how that fits into making this law school go. I got to meet so many people I probably never would have interacted with, both in the law school and around the university. And I really enjoyed working with Bill [Dean Emeritus William M. Treanor].

And at my law firm, I was on Wall Street. I know how to read financial statements and think that way. That is very helpful.

I'm not sure most students could tell you what the dean does. I was once at a law school reunion, and the then-dean said hi to me at the Saturday night gala, and I just said hello - I didn't take the opportunity to talk to her. It was Elena Kagan, who of course went on to become a Supreme Court Justice. That is not in my future! But then, I didn't appreciate it at all.

You're a very prolific scholar and collaborator - is your research on hold while you are interim dean?

[With a slightly pained expression] Well… you have projects in different parts of the life cycle. Where things are already fairly far along, in peer-reviewed journals where you're responding to revision requests - those will keep moving. But then I have some projects at the earliest phase, where we're working on the theoretical part or we're collecting data, or even still in the raw idea stage. So I think the hardest thing in this job will be starting new projects. You need uninterrupted time to think, to just read a whole bunch of things, until it starts to take shape.

Were you able to get away this summer?

My wife's from Rhode Island, and we go to Narragansett Beach each summer with her family - she's one of six kids, all the siblings, her mother, the cousins. My daughter, Katherine, just finished her sophomore year at Cornell, and my son, David, is starting his senior year in high school.

For me, summer is always about baseball. Each year hope springs eternal for each team. The regular season provides a constant backdrop to summer. I've been an Baltimore Orioles fan since childhood - my father was a psychiatrist and he took a job at Johns Hopkins when I was starting first grade. My other sports passion is Premier League fantasy football - I finished third in my league last year!

Heading into this new academic year, do you have any advice or requests for the campus community here?

This is definitely a time of transition. We are transitioning at the presidential level at the university and at the decanal level in the law school - both after long periods of stability. That's exciting - and a little scary. And then there are external forces on all universities right now, there's uncertainty about student loans, about international students' access to come to the United States.

I guess my message would just be: Let's be kind to each other. We're all going to be facing unique challenges this year. It's going to require some cooperation, understanding and patience. That said, this is a special place. There's a magic that happens when classes are in session. So I hope in this time of transition, we cut each other a break and have a great year.