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Law Dean Named
David F. Levi, Chief U.S. District Judge
of the Eastern District of California and a national leader in
legal reform and civil procedure, has been named the next dean
of Duke Law School. Levi succeeds Katharine T. Bartlett, who will
step down at the end of the academic year to return to teaching
and scholarship after seven years as dean.
Levi is "a leader with broad intellectual interests and a
thoughtful, academic temperament," says Provost Peter Lange.
Levi was universally praised during the search process for his
wisdom and judgment, his substantial administrative experience,
and his deep understanding of and connections within the legal
community nationwide, he says.
Levi cites "the exceptional momentum" of Duke's law school
as a critical factor in his decision to leave the federal bench—"a
career choice of some magnitude."
"It is a privilege to join a law school of the first rank
that is imbued with a sense of optimism and purpose, within a university
that places an emphasis on knowledge in the service of society," he
says.
Following graduation from Stanford Law School in 1980, Levi clerked
for Ben C. Duniway, a judge with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,
and then for Lewis F. Powell, an associate justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court. He joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern
District of California as a prosecutor in 1983 and was appointed
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District in 1986. He managed an office
of more than fifty lawyers and supervised one of the largest investigations
of public corruption in California history, leading to the prosecution
of several California state legislators for bribery and extortion.
In 1990, President George H.W. Bush appointed Levi a federal district
judge. Levi became chief judge in May 2003.
Long recognized as a leader in legal reform, Levi was appointed
by former Chief Justice William Rehnquist to the Advisory Committee
on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1994 and became chair
of the committee in 2000. Three years later, Rehnquist appointed
Levi to chair the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice
and Procedure, which oversees all federal rule-making conducted
by the Judicial Conference, the body charged with revising and
crafting rules and practices for approval by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Levi's father, the late Edward H. Levi, served as dean of the University
of Chicago Law School and then as that university's president,
before being appointed U.S. attorney general by President Gerald
Ford in 1975.
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