New England Law Dean's $867,000 Salary Draws Scrutiny Amidst Soaring Tuition, Bleak Job Prospects for Grads

Boston Globe:  New England Law Head Draws Scrutiny For His Pay:  A Princely Paycheck For Dean of Unheralded School:

New England Law, Boston has operated in the shadows of the ­region’s more prestigious law schools for decades, trailing so far behind in some measures of excellence that US News & World ­Report does not include the downtown campus in its widely read ranking of 145 better law schools in the nation. [New England is ranked #154 in academic reputation.]

Yet the school’s longtime dean, John F. O’Brien, may be the highest paid law school dean in America, pocketing more than $867,000 a year in salary and benefits, includ­ing a [$650,000] “forgivable loan” that he used to buy a Florida condominium.

“It’s a remarkable sum to pay a dean of a law school, never mind the dean of a bottom-ranked law school,” said Brian Z. Tamanaha, a law professor and the author of Failing Law Schools, a 2012 book critical of the nation’s legal education system.

O’Brien is paid about as much as the president of Harvard University and more than three times the median salary of law school deans nationally, says a study by the College and University ­Professional Association for Human Resources. Indeed, New England Law could not name a single law school dean in the country who makes more than O’Brien.

But O’Brien’s story is more than the tale of a richly compensated school administrator. It is also the story of a professor who vaulted, just a few years into his academic career, to the top job at a lower-tier law school in large part through shrewd networking, sheer persistence, and a close relationship with the school’s board of trustees, many of whom have served on the board for most or all of O’Brien’s 25-year tenure as dean.

It is also the story of a law school that has hiked tuition by more than 80% in just a few years while doubling the percentage of applicants it accepts, generating the funds for increased student aid but also for the big salaries paid to O’Brien and other top administrators even as the demand for law school graduates dries up. ...

But, away from the glitz, O’Brien’s salary is drawing private criticism from some within the school and public barbs from outside observers who question whether the school is really worth the $40,000 ­tuition it charges students. “There’s no relationship ­between cost and benefit,” said Paul F. Campos, a University of Colorado Law School professor and the author of the blog ­“Inside the Law School Scam.” ...

[S]ome indicators suggest that O’Brien’s impact on New England Law’s performance has been limited. US News & World Report, in its listing of 199 law schools, includes New England Law among the bottom 50 or so schools that it does not publicly rank because they fall “below the US News cutoff.”

In addition, only 34 percent of students in New England Law’s 2011 graduating class were able to land jobs requiring a law degree within nine months of graduating, according to the American Bar Association, compared with 68 percent at Boston College Law School, and 90 percent at ­Harvard Law. ...

Yet, students at New ­England Law pay almost as much in tuition as students attend­ing law schools where graduates generally have more success finding meaningful employment. Boston College law students, for instance, pay only about $1,000 a year more than New England Law students.

But New England Law’s escal­ating tuition has been a boon to its bottom line. The school — a tax-exempt, charitable organization, like most other colleges and universities in the region — reported that revenues exceeded expenses by $10 million in the 2011 fiscal year, which would represent a profit of roughly 30 percent if it were a for-profit company.

O’Brien said the school’s ­robust finances have allowed New England Law to triple ­financial aid, noting that 60 percent of students receive some form of scholarship from the school. The school’s budget surplus translates into roughly $9,000 for every student at New ­England Law, suggesting that officials could significantly ­reduce tuition and still not lose money for the year. ...

A native of Staten Island, he had graduated from Manhattan College, a Catholic school in the Bronx, before graduating first in the class of 1977 at what was then New England School of Law. For the next seven years, O’Brien labored as an attorney for the IRS before returning to New England Law as a professor of constitutional law and personal income taxation and, later, associate dean. In 1988, when he was still only in his late 30s, he was handed the reins of a school known for offer­ing students of lesser means or less than sterling credentials a chance for legal training.