Summer 1999 – Issue 55 - Stanford Lawyer - Stanford University

Restoring the library after the Lorna Prieta earthquake; swinging from the hip at a faculty/student softball game; bidding at a SPILF auction.Library. ext, Stanford was forced to undergo a painful andprotracted series ofbudget cuts, after the federal governmentinvestigated the University for alleged overcharging relatedto research costs. The Law School was told to expect budgetreductions of 10 percent or more-about $1.5million.By the time Brest sent his fifth letter toalumni, in 1991, the Law School was clingingprecariously to its position in the top tier ofpremier institutions. Faculty salaries were nmning20 to 30 percent behind peer schools, someofwhich were poised to begin stealing Stanford'sstars. Student loan burdens, exacerbated by saggingfinancial aid hmds, had risen to alarminglevels. Curricular initiatives, including the fledglingbut promising Law and Business program,were threatened by a mandatory cap on facultyhiring. It was time to be hlunt."Your law school is in peril," Brest wrote."I'm writing now to tell you that our achievementsand our future are in jeopardy." It was notexactly a conventional approach to fund-raising,but it was illustrative of what would become aBrest trademark: substance over style, candorover coyness. His sincerity won over alunmiand the dollars began pouring in. As of thiswriting, gifts and pledges to the School's campaigntotaled more than $88 million, and alumnigiving had risen from 28 percent annually toalmost 40 percent."The credit for this extraordinary fundraisingsuccess lies squarely and personally withPaul Brest," said Dean-designate KathleenSullivan. "He devoted himself to tirelessly andceaselessly criss-crossing the country, reachingout to Law School alunmi and friends.""Paul Brest has been,for the I 2 years ofhisdeanship, one ofthegreat inspi'ringfiguresin Ame'rican legaleducation. He has ledthe way toward amore supportive1relationship betweenthe legal academyand the pmcticing bar,and has helped lawteache'rs eve'rywhereundentand the novelchallenges they face ina p'rofession - in aW01rld - that ischanging in suchd'ramatic ways. It hasbeen my gnatprivilege to wO'rk withPaul on a va1riety ofcollab01rative p'rojects,and I salute him forhis lasting cont'ributionto Stanfo'rd LawSchool and to legaleducation genemlly. "ANTHONY KRONMANDean, Yale Law SchoolImportantly, according to Sullivan, Brest's interest inalumni went far beyond raising dollars. "He did not simplysolicit their gifts," she said. "He engaged them in wide-rangingdialogue about the mission ofthe Law School, the futureofour profession, and the intersection oflegaldisciplines with the worlds ofbusiness and publicpolicymaking."There probably is no one thing for whichBrest will be remembered-his shadow is longand his achievements diverse-but his successin returning the Law School to sound financialfooting unquestionably has etched his nameamong the key figures in Stanford's history.WHENHE ASSUMED the deanshipin 1987, Brest was a respectedprofessor who, like his predecessor,John Hart Ely, already had assembled adistinguished career as a constitutional lawscholar. He had experience with curricular reformand some otl1er administrative matters, butadmittedly knew virtually nothing about fundraising.Some wondered whether his low-keystyle would be an impediment to attractingdonors. Brest agrees that the reservations werelegitimate. "I would have been skeptical aboutme," he said.Brest's longtime assistant Nancy Strausserrecalls that, early in his deanship, Brest hadhmd-raising staffliterally script what he wouldsay in certain situations. "It was hard in thosedays to keep him at a social function longenough to see the people he needed to see," shesaid. "His main interest was seeing how quicklyhe could get back to his computer."Strausser says part of that reticence was