Dear Colleagues, Graduate Students, Law Students, and Miami Law Community:
As we prepare to depart for Spring Break, I write to inform you of two important changes in our academic leadership. I have accepted the resignation of Dean and M. Minnette Massey Professor of Law David Yellen, effective April 1, 2024. After consultation with a group of senior law faculty members, I am grateful that Patricia Sanchez Abril, Interim Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of Business Law at the Miami Herbert Business School, has agreed to serve as interim dean of the Law School. As we work to navigate this transition, I am also pleased that Nicole Leeper Piquero, Chair of the Sociology and Criminology Department at the College of Arts and Sciences, will step in as Interim Dean of the Graduate School.
David Yellen, who joined Miami Law on July 1, 2022 following a national search, has decided to step down, with plans to return to the faculty after a sabbatical year. A seasoned administrator, this was his third deanship, having previously served as Dean at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Hofstra Law School. During his time as Dean, he laid the groundwork for Miami Law to fully embrace the University’s strategic priority of facilitating lifelong learning, with a planned expansion of online offerings.
With our centennial rapidly approaching and the Law School’s own upcoming 100th anniversary, Interim Law Dean Abril will build on the significant accomplishments and lessons of Miami Law’s past, offering stability, focus, and continuous improvement as we identify its future leader. An award-winning educator in business law, ethics, and negotiation, Dean Abril brings nearly a decade of higher education administration experience to her new role, having served as Department Chair and Vice Dean at the Miami Herbert Business School. Under her leadership, Miami Herbert launched innovative graduate programs, redesigned its MBA curriculum, and earned the Financial Times’ top international ranking for teaching law in the MBA. A graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School,
Dean Abril began her legal career at Greenberg Traurig and later Univision before joining the University of Miami faculty in 2005. A highly accomplished legal scholar, she has published extensively in the areas of privacy and business law.
We believe that Miami Law is well-poised for the next step in its journey and we will be relentless in our pursuit of excellence for its next leader. The University will begin a national search for a world-class law school dean. We will engage key stakeholders in the Law School community, including faculty, students, alumni, and trustees, as part of this process.
At the Graduate School, we are fortunate to have in Interim Dean Piquero an experienced higher education administrator, who in addition to her duties as a chair has served as Associate Dean of Program Development in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is an accomplished researcher whose 100+ peer-reviewed articles in the areas of corporate crime, criminological theory, and criminal justice policy have been cited over 8300 times. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Miami in 2020, Dean Piquero held various administrative roles in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, including Associate Vice President for Research Development, Program Head in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Associate Provost, and Associate Dean of
Graduate Programs. She will step down as Department Chair of Sociology and Criminology, and a replacement for her in that role will be announced by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Please join me in congratulating Interim Deans Abril and Piquero on their new appointments and thanking Dean Yellen for his service. |
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