NYU Law's Board of Trustees has new faces in top roles this fall as David Tanner '84 and Florence Davis '79 take up positions as chair and vice chair, respectively.
Tanner, who has served as a trustee for more than 10 years and is managing director of private investment company Three Mile Capital and director of five companies including Northeast Bank, will take the reins from Anthony Welters ’77, executive chairman of the BlackIvy Group. Davis, president of the Starr Foundation and former chief legal officer of American International Group, succeeds Thomas Reed Brome ’67, former partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
Tanner says that, at NYU Law, he has witnessed a talented management team and faculty led by Dean Trevor Morrison as well as a strong board at work in his time as a board member. “For me, this is an opportunity to build from strength... to work closely with Trevor and his team and the rest of the board to further the success of the Law School,” he says.
Welters had led the board since 2008, a decade of growth for the Law School that saw the arrival of Dean Morrison and launch of a new strategic plan. In addition to his board service, Welters with his wife, Beatrice Welters, established the AnBryce Scholarship Program. Brome, who was a Root-Tilden Scholar as a student, has been a major supporter of what is now known as the Root-Tilden-Kern (RTK) Public Interest Scholarship.
The new vice chair, Davis, was also a Root-Tilden Scholar. She notes that the trustees see their involvement as a significant way of giving back to the institution that has enabled their professional success. "It's a very well-run, active board," she says. "I'm delighted to be... working with an executive committee that is really, really involved and committed to the Law School."
The Law School’s strategic plan has established three main goals: leadership and innovation in legal education, diversity and inclusion, and student success. Executing the plan and completing the capital campaign will be the board’s top priorities, Tanner says. Those goals are linked to another key objective, he says: to further increase the diversity of Law School applicants. “Financial aid is paramount in figuring out ways we can make the Law School even more attractive to as diverse a set of applicants as possible,” Tanner says.
Today, the traditional law firm employment route is being challenged as the technology and business sectors are attracting large numbers of top college graduates, says Tanner. The new board chair says he sees an opportunity for NYU Law to articulate what a legal education can enable its graduates to accomplish, whether in the legal profession, in business, in government, or in public interest.
Tanner cites his own experience to demonstrate how the skills developed at the Law School can help graduates succeed in a variety of business settings. He practiced law for only 16 months, he says, but every day still values the skills and confidence that he gained through his legal education. “I think Trevor’s goal, and it’s mine as well,” Tanner says, “is for NYU Law to be known as a place where leaders go to be trained to make a real difference in the world.”
Posted September 4, 2018