Frederick M. Lawrence (Georgetown; CEO, Phi Beta Kappa Society), Higher Education and the Law(yers), 49 J.C. & U.L. 113 (2024) (reviewing Louis H. Guard (Vice President & General Counsel, Hobart and William Smith Colleges) & Joyce P. Jacobsen (Former President, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Google Scholar), All the Campus Lawyers: Litigation, Regulation, and the New Era of Higher Education (Harvard University Press 2024)):

There are certain special relationships that have historically been central to the administration and governance of institutions of higher education. Some are well known. The relationship between the president or chancellor and the chair of the governing board is one such relationship, and, although the specifics will vary from one campus to another, so is the relationship between the president and the chief academic officer and the chief administrative or operating officer. Until relatively recently, most university leaders would not have included the university’s lawyer to be among these partnerships; today nearly all would. One such team, the former president and general counsel of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Joyce P. Jacobsen and Louis H. Guard, respectively, have shared their own experiences and knowledge of the field to produce a highly readable and useful discussion of how legal issues have become central to the management of the modern university, and how the campus counsel has become a key member of the president’s team.

Guard and Jacobsen seek to explain how it is that legal issues moved from the periphery to a central concern of institutions of higher education.

Part I consists of a series of chapters, each of which focuses on an area of the law whose impact on higher education has dramatically increased. Some of this will be familiar terrain to those engaged in the study and practice of higher education law or in the administration of colleges and universities. As their goal is to explain the legal developments affecting higher education “in a way that is as accessible to as many people as possible,” the authors assume minimal background knowledge and provide context that will be welcome to the general reader if sometimes somewhat excessive for the specialist. 

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