HWS News
1 May 2024 • Faculty The New Yorker "Best Book": All the Campus Lawyers By Andrew Wickenden '09
A new book by HWS General Counsel Lou Guard ’07 and Professor of Economics Joyce P. Jacobsen explores the legal controversies shaping the current higher ed landscape.
Today, Harvard University Press published All the Campus Lawyers: Litigation, Regulation, and the New Era of Higher Education by HWS General Counsel Lou Guard ’07 and Professor of Economics and former HWS President Joyce P. Jacobsen.
Selected by The New Yorker as a “best book of the week," Guard and Jacobsen's book explores the ways in which the legal landscape around higher education has changed and how colleges and universities can respond to legal pressures while remaining true to their educational missions.
All the Campus Lawyers provides a vital, up-to-date assessment of the impact of legal concerns on higher education and helps readers make sense of the most pressing trends and issues and their impact on higher education, including civil rights; free speech and expression; student life and wellness; admissions, advancement, and community relations; governance and oversight; the higher education business model; and on-campus crises, from cyberattacks to pandemics.
“So much of what consumes the higher ed press today relates to legal issues on campuses. It is important for the public, trustees, administrators, faculty, students, policymakers, and anyone concerned with higher ed to have an understanding of how these issues are impacting higher ed’s core mission today,” Guard says.
Jacobsen, who spent much of the last decade in higher ed administration, found her firsthand knowledge of legal issues to be both inspirational and invaluable for writing this book. She and Guard wrote All the Campus Lawyers and used the draft manuscript while they were co-teaching a course, “Law and Economics of Higher Education,” at HWS during the spring semester of 2022.
Guard, who also used material from the book for his seminar on the law of higher education at Cornell Law School, says, “Working with Joyce on this project has been a real privilege. She is a scholar of the highest caliber. I have valued our discussions and debate on these topics, and our friendship.”
Jacobsen says that the collaboration “was a constant pleasure, even as we were writing about an enormous range of difficult and controversial topics. Lou thinks deeply about the law of higher education and has an encyclopedic understanding of the issues that it involves.”
In February, the Chronicle of Higher Education looked at these questions in an article featuring Guard, who explained how increasing federal regulation — such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the gender-equity law known as Title IX and Civil Rights legislation — had prompted institutions to hire general counsel. In March, the Chronicle highlighted insights from All the Campus Lawyers in its weekly newsletter.
Jacobsen and Guard were also recently interviewed by the Harvard Crimson for an article looking at recent leadership changes in Harvard’s Office of General Counsel and the implications for the university and its search for a successor.
A cum laude graduate of Hobart College and Cornell Law School, Guard joined HWS in 2014. He provides legal advice and counsel across institutional areas, assists the president with all major initiatives and projects, and is responsible for the strategic direction of legal affairs for HWS. Guard serves as Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trustees and is the primary governance adviser to the Board. He previously also served as Chief of Staff to President Emeritus Mark D. Gearan. A Geneva native, Guard is admitted to practice law in New York and Pennsylvania, and has worked at leading law firms in Philadelphia, and Rochester, N.Y. His written work has appeared in the Journal of College and University Law, and he is an active member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA). He has served as a panelist at Stetson Law School’s National Conference on Law and Higher Education, as a NACUA panel moderator, and as a consultant to the Association of Governing Boards on issues of collegiate mergers and acquisitions. He has taught and guest lectured on business law and higher education law topics at Hobart and William Smith and Boston College Law School, respectively, and is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School.
Between 2019 and 2022, Jacobsen served as the President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Previously the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wesleyan University, Jacobsen earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University and M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with her A.B. in economics as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She began her academic career teaching at Rhodes College and Wesleyan University where she was awarded an endowed chair as Andrews Professor of Economics and received the university’s prestigious Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching. She began her work as an administrator in 2013 when she was appointed Dean of Social Sciences and Director of Global Initiatives at Wesleyan, and then Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs in 2015. An expert on labor economics, particularly the economics of gender, she is the author of scores of journal articles and book chapters exploring sex segregation, migration and the effects of labor force intermittency on women’s earnings, among other topics, as well as the economics of wine and other collectibles. Her books include Advanced Introduction to Feminist Economics, The Economics of Gender, Queer Economics: A Reader (co-edited with Adam Zeller) and Labor Markets and Employment Relationships (with Gilbert L. Skillman). Jacobsen has been a member of the HWS Economics Department faculty since 2019.
