Law Schools
Yale Law promotes deputy dean, will be second woman in dean role
Yale Law School has named its new dean, effective Feb. 1, 2026, the university announced Friday. (Photo from Shutterstock)
Yale Law School has named its new dean, effective Feb. 1, 2026, the university announced Friday.
Cristina M. Rodríguez, currently the law school’s deputy dean, becomes second woman to work in that role at the law school tied for first place in the 2025 U.S. News & World Report Best Law Schools rankings.
She replaces Heather Gerken, who left to become president of the Ford Foundation, one of the largest U.S. charitable organizations.
Rodríguez joined the faculty in 2013, teaching a range of subjects including administrative law and process, constitutional law and theory, and immigration law and policy. Previously, she worked for two years as the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.
In 2021, she co-chaired the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. She previously taught at the New York University School of Law and was a visiting professor at Columbia, Harvard and Stanford universities.
A San Antonio native, Rodríguez is a Yale Law alumna who also earned her bachelor’s degree from the university and attended Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar.
“I have no doubt that under Cristina’s principled leadership, Yale Law School will continue to embody the highest ideals of the legal profession and the intellectual pursuit of understanding law’s role in society,” said Maurie McInnis, the president of Yale University, in a statement.
During Gerken’s tenure, Yale Law faced two controversial incidents: In 2022, students disrupted a speaker from a conservative group in March, and a year earlier, the school tried to get a law student to apologize for what it deemed to be an offensive invitation to a “trap house” Constitution Day bash in connection with the conservative Federalist Society.
Two federal appeals judges, both appointees of President Donald Trump, later said they would no longer hire Yale Law graduates as clerks because of their concerns that the school stifles conservative views.
Law.com also had coverage of Rodríguez’s appointment to the dean role.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
