Troy McKenzie was appointed as the dean of the NYU School of Law, President Andrew Hamilton and Provost Katherine Fleming announced on April 29. McKenzie will take over from outgoing dean Trevor Morrison early next month.

“NYU Law became my home when I arrived as an admitted student 25 years ago, and I am profoundly honored to serve in this role,” McKenzie said in a press release. “I look forward to engaging with the entire community to realize the extraordinary potential of the Law School.”

McKenzie, who graduated from NYU Law in 2000, joined the school’s faculty in 2007 and is currently the Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law. He is also faculty co-director of NYU Law’s Institute of Judicial Administration and its Center on Civil Justice. 

In 2015, McKenzie took a leave of absence from the law school to serve as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, before returning to NYU Law in 2017. In his time teaching at the law school, McKenzie has received two distinguished teaching awards.

“Support for Troy McKenzie as dean is both universal among Law School constituencies and overwhelming,” Hamilton wrote in the announcement. “He is widely admired for his good judgment, his equanimity, his respectful treatment of colleagues, his wide-ranging scholarly interests and support of colleagues, his readiness to mentor and support students, his dedication and work ethic, and his manifest love of the school.”

Morrison, the current dean of the law school, announced in October that he would be stepping down from his position at the end of the 2021-22 academic year. Since he became dean in 2013, Morrison’s administration has hired 17 new tenured and tenure-track faculty and added 15 research centers to the law school. 

During Morrison’s term in office, he led the law school in reinvesting in the Loan Repayment Assistance Program, which provides financial assistance for students working in the public interest sector, and helped create a COVID-19 hardship fund to support students during the pandemic. The school also completed its Lead the Way fundraising campaign, which raised over $540 million dollars to expand financial aid, hire faculty and create new academic centers.

“I want to thank the outgoing dean, Trevor Morrison, for his exceptional service as dean,” Hamilton said. “He did an exceptional job, and leaves the Law School far stronger than he found it.”

Contact Carmo Moniz at [email protected].