David Schizer

David Schizer is the current dean of the law school and an expert in tax law.

The son of two lawyers, he has described dinner table conservations as a child as Socratic. He attended Yale College, where he obtained the highest grades in his class, as well as a dual-degree bachelor's and master's in only four years. He continued his studies at Yale Law school.

After graduating from Yale Law School in 1993, Schizer served as law clerk to Judge Alex Kozinski and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Upon completion of his clerkship, Schizer practiced law in the tax department of the New York law firm Davis, Polk and Wardwell.

In 1998, Schizer joined the Columbia Law faculty and, in 2004, he was appointed dean at 35 years old, the youngest in Columbia Law history. Michael Dorf, head of the faculty search committee for a new dean, expresed that Schizer's youth would surround Columbia with an atmosphere of excitement.

His deanship has, however, been clouded by a series of high-profile faculty departures.