Among law school deans, Joseph P. Tomain has shown uncommon staying power.

        Having led the University of Cincinnati College of Law since 1990, he is in his third five-year contract and is one of the longest-serving deans of UC's 17 colleges.

Tomain

        If he wins a fourth contract in 2005 and completes it, he will become UC's longest-serving law school dean.

        Nationally, the median tenure at their present institutions is just under five years at the 184 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association.

        When he took the acting dean's job in 1989 and was confirmed a year later after a national search, the conventional wisdom was three-years-and-out. His immediate UC predecessors served three and seven years, respectively.

        U.S. News & World Report ranks UC law school in its top tier. Dean Tomain said the 380-student school is in the top 40 or 50.

        “I'm going to take credit for nothing,” Dean Tomain added with a smile during winter break.

        That's undue modesty, others countered.

        “He's done a superb job in leading that school,” said John Sebert, consultant in legal education to the American Bar Association and former dean of the University of Baltimore law school.

JOSEPH P. TOMAIN

• Age: 53.     • Education: Bachelor's degree, University of Notre Dame, 1970; law degree, George Washington University, 1974.     • Title: Dean and Nippert Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law.     • Academic interests: Sports law, regulatory law and policy, and law in literature and philosophy.     • Local activities: Board chairman of Cincinnati-based KnowledgeWorks Education Foundation; trustee of the Center for Chemical Addictions Treatment, the Cincinnati Bar Association and the Black Lawyers Association/CBA Round Table; member of the CBA judicial candidate rating committee.     • Family: Wife, Kathleen, a teacher for Cincinnati Public Schools, and sons Joseph A., a lawyer in Chicago, and John, a junior at Miami University.

        “He's really shown great leadership,” said Reuven J. Katz of Katz Teller Brant & Hild, a 24-member law firm, downtown.

        “We are very selective in whom we hire and we are always looking at graduates of the UC law school.”

        Of the four name partners in his firm, Mr. Katz, who switched from UC to Harvard, is the only non-UC law grad.

        At 53, Dean Tomain's success hasn't gone unnoticed; he is recruited annually for some of the two dozen vacant deanships.

        “Every year,” the dean said, “I get these things saying, "You've been nominated.' It is flattering.”

        So far, no one has made him an offer he can't refuse.

        His work doesn't stop with the standard law degree. The first students have completed UC's law/women's study graduate program; he's hoping to establish a master's degree in ethics with Hebrew Union College and Xavier University; and he's wondering if Cincinnati would support an Urban Justice Institute “to bridge town and gown” by enlisting faculty talents on behalf of the community.

        ABA's Mr. Sebert said the key to surviving beyond five years is “being able to meld the interests of varying constituencies” and to put their shared vision to work.

        At UC, Dean Tomain has built on what he inherited with key groups:

        • Alumni are increasingly generous. As state support slides, donations have risen from 10 percent to more than 20 percent of his budget.

        • New students arrive with B+/A- college averages and Law SAT scores of 158-162 (180 is perfect).

        • Graduates, for a decade, have come in first among colleagues from other schools passing the Ohio bar exam on the first try.

        • Professors always are fractious but Dean Tomain is shaping the faculty to which he probably will return if he leaves the dean's office. He continues to press the emphasis on scholarship initiated by colleagues John Murphy and Gordon Christenson about 20 years ago.

        In many ways, said John Monk, executive director of the Association for American Law Schools in Washington, D.C., Dean Tomain's maturing roles explain his longevity.

        To be an effective dean, Mr. Monk said, “You have to derive substantial pleasure from the success of others.”

        Running the law school remains “rewarding,” the dean said, but it is wiser to rely on the faculty and associate dean Barbara G. Watts. “She is absolutely indispensable to the success of this place.”

        Dean Tomain found “greater satisfaction” outside among alumni and members of local, state and national bar associations. “I very much like hanging around with judges and lawyers.”

        Schmoozing, after all, lays the foundation for fund raising that increasingly supports faculty research and student scholarships.

        “I raised a bunch of dough,” Dean Tomain said. “That's the dean's job.”
       

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