After a comprehensive national search, Professor and Vice Dean Jerry Dickinson has been named dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, effective Jan. 15.

A Pittsburgh native, Dickinson has built a national, international and local reputation as a constitutional law scholar and civil rights lawyer. He has extensive litigation and transactional pro bono experience in civil rights and civil liberties.

Dickinson joined the Pitt Law faculty in 2017 and was appointed as vice dean in March 2023. His teaching and scholarship specialize in constitutional law, civil rights and civil liberties, judicial federalism, property, law and democracy, and race and the law. He has been published in the nation's top law reviews and cited by U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 3rd and 6th Circuits, amicus briefs filed by members of Congress in federal courts, and in national and international news outlets.

Before joining the Pitt Law faculty, Dickinson practiced at Reed Smith LLP in Pittsburgh, where he founded and coordinated the Housing Rights Project, a pro bono initiative advocating for indigent tenants in eviction proceedings in Allegheny County. He also served as a law clerk for Theodore A. McKee, former chief judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

Dickinson is also a former Fulbright scholar to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he studied comparative constitutional law and housing. There he worked as a human rights activist, representing squatters in eviction proceedings.

Dickinson holds a JD from Fordham University; a LLM from the University of the Witwatersrand School of Law in Johannesburg, South Africa; and an AB in political science and sociology from the College of the Holy Cross.

"I deeply thank Mary Crossley for her exceptional service during her time as interim dean," Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Joseph J. McCarthy said in a Jan. 9 announcement. Crossley served as dean of the School of Law from 2005 to 2012 and agreed to serve once again in July 2023. "Her efforts on behalf of the school have been both highly effective and excellent."

McCarthy also thanked the search committee - co-chaired by Gene Anderson, Henry E. Haller Jr. Dean of the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration, and Carissa Slotterback, dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs - for their diligent efforts throughout the search process.