Hobart and William Smith Colleges

8 January 2025 • Faculty Guard and Jacobsen's 'All the Campus Lawyers' Earns Praise in Legal Scholarship

In the Journal of College and University Law, Phi Beta Kappa Society CEO and former President of Brandeis University reviews the well-received book.

All the Campus Lawyers: Litigation, Regulation, and the New Era of Higher Education, the acclaimed book by Hobart and William Smith Vice President and General Counsel Lou Guard ’07 and Professor of Economics and former HWS President Joyce Jacobsen, explores the evolving legal challenges facing colleges and universities. Recently, the book was reviewed by Frederick M. Lawrence, former President of Brandeis University and Phi Beta Kappa Society Secretary and CEO, in the Journal of College and University Law.

In his review, titled “Higher education and the law(yers),” Lawrence highlights the book’s first section, which traces the historical and legal developments that have made in-house counsel a necessity for higher education institutions. This evolution is linked to the enforcement of pivotal civil rights legislation over the past 50 years, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of 1972 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. 

The second section, Lawrence notes, focuses on the critical role of campus counsel in college and university administration. Guard and Jacobsen demonstrate “how the campus counsel can function as an important, if not indispensable, part of the university administrative team.”

“Guard and Jacobsen explore the ways in which a university counsel must blend legal knowledge with a profound understanding of the goals of the institution,” Lawrence writes.

A lawyer and civil rights scholar, Lawrence served as the 8^th President of Brandeis University from 2011-2015. In addition to serving as the 10^th Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Lawrence is a distinguished lecturer at the Georgetown Law Center and served as the Dean of George Washington University Law School and Visting Professor and Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School. He graduated from Williams College Phi Beta Kappa and then Yale Law School.

The Journal of College and University Law is the sole law review in the United States dedicated exclusively to the law of higher education. It is published by the National Association of College and University Attorneys. 

All the Campus Lawyers was selected by The New Yorker as one of the best books of 2024 and was praised by Louis Menand in his article “Academic Freedom Under Fire.” The book was also highlighted in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. 

This month, Guard and Jacobsen will deliver the keynote address on the evolving legal landscape in higher education at the symposium “Academics, Lawyers & Government: Who is Leading Higher Education in the 21st Century?” at the Touro Law Center in New York City on Jan. 15. Previously, Guard and Jacobsen were invited to speak at Amherst College by President Michael Elliott and the Center for Humanistic Inquiry. 

Guard has also spoken on this topic during the Cornell Keynotes podcast in December and has addressed the United Educators Risk Management Advisory Council in November. The pair also delivered a talk at the Northeast Deans Annual Meeting, both in November.

This spring, the two will teach “ECON 330: Law and Economics of Higher Education,” a course that examines the current legal and regulatory landscape for colleges and universities and considers the economic, financial and social impact on the operations and fundamental mission of colleges and universities. Guard also teaches “Higher Education and the Law” in the Higher Education Leadership graduate program.

Learn more and purchase the book here. 

A cum laude graduate of Hobart and William Smith and Cornell Law School, Guard joined HWS in 2014. He provides legal advice and counsel across institutional areas, assists the president with major initiatives and projects, and is responsible for the strategic direction of legal affairs for HWS. Guard serves as Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trustees and is the primary governance adviser to the Board. He previously served as Chief of Staff to President Mark D. Gearan. A Geneva native, Guard is admitted to practice law in New York and Pennsylvania, and has worked at leading law firms in Philadelphia, Penn., and Rochester, N.Y. His work has appeared or been referenced in the Journal of College and University Law, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Trusteeship Magazine, The Harvard Crimson and other outlets. He is an active member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA). He has served as a panelist at Stetson Law School’s National Conference on Law and Higher Education, as a NACUA panel moderator, and as a consultant to the Association of Governing Boards on issues of collegiate mergers and acquisitions. He has taught and guest lectured on business law and higher education law topics at Hobart and William Smith and Boston College Law School, respectively, and is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School.

Between 2019 and 2022, Jacobsen served as the President of Hobart and William Smith. Previously the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wesleyan University, Jacobsen earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University and M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with her A.B. in economics as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2021, Jacobsen was awarded the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award, which is given to an individual who has furthered the status of women in the economics profession through example, achievements and increasing understanding of how women can advance in the economics profession or mentoring others. She began her academic career teaching at Rhodes College and Wesleyan University where she was awarded an endowed chair as Andrews Professor of Economics and received the university’s prestigious Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching. She began her work as an administrator in 2013 when she was appointed Dean of Social Sciences and Director of Global Initiatives at Wesleyan, and then Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs in 2015. An expert on labor economics, particularly the economics of gender, she is the author of scores of journal articles and book chapters exploring sex segregation, migration and the effects of labor force intermittency on women’s earnings, among other topics, as well as the economics of wine and other collectibles. Her books include Advanced Introduction to Feminist Economics, The Economics of Gender, Queer Economics: A Reader (co-edited with Adam Zeller) and Labor Markets and Employment Relationships (with Gilbert L. Skillman). Jacobsen has been a member of the HWS Economics Department faculty since 2019.