Law Schools

Top Law School In Turmoil As Allegations Of 'Toxic' Environment Surface

What on earth is going on at Northwestern Law?

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Northwestern University, ChicagoSomething is going on at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. The Daily Northwestern raises the alarm about the tenure of Dean Hari Osofsky who joined the law school in August 2021. The paper spoke with students, staff, and faculty — nearly two dozen of them — and reports that “the law school has been plagued by mismanagement, a toxic work environment and a lack of transparency since Osofsky stepped in, leading many longtime employees to flee the school.”

The first bone of contention that Pritzker seems to have with Dean Osofsky is her redesign of the Human Resources department. Three longtime employees were forced out, with one source saying, “Getting rid of HR was the first demoralizing piece of the puzzle.” While another former staffer said, “The law school never felt like a place where you were worried about your job, but suddenly it started to feel like that environment where you had to know the right people and fall in line.”

The dean defended the moves as part of the growing pains associated with new leadership:

Osofsky told The Daily in a statement that she has worked collaboratively with the law school community from her first day “to move forward ambitiously and to improve our culture,” leading to progress in employment, admissions, diversity, fundraising and operations.

“As new leaders often do, I made some important organizational changes,” she wrote in the statement. “I am proud of the progress we have made together and am excited for all we are currently building.”

But HR wasn’t the only department at the law school that complained about Osofsky to The Daily. Allegations of micromanagement, gaslighting, and incompetence litter the article. One employee described it as “like having your worst nightmare boss,” and the law school became somewhere where employees would frequently cry. The Daily points out the issues the marketing department has with the dean.

Current and former staff and faculty members said it was well-known that the marketing department faced particular challenges with the dean’s leadership.

“She came in right away and decided, for reasons I’m not entirely clear on, that she didn’t like our team,” one former marketing employee said.

The former member of the team said Osofsky’s alleged lack of respect toward the marketing employees “felt like hazing.”

Four former members of the marketing team said the workplace environment immediately took a toll on the law school’s former associate dean of marketing, who declined to comment for this article due to an agreement she signed with the University.

“The dean was just hammering (the former associate dean), and we saw the deterioration of her mental health in this time,” one former member of the marketing team said. “She was definitely anxious, upset, stressed all the time.”

The article also points to the high turnover in executive assistants in Dean Osofsky’s short tenure, with one former assistant saying they were “unhappy with pretty much every part of her leadership style. Unfortunately, it has been a year and a half of extreme therapy on my end.”

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A draft “Statement of No Confidence in Dean Hari Osofsky” was reportedly circulated amongst law students, which read, in part, “While some of us will graduate this year, we cannot sit silent while Dean Osofsky demolishes Northwestern’s community and culture, the very attributes that drew us to Northwestern.” Approximately 70 students signed the statement, but it was never submitted to the university or the provost.

The students raised several complaints in the draft statement — including Osofsky’s alleged tendency to seek out photo opportunities with students and professors of color — an allegation the University did not respond to.

The second former marketing employee said they were ultimately told HR determined that, since Osofsky had not violated NU’s code of conduct, nothing could be done.

[University spokesperson Jon Yates] confirmed that the University reviewed the concerns and found no policy violations.

As the turmoil continues at one of the top law schools in the nation, it remains to be seen what will be done to get the whole Pritzker community on the same page.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.

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