Harvard Law Dean Plans to Relinquish His Post

Harvard Law School Dean Robert C. Clark, who presided over a major reorganization of the student body, has decided he will step down at the end of the academic year.

Clark, a corporate law scholar and dean since 1989, said this week that he planned to return to the school’s faculty after a sabbatical.

Clark, 58, oversaw an overhaul at the school, reshaping the student body into seven groups of roughly 80 students each. He also led a $183-million fund-raising campaign, completed in 1995.

“The law school has flourished under Bob Clark’s outstanding leadership,” Harvard President Lawrence Summers said in a statement.

Summers said he will soon appoint a faculty group to advise him on a successor.

Clark said he decided to step down at the end of the academic year because it will also mark the end of the preliminary phase of a major fund-raising campaign.

“It’s just a sense that I should choose a natural break point,” Clark said. “I’ve loved being dean ... and I like being a professor. I’m a lucky guy.”