On Aug. 1, Vanderbilt University Law Professor Robert Rasmussen will become dean of the Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California.Rasmussen told NashvillePost.com this morning that, despite invitations from other law schools over the years, the USC opportunity is the only one he has pursued during nearly two decades in Nashville. Vanderbilt made no announcement of Rasmussen's departure. USC Provost C. L. Max Nikias said in a statement earlier this week that Rasmussen "is one of the most celebrated teachers in the 125-year history of the Vanderbilt Law School, having received its outstanding teaching award six times."Since joining Vanderbilt in 1989, Rasmussen has at various junctures led the school's Law & Human Behavior Program, the Law and Economics Program and served as associate dean.Rasmussen, 47, has in recent years focused his scholarship on the interaction of market forces, corporate reorganization law and practice, and relationships between liquidity of financial markets and corporate bankruptcy.Rasmussen lived in the Los Angeles area for a few years as the son of a U.S. Navy aviator who was killed while flying, and he was later reared in the Chicago area.He will be joined in Los Angeles next year by his wife, constitutional law scholar and Vanderbilt Law faculty member Rebecca Brown.Before Vanderbilt, Rasmussen was a member of appellate staff of the U.S. Department of Justice. He earned his J.D., cum laude, in 1985 from the University of Chicago Law School. He earned his B.A., magna cum laude, from Loyola University of Chicago in 1982. Before joining Vanderbilt in 1988, Brown worked in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. She was earlier an associate in the law firm of Onek, Klein & Farr and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Chief Judge Spottswood Robinson III of the D.C. Circuit. She earned her J.D. at Georgetown University Law Center and her bachelor's at St. John's College, Annapolis.
