Pitt names interim law school dean

Haider Ala Hamoudi has been named interim dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law following Amy Wildermuth’s resignation on Jan. 23.

Employed at the school since 2007, Hamoudi had been overseeing daily operations as acting dean while an interim dean was put in place, Provost Ann Cudd said.

Cudd said Pitt will commence a national search for a permanent successor in early fall.

Hamoudi came to Pitt as an assistant professor of Law in 2007 and has held positions of vice dean, associate dean for Academic Affairs and associate dean of Research and Faculty Development.

Haider’s scholarship focuses on Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, Cudd said. Since September 2018, he has served as editor-in-chief of the Arab Law Quarterly.

”He spent most of 2009 in Baghdad advising the Constitutional Review Committee of the Iraqi legislature, responsible for developing critical amendments to the Iraq Constitution deemed necessary for Iraqi national reconciliation,” Cudd said in a statement dated Friday.

He did the work on behalf of the United States Embassy in Baghdad, she said.

Hamoudi holds a juris doctor degree from Columbia Law School, Cudd said, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Wildermuth was dean for 4.5. Cudd praised her efforts for the school.

Pitt’s law school was founded in 1895 and has an enrollment of about 500. The university said there were 1,296 applications for 121 seats in the Class of 2022.