Coup for Columbia Law

Ted Shaw, the longtime director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), has joined the faculty of Columbia Law School, dean David Schizer announced this morning. Shaw will be a professor of professional practice, specializing in civil procedure and constitutional law.

This is a return home for Shaw, a member of the Columbia Law class of 1979, but also follows in the path of one of his predecessors at the LDF. Jack Greenberg also joined the Columbia faculty after a legendary career in civil rights litigation. "Ted Shaw has carried on a great Columbia Law School tradition of leadership in civil rights advocacy," said Schizer.

Shaw announced last year he was leaving the post at the fund he held for four years. Replacing Shaw is John Payton, partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. Payton and Shaw worked together on the Supreme Court cases that defended, mostly successfully, affirmative action programs in higher education in 2003.