A Harvard professor is the top choice of faculty members at Columbia Law School to become the institution's next dean, a member of the school's search committee said last week.

Professor of Law Lance M. Liebman, an expert on property, anti-discrimination and social insurance law who was one of several candidates for the post of dean at Harvard Law School in 1989, has been recommended to Columbia President Michael Sovern for the New York law school's top job, according to search committee member W. Kenneth Jones.

Jones declined to comment on the details of the search process, but said that it was "generally available knowledge" that Liebman was the faculty's choice to succeed outgoing Dean Barbara Black.

Columbia spokesperson Fred H. Knubel said that the search committee had forwarded a candidate's name to Sovern in December, after a vote of the full law faculty. But he refused to confirm or deny Liebman's selection.

Sovern will now submit a nominee for approval by the Columbia board of trustees, who are scheduled to meet next in February, Knubel said. He said he did not know if the dean search would be discussed at that meeting.

Sovern was out of town last week and could not be reached for comment. Liebman declined to comment on the status of the search.

Liebman emerged as a leading candidate for deanin November, when the seven-member searchcommittee named him as one of three finalists forthe job. The two other candidate were Columbia lawprofessors Harvey Goldschmid and Peter L. Strauss'61.

If he becomes dean, Liebman will be the firstoutsider to occupy the office since at least the1920s, search committee chair Vincent A. Blasitold The Crimson last month.

Liebman, who served as Harvard Law School'sassociate dean from 1981 to 1984, graduated fromYale College in 1962 and Harvard Law School in1967. He joined the Law School's faculty in 1970after serving as a law clerk to Supreme CourtJustice Bryon White and as a special assistant toformer New York Mayor John V. Lindsay.

Black on Friday declined to comment on theidentity of the search committee's favoredcandidate.

"The appointment of the dean is a matter forthe president," she said. "The process is ongoing,and until the president speaks it is inappropriatefor me to do so.