The search for the dean who will lead the Law School through what professors describe as a crucial transition period took a quiet step forward yesterday.

Meeting for the second time since Harvard Law School (HLS) Dean Robert C. Clark announced his resignation in November, an advisory committee charged with assisting University President Lawrence H. Summers in the search convened behind closed doors.

Members of the search committee declined to discuss the meeting’s agenda or specific details of the search process.

No names of specific candidates were discussed at the first meeting but the committee plan did to delve into specifics at yesterday’s meeting, said committee member Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and psychology.

“It is a bit premature for names—we’re still discussing how the search will be structured,” Skocpol said.

But speculation about who will fill Clark’s shoes is already percolating among HLS professors.

Caspersen Professor Howell E. Jackson, Professor Elena Kagan, Story Professor Daniel J. Meltzer, Williston Professor Robert H. Mnookin and Dean of the J.D. Program Todd D. Rakoff are consistently mentioned as potential internal candidates.

Jackson said yesterday that he was “not interested in doing any more administrative work.”

The other likely candidates declined to comment.

Possible external candidates include American Law Institute President Lance Leibman and Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen M. Sullivan—both of whom were once HLS professors.

Leibman was dean of Columbia Law School, while Sullivan was a contender for the Harvard presidency.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice and former Harvard General Counsel Margaret H. Marshall made headlines last week when she said she was not interested in the Harvard post, one week after a Boston Globe article named her as a leading external candidate.

Outside the Yard

Most professors point to their own colleagues as more likely contenders. Attracting external candidates may prove to be more difficult, they said, particularly in light of increased national competition from other universities that are also conducting law school dean searches—including New York University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Michigan, and Georgetown University.

And the external candidates who are most qualified often aren’t interested in the job, professors said.

“Most people who have already been deans before don’t want to do it again,” said Story Professor of Law Arthur T. Von Mehren. “I would be surprised if Leibman was interested—why would he want to return to the trials and tribulations of deanship?”

In past searches, Harvard’s internal ranks have proved fertile fodder for dean selections.

“History indicates that the President will choose an internal candidate,” Von Mehren said.

Thirteen years ago, Clark was selected after several outside candidates had turned down offers from the University.

Voicing Concerns

Besides names, concerns about process are on both faculty and students’ minds.

In a faculty meeting this fall, professors sparred with Summers over the composition and nature of the advisory committee. Professors said that former President Derek C. Bok had allowed the faculty to elect their own committee, and bristled that Summers was appointing an advisory committee himself.

Students meanwhile worry that their views will go unnoticed.

“We want our voices heard in this search—and Harvard doesn’t have the best record in listening to students,” said Law School Council Vice President Wade Ackerman said.

Ackerman is meeting with Summers staffers to discuss the search, and a number of “town-hall” style meetings are planned for this spring.

“Students aren’t as concerned with proposing specific names as they are with having a voice in the process,” Ackerman said.

The Road Ahead

Facing Clark’s successor are a number of institutional challenges. The new dean will have to be a fundraiser. The Law School is currently in the “quiet phase” of a much needed capital campaign that will publicly kick-off in June.

Money from the campaign will fund the continued expansion of the faculty, physical growth in the North Yard and curricular revitalization.

Meanwhile, the possibility of a new University campus in Allston looms just over the horizon. Though the Law School faculty is vehemently opposed to a move across the river, one scenario being considered envisions a professional school campus with HLS as its anchor.

And while Clark is credited with during his tenure reconciling an intellectually polarized faculty, tensions at the school are far from an ancient memory.

Issues of racial sensitivity, freedom of speech, discrimination and patriotism have made waves among students and faculty and put HLS in the national spotlight this year.

Against this backdrop, some students are calling for a dean that would break traditional molds.

“[Clark] is seen as part of the ‘old guard’ of Harvard Law School which carries some backlash,” said Meeta Anand, a first-year at HLS. Citing a move by Clark to cut funding for public interest advising, Anand said Clark was fundamentally out of touch with students.

“He misunderstood his client base here as well as purported the view that Harvard Law just churns out corporate lawyers,” Anand said.

“I’d hope that our next dean would be a woman or better yet, someone of color,” said E. Garry Grundy III, a first year at HLS.

“We have to address the fact that the American legal system is dominated by white men, and what better place to start than Harvard?”

—Staff writer Lauren A.E. Schuker can be reached at schuker@fas.harvard.edu.