Harvard Law School Dean John C.P. Goldberg Joins Advantage Testing Foundation Board of Trustees

August 21, 2026

The dean of Harvard Law School is the fourth in unbroken succession to serve on the Foundation’s board.

John C.P. Goldberg, the Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has joined the Board of Trustees of the Advantage Testing Foundation.

A leading scholar of tort law, tort theory, and political philosophy, Dean Goldberg has taught at Harvard Law School since 2008, serving as deputy dean from 2017 to 2022 and as interim dean from 2024 to 2025 before his appointment as dean. He is the co-author of Recognizing Wrongs (Harvard University Press, 2020) and the casebook Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress. He received his J.D. from New York University School of Law and clerked for Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and Justice Byron R. White of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dean Goldberg is the fourth consecutive dean of Harvard Law School to serve on the Foundation’s board, following Elena Kagan, Martha Minow, and John Manning. That succession reflects an enduring institutional commitment. Since 2009, Harvard Law School has been one of the three founding partners of TRIALS—the Training and Recruitment Initiative for Admission to Leading Law Schools—a fully subsidized scholarship program for talented college students of modest means whose perspectives are underrepresented at the nation’s leading law schools. The year-long program begins with a rigorous five-week intensive summer residency, held in alternating years at Harvard and NYU. Harvard’s deans have welcomed TRIALS scholars, taught within the program, and demonstrated the institution’s abiding confidence in its mission.

“For nearly twenty years, the deans of Harvard Law School have given TRIALS what no program can manufacture for itself: their time, judgment, and conviction that the legal profession should be accessible to students of every background,” said Arun Alagappan, founder and president of the Advantage Testing Foundation. “John Goldberg is a scholar of the first rank and a teacher of rare generosity. Since becoming interim dean, John has met with TRIALS scholars at Harvard Law School, and they have universally praised his candor, warmth, and genuine interest in their aspirations. TRIALS is better for his participation, and the Advantage Testing Foundation will be stronger for his service.”

Over the course of the TRIALS program, the median LSAT score among participating scholars rises by approximately fifty percentile points. To date, more than 90 TRIALS alumni have been admitted to Harvard Law School. Program alumni include a Rhodes Scholar, two Marshall Scholars, eight Fulbright Scholars, and two Soros Fellows.

Dean Goldberg joins a board that includes Martha Minow and John Manning, his predecessors at Harvard Law School; Troy McKenzie, dean of New York University School of Law; John Sexton, president emeritus of New York University; and Shirley M. Tilghman, president emerita of Princeton University.

Photo credit: Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer