Atlanta's John Marshall Law School has appointed a new dean.

John Marshall professor Jace Gatewood has been named interim dean and CEO, effective Jan. 1, succeeding Malcolm Morris, the dean since July 1, 2014. Morris announced in November that he would retire at the end of 2019 after an almost 50-year career in legal education.

Before becoming interim dean, Gatewood served as John Marshall's associate dean of academic programs and graduate programs. He joined John Marshall's faculty in 2008 after an 18-year career practicing law, handling commercial, corporate and real estate transactions.

In private practice Gatewood ran his own firm for four years before joining the John Marshall faculty, primarily handling commercial lending and real estate law. He also had an eight-year stint at Atlanta firm Powell Goldstein, where he was a partner. (Powell Goldstein was acquired by Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in 2009.)

Previously, Gatewood practiced as an associate at Troutman Sanders in Atlanta and Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University.

John Marshall has not yet announced a dean search.

Off ABA Probation

John Marshall's outgoing dean, Morris, steered the Atlanta law school through a rocky time.

In December, the American Bar Association deemed John Marshall in full compliance with ABA standards after placing the law school on probation a year earlier, in December 2018. At issue were the law school's admissions standards and pass rates for the Georgia bar exam, according to the ABA probation notice from 2018.

John Marshall gained ABA accreditation in 2009 and has been continuously accredited since then. But it was one of 10 law schools sanctioned by the ABA since 2016 as part of heightened accreditation scrutiny of for-profit law schools for enrolling students it said were not likely to graduate and pass the bar.

Over the last two academic years, John Marshall increased its entering class LSAT scores (from a median score of 146 to 150), and it has raised its first-time pass rate for the Georgia bar exam from 43.4% in July 2016 to 66.3% for the most recent exam in July 2019.

In December, John Marshall also announced plans to become a nonprofit law school. Of Georgia's five ABA-accredited law schools, it is the only independent, for-profit law school unaffiliated with a university.

John Marshall's chairman, Michael Markovitz, said in a statement that Morris leaves the law school "on an up-note for his successor to build upon."

"As the law school's third dean since achieving ABA accreditation, Dean Morris has presided over the law school through a troubling time for legal education," Markovitz said. "With his usual good cheer and positive attitude, Dean Morris has seen our law school through these hard times."

Morris' retirement caps a long career in legal education. Except for a brief hiatus to practice law, Morris taught at five law schools after earning a J.D. from the University at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo) in 1972.

"It has been a rewarding and enjoyable career which most importantly was fun," he said in a statement.

Atlanta's John Marshall chose Morris to succeed Richardson Lynn as the law school's dean in July 2014 after a national dean search. Morris joined from John Marshall Law School in Chicago (which is not affiliated with the Atlanta law school), where he was a professor, the director of graduate estate planning programs and associate director of graduate tax law programs.

Morris' law school career included two terms as the associate dean and one as interim dean at Northern Illinois University College of Law.

He and his wife of 36 years, Terry Morris, will relocate to Chicago in retirement, according to John Marshall.