As ALI excitedly ushers in our 100th Anniversary year, we are also bidding a bittersweet farewell to ALI Director Ricky Revesz—this week he is being sworn in as Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator. OIRA is the central authority for the review and approval of hundreds of federal regulations each year, as well as for the establishment of government statistical practices and coordination of federal privacy policy, among other duties. President Biden has chosen well.
Ricky has given limitless energy and enthusiasm to the Institute. In addition to his roles at NYU as a professor of law and the director of the Institute for Policy Integrity, he devoted countless hours to ALI. During his nine-year tenure as Director, the Institute was extraordinarily productive, initiating 17 projects and completing 15 (some of which had been begun under Director Liebman’s tenure); four Principles projects were initiated through completion during Ricky’s tenure: Compliance and Enforcement for Organizations, Data Economy, Policing, and Student Sexual Misconduct: Procedural Frameworks for Colleges and Universities.
Ricky also worked with me to convene a bipartisan group (co-chaired by Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith) in order to suggest guidelines for Electoral Count Act Reform. Despite their different political and ideological beliefs, members of the group united around the belief that Congress should reform the ECA before the 2024 presidential election. A bipartisan group of senators working on ECA reform welcomed input by the group gathered by the ALI, and at the end of 2022 the Electoral Count Reform Act passed in a bipartisan manner.
Beyond the ALI’s published work that is so visible, Ricky also worked behind the scenes often with ALI’s committees and staff on everything from selecting Reporters to overseeing our budget.
On a personal note, it was a joy for me to work with Ricky. We had been law deans at the same time and shared a vision of the ALI as an important rule of law organization. Many of you had the same opportunity to work with Ricky, and you know what a positive experience that is.
Over the years, ALI has been so fortunate in its Directors—all of them distinguished, all of them bringing wisdom and extraordinary legal acumen and vision to the position. In part because of Ricky’s and his predecessors’ success in the position, I am confident that we will find another outstanding person to be our next Director. That process is already under way.
While we are working to fill the Director position, we are extremely fortunate to have Deputy Director Eleanor Barrett. Although Eleanor is fairly new to her role, already she has deep knowledge of all of ALI’s projects and processes.