Meet the New Associate Dean Focused on Aligning Mission with Action
In the world of legal education, where the pursuit of justice often takes center stage, the behind-the-scenes work can sometimes be overlooked. But for Bradley Gano, the Law School’s new Associate Dean for Administration and Finance, these operational underpinnings are where vision transforms into reality.
“I enjoy walking into a place where I know they’re happy to see me because there’s plenty of work waiting,” Gano says with unmistakable enthusiasm, even as he navigates a whirlwind of introductory meetings during his first week. This eagerness to embrace challenges head-on has been a hallmark of Gano’s career, one which has taken him across the country and back again, immersing him in graduate, medical, secondary, and online programs. “I tend to go into roles where I know half the job well, in this case, HR, budget and finance, facilities, information technology systems, but the balance is learning the particulars of the institution — how it serves its specific community and achieves its goals.”
As CUNY Law’s chief operating officer and a member of the dean’s leadership team, Gano will be responsible for ensuring the efficient operation of Law School services and systems. His role encompasses overseeing a wide range of administrative departments, including information technology, facilities, events, human resources and payroll, budget and finance, procurement, accounts payable, bursar, reprographics, and public safety. Gano’s mission is to ensure these departments work cohesively to support the Law School’s operations and strategic goals.
Gano’s breadth of experience from Yale to Stanford, and from UCSF to Mount Sinai, has equipped him with a unique perspective on institutional management. At Yale, he played a pivotal role in building and scaling the Center for Language Study from a two-person operation to a thriving department of twenty. This experience in growth management and organizational development promises to be invaluable at CUNY Law, an institution home to expanding initiatives, projects, centers, and partnerships.
He’s also familiar with the challenges and opportunities that arise for a relatively small school within a sprawling institution. “As head of administration for Mount Sinai’s Graduate School, I worked on behalf of the faculty, students, and staff in one small part of a huge health system, to make sure their needs stayed on the organization’s radar,” he recalls. He enjoys the role of advocate in environments like this. “A lot of my job is to be a representative of the Law School. Where can we chart our own course and maintain a strong identity while leveraging system-wide resources?”
Gano’s eyes light up when he talks about what’s shaped his approach to administration. It’s not just about processes and systems for him — it’s about people and relationships. “How did I learn to do what I do?” Gano reflects. “Some of it is, you know, you read a book or somebody sends you to classroom training… But far greater than that has been the benefit of having had some really good mentors. I’ve had two or three in particular over the years that I’m grateful to have learned a lot from.”
“One mentor early in my career was a senior project manager at Yale. He helped shape my approach to leadership by modeling what it meant to be engaged and persistent, while empowering the people on his team to do what they did best, and by trusting them and valuing their contributions.” For Gano, there is a direct line between strong mentoring and the school’s ability to support top-notch staff, faculty, and public interest lawyers. It’s not just about having the right processes in place or allocating resources smartly — though those are crucial. It’s about creating an environment where people can learn from each other, across all levels and departments. This approach feels particularly relevant as law schools, including CUNY Law, grapple with the long-term effects of the pandemic on legal education.
“You can see it if you read the Law School’s strategic plan,” Gano points out. “People seem hungry for those connections across departments, whether that’s a matter of understanding better what the department is doing and how you can work together or a matter of having access to the same information, the same data.” By encouraging such communication and integrating mentorship into the administrative fabric of CUNY Law, Gano sees a path to a more cohesive and collaborative environment that supports the school’s people and its mission.
Gano’s arrival comes at a crucial time. Law schools nationwide are reassessing how legal education, and the infrastructure supporting it, has changed in the wake of remote learning and cloud-based collaborative workspaces brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. These shifts, while necessary, have often deepened divides between siloed departments and heightened feelings of isolation. For CUNY Law, with its unwavering commitment to access and equity, designing and implementing systems to create more connection, collaboration, and transparency is not just about administrative efficiency — it’s essential to upholding our core values.
“It feels good to be in a place where I’m with others, particularly in leadership, who see that and feel that,” he says, referring to the shared commitment to social justice and equity. “Whatever else is going on, whatever other sort of things we’re banging our heads against together, it feels so good to be in a place where we care about such important things.”Pursuing excellence in education leadership has been a thread throughout Gano’s career for a reason. “Recognizing that true strength comes from embracing and honoring our diversity — this is something I have learned from so many people in my life, from teachers to pastors to close friends. In my academic studies, I’ve seen that the key to sharing this value is investing in education. CUNY Law’s belief in access to education as essential to championing a just society — that’s what most caught my attention as I was interviewing for the job. From the full-time and part-time JD programs, to pipeline and outreach programs, the more I learned, the more I knew I wanted to be a part of this.”
This alignment of values bodes well for the opportunities ahead. In the coming months, Gano plans to immerse himself in the CUNY Law community, getting to know the people behind the Law School’s various initiatives and projects. His goal is clear: to ensure that administrative decisions, process improvement, and resource allocations serve to strengthen CUNY Law’s ability to educate effective public interest lawyers and advance social justice.