Login | May 20, 2026
Martin Belsky to step down as dean of Akron Law
RICHARD WEINER
Legal News Reporter
Published: June 12, 2012
University of Akron School of Law Dean Martin Belsky will not ask the school to renew the administrative portion of his contract when it expires on June 30. He will remain as a member of the school’s faculty.
“I am really happy with this decision,” said Belsky. “It was my decision alone. I’m really looking forward to spending more time with my family and the things that I like to do.”
Belsky came onto the job five years ago, with a strong background in academic administration and fundraising, “as an agent of change,” he said, and said that his record speaks for itself.
Although the economy has put a slight damper on one of the reasons that he was brought in—fundraising—he has led the school through a serious academic upgrade.
According to one faculty member who wished not to be identified, “Dean Belsky is like a whirlwind of energy. To paraphrase Bobby Kennedy, he sees the world as it could be, rather than merely as it is today.”
The faculty member agreed that Dean Belsky came to the law school as an “agent of change,” charged to examine and improve all aspects of its operations. “He leaves office with an impressive record that includes a complete reworking of the school’s research and writing program, replacing part-time writing instructors with full-time, highly qualified faculty members.”
He raised the status of both legal research and writing and clinical instructors to a level comparable to other faculty, the colleague said. “He met with every incoming student over lunch or dinner and had his finger on the pulse of the student body.
“He also increased the school’s visibility dramatically through his involvement in the ABA, the American Judicature Society, and many other organizations at the local, state, and national levels, and his creation of ten alumni chapters throughout the country.”
Dean Belsky is a graduate of Temple University, College of Liberal Arts with a Bachelor of Arts cum laude (1965); Columbia University School of Law with a juris doctor cum laude (1968). He also has graduate diplomas from The Hague Academy of International Law and Cambridge University.
He began his legal career in 1969 as a prosecutor, and then chief prosecutor in Philadelphia. Beginning in 1975, he served both as counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives and as chief counsel to the Special House Committee on the Outer Continental Shelf (offshore drilling).
While on the Judiciary Committee, he worked extensively on the Watergate file.
From 1979 to 1982, he served first as deputy general counsel and then assistant administrator of the Federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Belsky began his academic career in 1982 as associate professor of law and director of the multidisciplinary Center for Governmental Responsibility at the University of Florida. From 1986 to 1995, he served as dean and president and professor at Albany Law School. From 1995 to 2007, he served as dean and professor at the University of Tulsa College of Law, and then joined The University of Akron School of Law in January, 2008 as dean and Randolph Baxter Professor of Law.
Belsky said he thinks that the next five years for the school will be as successful as the last five.
He said he first hopes that tuition can remain stable, and not increase, as many law schools have been forced to do. He said he would like to see the school play to its strengths in further academic development—particularly in IT law, in which the school is a national leader, and in health and elder law-- a new specialty that the school is beginning to develop.
One of the activities Belsky said he will have more time to pursue after he steps down as dean will be his love of exercise. Despite being 68 years old, he runs 10 miles a day on a treadmill and lifts weights three times a week.
“I put my workouts on my schedule along with my meetings and other obligations,” he said. “I’m compulsive about it. I love food, and won’t stop eating, so the only way that I can control my weight is through exercise.”
Looking back over the last five years, Belsky said he feels confident that he helped move the school forward in the areas that he emphasizes—especially in diversity and affordability.
And, if nothing else, he said he is certain that, “I raised the visibility of the school throughout the country.”