Professor Hobbs is Dean Emeritus of Seton Hall University School of Law. He joined
the Seton Hall Law faculty in 1990 with a specialty in tax law; he became Associate
Dean for Finance in 1995 and was named Dean in 1999.
In his 16 years as Dean, Professor Hobbs shepherded the Law School through a series
of groundbreaking initiatives that raised Seton Hall Law to unprecedented prominence.
Its Health Law program is consistently ranked among the top 10 nationally. The Law
School boasts a faculty that is world-renowned in such diverse areas as intellectual
property, social justice, corporate bankruptcy, national security policy, and employment
law.
During his tenure, Professor Hobbs established several centers of excellence: the
Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law; the Center for Policy and Research; and the
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology. Under his leadership, Seton Hall Law
achieved worldwide prominence through a series of groundbreaking initiatives emanating
from the school’s social justice mission. As an example, the school has influenced
policy and public attitudes globally through its series of reports on the abuses at
the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp.
Professor Hobbs advocated for the growth of the Seton Hall Law Center for Social Justice,
offering clinical programs with students and professors taking on cases addressing
predatory lending, domestic violence, international human rights, and education and
housing policy reform.
Professor Hobbs also sustained the Law School’s strong ties to Newark through its
support of an array of “pipeline” educational programs designed to introduce Newark
youth, from middle school through college, to careers in the law. The New Jersey Law
and Education Empowerment Project – NJ LEEP – was founded in 2006 for economically
disadvantaged students from 8th to 12th grade, to introduce them to the legal profession
and to strengthen their academic skills. Since the graduation of the first NJ LEEP
cohort in 2011, the program has achieved a 100 percent college acceptance rate among
its participants, with several admitted to the nation's top-tier universities.
Professor Hobbs' dedication to fostering greater diversity in the legal profession
is reflected in his founding of the Dean's Diversity Council in 2008, comprising faculty,
students, alumni and administration working in concert to enhance the Law School's
inclusive environment. In 2012 Professor Hobbs was honored by the Thurgood Marshall
College Fund with its Excellence Award for his work on behalf of diversity within
the legal profession and for “exemplifying Justice Thurgood Marshall’s commitment
to justice, civil rights and education.”
Professor Hobbs is a former member of the Standards Review Committee of the American
Bar Association, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar and has twice
chaired the Law School Development Committee. He also serves as a member of the boards
of the Newark Alliance and Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. Additionally, he served
as a member of the Advisory Board of Lexis-Nexis, the New Jersey Commission of Professionalism
and the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education. In 2004, he served as
Chair of the Newark, New Jersey Mayor's Blue Ribbon Commission on the Downtown Core
Redevelopment, a key initiative driving Newark’s resurgence and which led the way
for the construction of the Prudential Center entertainment arena. He served on the
New Jersey State Commission of Investigation from 2004-14, and chaired the Commission
for the last four years of his tenure, stepping down to serve as the first Ombudsman
in the New Jersey Governor's office.
Prior to joining Seton Hall Law, Professor Hobbs he was a tax attorney with the law
firm of Shanley & Fisher in Roseland, New Jersey. He received his B.A. in accounting,
magna cum laude, from Seton Hall University, his J.D. from the University of North
Carolina and his LL.M. (in taxation) from New York University.