Daniel Grunfeld Joins as Executive Vice Dean

August 15, 2017

Daniel Grunfeld joined Pardee RAND on August 14 as Executive Vice Dean for Strategy and Partnerships. In this new position, he will work closely with Dean Susan Marquis and others to help direct the school’s strategic direction, including developing a new network of institutional partners and philanthropic support to advance the school’s reimagined design and vision for the future.

As Executive Vice Dean, Grunfeld will represent Pardee RAND to external audiences and help generate engagement with and support for the school’s new curriculum and education programs, technology labs, and methods centers. He will also lead the development of the Global Learning Network, a consortium of universities and research organizations, private-sector firms, and philanthropists that will expand the reach, capacity, and impact of the new Pardee RAND.

Grunfeld has more than three decades of legal, community-building, and policymaking experience. He brings to Pardee RAND expertise in management and ethics, board development and recruitment, program expansion, and financial operations. For nearly a decade, he served as the president and CEO of Public Counsel, the largest pro bono public interest law firm in the United States, where he led 2,000 volunteer attorneys and staff in providing direct legal assistance to more than 25,000 individuals and organizations annually. Under his leadership, Public Counsel doubled in size, expanded its financial base by 90 percent, and helped establish pro bono legal programs internationally through partnerships with the U.S. Department of State and the Ford Foundation.

After leaving Public Counsel, Grunfeld served as a member of then–Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s four-person executive team. As deputy chief of staff for policy, he oversaw the mayor’s policy agenda on such topics as energy and environment, housing, transportation, homelessness prevention, and job creation. Most recently, he led the west coast litigation practice of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he played a major role in the firm’s strategic planning and pro bono and community-outreach efforts. Grunfeld received his Juris Doctor degree from Cornell Law School and his Bachelor of Science degree from Drexel University.

Grunfeld is also a longtime friend and supporter of RAND and Pardee RAND, and he served as a member of the Pardee RAND Board of Governors for eight years.

“I am excited by the opportunity to be part of the school’s far-reaching effort to make public policy research and analysis more relevant and responsive to today’s policy world,” says Grunfeld, “and I greatly look forward to working with the entire RAND community to develop the next great generation of policy leaders.”