Robert H. Mundheim was dean from 1982 to 1989. During those years he launched the campaign to build the Nicole E. Tanenbaum Library building. He also led the effort to establish the nation’s first mandatory public service program at a major law school, and furthered its interdisciplinary initiatives by vastly expanding the activities of the Institute for Law & Economics.

He joined Penn Law’s faculty in 1965. As an academic, he anticipated trends in the corporate and financial worlds. His studies on corporate governance and the role of independent directors began in the 1960s, long before the recent corporate scandals and Sarbanes-Oxley reforms made that subject popular. His work on tender offers with Arthur Fleischer, Jr. was the harbinger of a type of corporate acquisition that dominated the corporate scene for a substantial part of the last third of the 20th Century. His recognition of the increasing significance of globalization in financial activity prompted his organizing with Penn Professor Noyes Leech in 1972 the International Faculty in Corporate and Capital Market Law. The University recognized his academic achievements by appointing him a University Professor in 1980.