Washington University Law Professor Sworn in as Malawi’s President

So, Professor of Law, what are you going to do after you retire from your tenured post teaching and finish writing all the articles and books you want to write? Well, I guess I’ll become President (of Malawi)!

On Saturday, [Peter] Mutharika, now 74, a soft-spoken professor with a proper English-educated accent and who smoked a pipe while he taught in the 1970s, shocked many of his former colleagues and students when he was officially named the southeastern African country’s president after a tumultuous election that took more than a week to resolve.

It was an ascent to power just three years after his formal retirement from Washington University.

Congrats to Professor (er, I mean President) Mutharika!   It is not very often that a professor of international commercial law and contracts becomes a head of state.  It sounds like there are many serious obstacles facing him (and only a few of those are related to his background as a U.S. law professor), but I am sure all of us in the U.S. law academy wish him the best!