Barbara Aronstein Black, a legal historian who achieved a milestone as the first woman to lead an Ivy League law school, at Columbia University, died on Jan. 20 in Philadelphia. She was 92.

As dean, Professor Black, a scholar of law in colonial America, influenced curricular reform, bolstered Columbia’s corporate law program, brought more women and people of color onto the faculty, adopted a maternal leave policy, and introduced a part-time program for mothers.

After completing her term as dean, from 1986-1991, she returned to full-time teaching, research and writing. She retired in 2008.