Sager rose to prominence as a legal scholar while teaching at the New York University (NYU) School of Law.
[4] Along with NYU's John Sexton, Sager has been credited as one of the chief architects of New York University Law School's precipitous rise in the national rankings during the 1990s.
[5] Sager joined the University of Texas at Austin (UT) School of Law faculty in 2002 and was appointed as a dean in 2006.
[8] During his tenure, Sager "made important advancements" including raising nearly $80 million in donations, hiring 16 tenure and tenure-track faculty members, establishing a dual-degree program with a Mexican law school and launching a scholarly center focusing on global energy, environmental and arbitrational issues."
While Powers did not specify the exact reasons for requesting Sager's resignation, the Texas Tribune reported that "at the center of the conflict" was a forgivable loan / deferred compensation program created by the University of Texas Law School Foundation in 2003 while Powers was the Dean of the Law School, under which Dean Sager had been awarded a forgivable loan.