At the time he was appointed founding dean of Pitt Law School (then the Western University of Pennsylvania Law School), John Shafer was a practicing attorney in Allegheny County, specializing in equity practice. Born the son of a clergyman in 1848, Shafer received his early education in the Allegheny County schools and at home. He graduated first in his class from Washington and Jefferson College in 1866. After spending one year at the Allegheny Theological Seminary, Shafer taught ancient languages and German in local public schools and at Westminster College. He received his legal training in the offices of Kuhn and Evans in Pittsburgh.
In 1897, while he was still dean, Shafer was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Allegheny County. In 1920, he left the University to devote full time to his judicial duties. He served as presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas until his death in 1926.
A. Marshall Thompson, who had his own general legal practice in Pittsburgh, substituted on the Pitt Law faculty for several years before officially joining the faculty in 1902. He took a leave of absence from teaching during World War I to serve in Scotland as secretary of the YMCA.
He credited President Woodrow Wilson with getting him his first job—teaching mathematics at a high school in Beaver Falls. Thompson had studied as an undergraduate at Princeton under Wilson, who was a professor of law at the time.
In addition to his law practice and his duties on the faculty and as dean, Thompson had political aspirations. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1916 and for the Common Pleas bench in 1933. During his tenure as dean, he was appointed to the first Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, created after the repeal of Prohibition. In 1937, he was elected to the Court of Common Pleas by fewer than 100 votes. He served as acting dean until Eugene Gilmore was hired as dean in 1940. Thompson died in 1958 at the age of 86, after 21 years on the bench.
An expert on partnerships, franchises, interstate commerce, and education, Eugene Gilmore was president of the University of Iowa prior to his appointment as dean of Pitt Law School. He had also been dean of Iowa's law school and professor of law and acting dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Gilmore, a graduate of DePauw University and Harvard Law School, was also acting governor-general of the Philippine Islands during the late 1920s. He was a leader in professional organizations like the Association of American Law Schools, of which he was president in 1919.
He was the author of several books and articles on law and legal education, including a 15-volume law encyclopedia, Modern American Law.
After his term at Pitt Law School, Gilmore returned to teach law part-time at the University of Iowa. The honorary title of president emeritus was bestowed upon him in 1950. He died in 1953 at the age of 82.
Judson Crane was the School of Law's first full-time faculty member, hired in 1917 for an annual salary of $3,500. The Massachusetts native earned his bachelor's degree from Brown University and his law degree from Harvard Law School. After practicing law in Boston, he entered legal academia as a professor of law at Pei Yang University in China. During his three years in China, Crane tried cases in the U.S. Court for China and the British Consular Court. He spent two years teaching at George Washington University before accepting the position at Pitt Law School.
Author of several books and scholarly articles on the subjects of partnership, torts, and contracts, Crane returned to full-time teaching in 1949. He served as acting dean after the resignation of Charles Nutting and left the University in 1954 after 37 years of service. Crane then became a member of the "65 Club," a name given to the faculty of Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. The 65 Club was comprised of distinguished law professors over 65 years of age from all over the country. He died in 1964.
Nutting, a specialist in public law and legislation, served as vice dean before he was appointed dean in 1949. He earned his BA from the University of Iowa and LLM and JD degrees from Harvard, teaching at the University of Nebraska prior to joining the Pitt Law faculty.
Nutting's tenure as dean was cut short by his ascension to the office of vice-chancellor of the University, which he held until 1956. He also served as acting chancellor during that time. In 1960, Nutting became dean of the George Washington University National Law Center, serving in that position until 1966 when he returned to teaching full-time.
Active in several professional and civic organizations, Nutting was president of the Association of American Law Schools and chair of the Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association. He was also a member of the Pittsburgh City Planning Commission.
Currie, the founding editor of the Journal of Legal Education, was professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles just prior to his appointment as dean. "A leading figure in the field of legal education," according to newspaper reports, Currie was a graduate of Mercer University and Columbia University School of Law. He had also served on the law faculties of Mercer, Duke University, Wake Forest University, and the University of Georgia.
An expert in the conflict of laws, contracts, and admiralty, Currie left Pitt Law School after only one year to join the faculty at the University of Chicago. After eight years there, he returned to Duke University in 1961. It was during his second tenure at Duke that he wrote Selected Essays on the Conflict of Laws, a work that earned him the Triennial Coif Award for legal scholarship in 1963.
The nationally known legal scholar died in 1965. Each year, Duke University sponsors the Currie Lecture to honor Currie's contributions to the law and legal education.
A former Rhodes Scholar and law professor at Cornell Law School, Larson really only served one year as dean of Pitt Law School. In 1954, the internationally recognized scholar in workers' compensation, employment discrimination, and international law was appointed undersecretary of labor by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
After two years in the Labor Department, Larson was tapped by Eisenhower to head the U.S. Information Agency. His book, A Republican Looks at His Party, so impressed the President that Eisenhower used Larson as his chief speechwriter for the 1956 re-election campaign. Larson then became a special assistant to Eisenhower, and he became known as the administration's "unofficial philosopher" and the "egghead" of the Republican Party.
He left government service in 1958 to head the Rule of Law Research Center at Duke University, a position he held until the center's demise in the mid-1980s. He continued to serve as a presidential adviser to Eisenhower and later to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Prior to becoming dean at Pitt Law, Larson had also taught law at the University of Tennessee and held labor- and economics-related posts in the U.S. government. He earned his undergraduate degree from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD (his hometown), and BA and MA degrees in jurisprudence from Oxford University. He died in 1993 at the age of 82.
As a Pitt Law faculty member, Taintor served as acting dean until 1957. Taintor entered the legal profession after several years in business. He received his legal training at Harvard and joined the School of Law faculty in 1942. After serving three years as acting dean, he rejoined the Pitt Law faculty to teach and research property and conflict of laws. Taintor died in 1960.
Cooley spent his first year as dean shuttling between the Pitt Law campus and his communications and immigration law practice in Washington, D.C. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, Cooley was a former law professor at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) in Ohio and at Ohio State University. He had a lengthy career in U.S. government, serving in various capacities in the Department of Justice, the Federal Communications Commission, and the United Nations Relief Organization. He was also a member of the Immigration Board of Appeals before his tenure as dean at Pitt.
Cooley hadstrong family roots in the law: his grandfather was Thomas M. Cooley, former dean of the University of Michigan Law School, first chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and long-time chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
Cooley lobbied strenuously for higher faculty salaries, funds to enhance the law library, and student financial aid. His demands, along with his resistance to move his family to Pittsburgh from their home in Virginia, apparently led to his firing in 1964 by University Chancellor Edward Litchfield. Litchfield.
William Edward Sell succeeded Cooley after serving for a year as chairman of a committee created to lead the Law School while the University searched for a new dean. A graduate of Washington and Jefferson College and Yale Law School, Sell joined the Pitt Law faculty in 1957, at the age of 24. He was associate dean from 1957 to 1962.
Among the myriad accomplishments of his administration, securing a permanent home for the Law School is the feat for which Sell is most noted. After resigning from the position of dean in 1977, Sell turned to full-time teaching. He earned the title Distinguished Service Professor of Law in 1977 and was recognized for his teaching excellence by both Pitt Law students—who awarded him the Excellence in Teaching Award in 1986—and by the University, which bestowed on him the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1990.
Sell retired in 1994 but continued to teach several courses, primarily in the areas of corporations and corporate finance. He authored a book on the history of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, which can be read here: https://scholarship.law.pitt.edu/exhibit/archives-and-special-collections/selected-rare-books-and-other-works/the-law-down-a-century-remembered/
John Murray's career in academia came full circle: he was president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where he first taught law from 1959 to 1967. An expert in commercial law, antitrust, and contracts, he came to Pitt Law School in 1967 to hold a joint appointment in the Pitt Graduate School of Business. He served as associate dean for one year under W. Edward Sell before his appointment as dean. After leaving Pitt, he became dean of the Villanova University School of Law, a position he held from 1984 to 1986. He then returned to Pitt Law School as Distinguished Service Professor of Law. He also served as Duquesne’s 11th president from 1988 through 2001. He passed away on February 11, 2015 at 82 years old. Murray earned his undergraduate degree from La Salle University in Philadelphia and law degrees from Catholic University, where he was law review editor, and the University of Wisconsin. He was editor of the Journal of Legal Education for more than 10 years when it was published at Pitt Law School, and he was the author of several casebooks, including his most recent, Sales and Leases: Problems and Materials on National and International Transactions, co-authored with Pitt Law professor Harry Flechtner.
Prior to his tenure at Pitt Law, Richard Pierce was director of the Energy Law Program at Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans. He had also taught at the University of Virginia and the University of Kansas School of Law. Pierce received his undergraduate degree from Lehigh University and his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.
After his brief stay at Pitt, Pierce taught at Southern Methodist University School of Law. He also served as the Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law at Columbia University School of Law.
Appointed interim dean at the time of Richard Pierce's departure, Nordenberg served in that capacity for two years until he officially took over as dean. A graduate of Thiel College in Greenville, PA, and the University of Wisconsin Law School, he accepted a permanent position on the Pitt Law faculty in 1978 after a one-year stint as a visiting professor. He had previously taught at Capital University Law School in Columbus, OH.
An expert in civil litigation, Nordenberg resigned the deanship in 1993 to assume the post of interim provost and senior vice chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. He has been active on several University committees, including the University Planning and Budgeting Committee, of which he was chair. In the fall of 1994, Nordenberg returned to the Pitt Law classroom, where he taught courses in legal process and civil procedure, transnational litigation, and trial advocacy.
In 1995, Nordenberg served as interim Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. Among his several professional activities, Nordenberg was a reporter and steering committee member of the Civil Justice Advisory Group of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of PA. He reached the maximum limit for service on both the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's Civil Procedural Rules Committee (six years) and the U.S. Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Civil Rules (five years). Nordenberg was elected a fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 1992 and received the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1985 and the School of Law's Excellence-in-Teaching Award in 1984.
A member of the Pitt Law faculty for more than 30 years, Seeburger served as interim dean upon the departure of Mark Nordenberg. An expert on constitutional law, remedies, and damages, he earned his undergraduate degree from Dickinson College and his JD and LLM degrees from Harvard Law School. He was a teaching fellow at Harvard prior to his appointment at Pitt in the early 1960s.
Seeburger was a former book review editor for the Journal of Legal Education and has published articles in several legal journals. He was the former chairman of the Remedies Section of the Association of American Law Schools and a member of the board of directors of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was also active on several University and Law School committees. During the 1982-83 academic year, Seeburger was a Distinguished Visiting Professor.
Peter M. Shane, an expert in administrative law, constitutional law, and law and the presidency, was appointed dean on the cusp of the School of Law's centennial year. He was a former professor of law at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he taught for 13 years.
Shane's scholarly work on topics such as political accountability, the separation of powers, and other constitutional law issues has appeared in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Yale Law and Policy Review, and the Michigan Law Review. He was the author, with J. Mashaw and R. Merrill, of Administrative Law: The American Public Law System, and a forthcoming second edition.
In addition to his work in legal academia, Shane was a former attorney-adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel and former assistant general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. After earning his JD at Yale Law School, Shane clerked for the Hon. Alvin B. Rubin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He holds an AB in social studies from Harvard College.
Shane was appointed to the Administrative Conference, an independent federal agency charged with streamlining governmental and regulatory processes. He was a member of the council of the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and was a former chair of the section's committee on the separation of powers. He was also active on several committees of the Society of American Law Teachers and the Association of American Law Schools. Shane testified before the U.S. Congress on several occasions and was a frequent lecturer on constitutional and administrative law topics.