The faculty of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law are truly world class scholars and teachers. Historically the school has employed some of the sharpest minds in American jurisprudence. The deceased faculty listed here represent just a small percentage of the exceptional individuals who have served as faculty members of the Maurer School of Law.
Arrangement is by year of birth. To search for a specific former faculty member, use the search box in the upper left-hand corner of this screen.
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Frederick Reed Dickerson
F. Reed Dickerson was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 11, 1909. He received his undergraduate degree (A.B.) from Williams College in 1931. He received his LL.B. from the Harvard Law School in 1934. Dickerson also earned a Masters of Law (1939) and a Doctor of Juridical Science (1950) from Columbia University. He practiced law in Boston and Chicago before teaching at the law schools of Washington University (1939-40) and the University of Pittsburgh (1940-42). During World War II, Dickerson became an attorney with the Office of Price Administration (1942-47) and then joined the Office of the Legislative Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives (1947-49). He finished his employment in the federal government by serving as the Deputy Assistant General Counsel of the U. S. Department of Defense (1949-1958). For his defense related work, Dickerson received the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the highest honor given by the military to a civilian.
In 1958 Dickerson joined the faculty of the Indiana University School of Law. While concentrating on his special areas of interest – legislation, legal drafting, and products liability, Professor Dickerson developed a reputation as an international expert in the field of legislative writing. A prolific author, Dickerson came to be known at the “dean of American Legislative Drafting” following the publication of such seminal works as The Fundamentals of Legal Drafting (1965), The Interpretation and Application of Statutes and Cases (1975), and Materials on Legislation (1981). In addition to his teaching and research, Professor Dickerson spent 22 years as an Indiana delegate to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, making a major contribution to the substance and drafting of uniform laws. He was often called upon to lend his expertise to foreign governments as well and enjoyed a long-lasting relationship with the UK Parliamentary Counsel Office.
Another area of interest for Dickerson was “his first love and avocation” – music. Although he gave up any ideas of making a living playing music when he entered law school, Dickerson continued to play trumpet and could often be found playing with a group of IU professors known as the “Faculty Five.” Being Dickerson, he also wrote jazz related articles for such publications as, Harpers, Esquire, and Downbeat.
While Professor Dickerson formally retired in 1980, he continued teaching and frequently traveled for speaking and consulting engagements for many years. Reed Dickerson died on June 9, 1991 in Bloomington, Indiana.
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Mary Jean Ashman
Mary Jean Ashman was born in Osgood, Indiana on September 11, 1905. She attended Indiana University where she received her A.B. in 1927. In 1931, she was appointed to the position of Law Librarian for the Indiana University, Bloomington Law Library. While serving as law librarian, she began to take classes in the law school towards her law degree.
In 1949, Ashman left Indiana University to become the Law Library Director at the University of Chicago. She later served as the law librarian for the Railroad Retirement Board in Chicago, and in 1953, she became the Law Library Director at Washington University in St. Louis. Beginning in 1958, she resumed her work on her law degree by taking classes in the summer in Bloomington. In 1962, she completed her course work and received her law degree.
Jean Ashman retired from Washington University in 1975, and she moved to Indianapolis. She died in Bloomington on February 2, 1994 and was interred in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Ralph Follen Fuchs
Ralph Fuchs was born in 1899 in Saint Louis, Missouri. He earned his undergraduate and JD degrees from Washington University, a doctorate in economics from what is now the Brookings Institute, and a graduate degree in law from Yale. He practiced law privately for one year before joining the faculty at Washington University. During the Second World War, he worked for the government, first as administrative head of the Civil Service Commission's legal division, then in the solicitor general's office. In 1946, he became a professor of law at Indiana University, and was eventually awarded the title of university professor in honor of his scholarship, teaching, and public service.
Fuchs' scholarly interests were wide-ranging, but much of his writing dealt with the then-emerging field of administrative law, in which he was a pioneer. Before he came to IU, Fuchs had been an important contributor in drafting one of the most important pieces of federal legislation affecting administrative law, the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946.
People who knew Ralph Fuchs at all stages of his career all mention his extraordinary personal integrity. His rather unpopular political views were deeply felt, but he never took advantage of his role in the classroom to press his views on students.
He was very active in the NAACP and was appointed to its committee on legal redress in 1949; he also served as faculty advisor to the university chapter of the NAACP. When academic freedom was threatened under the forces of McCarthyism, he worked with the American Association of University Professors, both at the campus level and as their national president from 1955 to 1957, to resist this threat and to create a culture of truly meaningful academic freedom. A member of the American Civil Liberties Union since the 1930s, he helped found the Indiana chapter and was the first chairman of the executive board of the ICLU. Throughout his career, he was unfailingly courteous and generous in the support and guidance he offered younger colleagues and students, well beyond his retirement in 1970 up until his death in 1985.The Law School awarded Fuchs its Herman Frederic Lieber Award for teaching in 1969. In 2001, the Law School created the Ralph F. Fuchs Professorship and the Ralph Fuchs Lecture.
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Austin Vincent Clifford
Austin Vincent Clifford was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on December 2, 1896. He received his A.B. from Butler University in 1917 and then entered the Army. In 1920 he enrolled at the Harvard University School of Law and received his LL.B. (1922). After graduation, he joined the Indianapolis law firm that would become Matson, Ross, McCord and Clifford. In 1939 he accepted a partnership in the Chicago law firm of Lord, Bissell, and Kadyk. In both cities, Clifford established a reputation as an expert in the field of corporate law. Clifford had a keen interest in banking, as well as the law, and for a time served as the Director of the Fletcher Trust Company, and later served as a member of the trust investment committee of the Fletcher National Bank and Trust Company.
With the outbreak of World War II, Clifford re-entered the Army and ultimately rose to the rank of Colonel. After the war, Clifford was invited to join the faculty of the Indiana University School of Law. Over the next twenty-one years (1946-1967), Clifford taught courses in Torts, Evidence, and International Law. He served as supervisor of the program to enhance a number of practical legal skills, and administered the school’s distinguished lecturer program. Clifford won the Herman Frederick Lieber teaching award in 1967, the year he retired.
After his retirement, he returned to private practice as counsel to the Bloomington law firm of Bunger, Harrell, and Robertson. Austin V. Clifford – lawyer, scholar, teacher, banker, soldier – died on May 17, 1975.
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Paul Lombard Sayre
Paul Lombard Sayre was born on July 26, 1894 in Hinsdale, Illinois. He attended University High School in Chicago and the Teacher School in Ojai, California. He earned his A.B. degree from Harvard University in 1916, and his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1920. Upon his graduation from Chicago, he was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Illinois from 1920 to 1924. He earned his S.J.D. at Harvard in 1925 and the same year he joined the faculty at the Indiana University School of Law. He was on the Indiana Law faculty until 1930 when he joined the faculty at the University of Iowa College of Law. Professor Sayre spent the rest of his career in Iowa City, teaching on family and divorce law. He founded the National Council on Family Relations in 1937, and he authored a biography of noted Harvard Law Professor Roscoe Pound (Sayre was a student of Professor Pound’s at Harvard).
Paul Sayre died on August 10, 1959. He was interred at the Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City, Iowa.
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James Jaquess Robinson
James Jaquess Robinson was born on July 14, 1893 in the small Gibson County, Indiana, town of Owensville. He attended Indiana University, serving as captain of the cross-country team, and graduating with honors in 1914. He then entered Harvard Law School earning his law degree in 1919. He returned to Gibson County and practiced law in Princeton, Indiana until 1924.
In 1924, Robinson joined the law faculty at Indiana University, Bloomington. During his time on the law faculty, he earned his doctorate in law from Harvard (1931), and in 1934 he was instrumental in the establishment of the IU Institute of Criminal Law Administration. In 1941, he left Bloomington for Washington D.C. to accept a 3-year assignment as a reporter on the Advisory Committee on Federal Laws of Criminal Procedure for the U.S. Supreme Court. From 1944 to 1950, he served the director of the Navy Division and deputy director of the United States War Crimes Office. In this capacity, he served on the International Prosecution Section of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals. At the conclusion of the Tribunal, he returned to the United States to teach law at George Washington University and serve as a legislative attorney with the Library of Congress.
In 1954, Robinson went to the newly created nation of Libya to help set up its judicial system. This led to his appointment to the Libyan Supreme Court, serving for 15 years and having the distinction of being the only American to serve on another country’s Supreme Court. In 1969, he retired and returned to the United States. In 1972, Indiana University awarded him the Distinguished Alumni Service Award. The School of Law continues to honor Robinson with the Hon. James J. Robinson International Law Fellowship Fund.
James Robinson died on May 22, 1980 in Fairfax County, Virginia. He was interred in the Owensville Cemetery in his hometown of Owensville, Indiana. His wife of 59 years, Florence Robinson, died in 1991 and was buried beside him.
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James Lewis Parks
James Lewis Parks was born in Middletown, Connecticut, on March 2, 1886. Little is known of his childhood. He entered Columbia University in 1904 and received his A.B. in 1907. Three years later, he received his law degree (L.L.B.) from the Columbia Law School. He remained in New York City practicing law until 1914, at which time he joined the faculty of the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. In 1917, Parks became the thirty-fourth faculty member at the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington. He remained at Indiana until 1919.
From 1919 until his death in 1934, Parks was a member of the faculty at the University of Missouri School Of Law in Columbia. Six of those years (1928-1934) he served as Dean of the school. Nicknamed “The Baron,” Parks was particularly popular with students and colleagues. Upon his sudden death from a heart attack, the President of the University said, “The Passing of Dean Parks is a serious loss to the University of Missouri and to the profession of law. A man of high standing and unquestioned integrity, he has always stood for the highest ideals in his chosen profession.”
Parks' casebook, Cases on the Law of Mortgages: Selected from Decisions of American and English Courts (West Publishing, 1926) was a standard text in law schools across the country.
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John Lewis Baker
John Lewis Baker was born on March 27, 1882 in Oxford, Ohio. He earned his bachelor degree from Miami University in Oxford, and in 1910 his LL.B. from the Indiana University, Bloomington School of Law. He practiced law in Indianapolis, and then joined the law school faculty in 1914. In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, he left the law school and enlisted in the United States Army. He was a Captain in the Quartermaster Corps, eventually serving in France. Upon his discharge, he moved to New York City and began his career as a corporate attorney in the insurance business. In 1934, he joined the Reliance Insurance Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as vice president and general counsel. In 1940, he became the chair of the Haverford Township (Delaware County, Pennsylvania) Wendell Willkie Club. Baker had taught Willkie when they were both at the Indiana University School of Law. Baker said he remembered Willkie “as one of the most brilliant of my students, and he was just as interesting a chap at school as he is in business and public life.” During World War II, he rejoined the U.S. Army at the age of 60, and when the war ended, he resumed his position with Reliance Insurance. He retired in 1948, and he died at his home in Butler County, Ohio on October 27, 1960.
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Alfred C. Evens
Alfred C. Evens was born on January 28, 1881 in Greencastle, Indiana. Evens received his undergraduate degree from his hometown University, Depauw (1902). Before deciding he wanted to study law, Evens spent two years as the Superintendent of Schools at Monrovia, Indiana, as well as doing graduate work at the University of Chicago. Ultimately, he received his LL.B. from the Indiana University School of Law in 1907. His legal career began in private practice in Indianapolis, before he became an attorney for the Frankfort General Insurance Company. He shared a partnership with Will R. Wood in Lafayette from 1914 to 1920, at which time he became the general attorney for the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway Company (A.K.A., the Monon), in Chicago.
In 1928, Evens was appointed Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law. He was the faculty editor of the Indiana Law Journal from 1935 to 1940 and taught until his death. In addition to teaching Evens entered into a partnership with Leroy Baker in general Practice in Bloomington (1935-1949). Alfred C. Evens died on August 30, 1949, in Bloomington, at the age of 68.
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Chester Garfield Vernier
Chester Garfield Vernier was born on February 19, 1881, in tiny Ansonia, Ohio, just east of the Indiana border. Although an Ohio resident, he attended High School in Liberty, Indiana. He then attended Butler College in Indianapolis, and received his B.A. there in 1903. He received his J. D. from the University of Chicago in 1907. He then served as an instructor at the Indiana University School of Law during the 1907-08 academic year, before joining the faculty of the University of Nebraska College of Law during 1908-09. Vernier returned to the Indiana University School of Law as a Professor of Law in 1909-10 and stayed until 1911. He then spent six years at the University of Illinois College of Law, before joining the faculty at Stanford University School of Law in 1917. He remained at Stanford until his retirement in 1946.
Vernier was known as a “scholar of first rank.” He was one of the founders of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology and was the associate editor of its Journal for more than 20 years. In 1912, he published Cases on Marriage and Divorce: Selected from Decisions of English and American Courts (West Publishing). Vernier's most well known publication was his six-volume treatise, often referred to as the definitive work on the subject, American Family Laws (1931-1937). Vernier died in 1949.
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Edwin Roulette Keedy
Edwin Roulette Keedy was born in Boonsboro, Maryland, on January 19, 1880. Keedy received his undergraduate degree from Franklin & Marshall College in 1899 and his law degree from the Harvard School of Law in 1906. After Harvard, Keedy joined the faculty of the Indiana University School of Law where he taught from 1906 until 1909. Keedy left IU to teach at Northwestern University’s School of Law (1909-1915). In 1915, he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he remained until his retirement in 1945. He served as Dean of the School from 1941 until his retirement.
During World War I, Keedy was a member of the board of review of the Judge Advocate General’s Department and during the World War II, he served as Chairman of the Selective Service Board of Appeals. An internationally known scholar in the fields of criminal law and criminal procedure, he coauthored the Code of Criminal Procedure for the American Law Institute (1924-29). He served as president of both the American Institute of Criminal Law (1924) and the International Law Association (1929). Keedy died in Philadelphia, at the age of 78, on November 25, 1958.
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Warren Abner Seavey
Warren Abner Seavey was born on August 14, 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University, receiving his B.A. in 1902 and his LL.B. in 1904. He then practiced law in Boston for two years. In 1906, he began his teaching career as a Professor of Law at Imperial Pei Yang University in Tientsin, China. In 1911, he returned to the United States and his alma mater as a lecturer at Harvard Law School. After one year at Harvard, he taught for two years at Oklahoma State University and then for two years at Tulane University. In 1916, he joined the law faculty at Indiana University, Bloomington. While at Indiana, he was commissioned an infantry captain in the U.S. Army, directing the American Expeditionary Forces College of Law in Beaune, France during World War 1.
In 1920, Seavey left Indiana to become dean at the University of Nebraska College of Law. While at Nebraska, Seavey earned his Doctor of Laws. After six years as dean at Nebraska, he then joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania for one year, and then in 1927 he joined the faculty at Harvard Law School, where he taught and served until his retirement in 1955. While on the faculty at Harvard, Seavey earned a second Doctor of Laws from St. Johns University in 1947. He was an authority on the law of torts, agency, equity, judgments, and restitution, and due to his extensive worldwide travel, he was recognized as an authority on international affairs. He had a number of letters published by the New York Times concerning issues leading up to and during World War 2. He also served as the president of the Association for American Law Schools in 1947.
Warren Seavey died at his home in Weston, Massachusetts on January 18, 1966. He was 85 years old.
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Charles Scott Rowley
Not much is known of Charles Scott Rowley. He was born on September 6, 1878 in North Fairfield, Huron County, Ohio. He was a professor at the Indiana University, Bloomington School of Law from 1917 to 1919. He died on July 31, 1960 and was buried in North Fairfield, Ohio.
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Archibald Hall Throckmorton
Archibald Hall Throckmorton was born on March 28, 1876, in Loudoun County, Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Roanoke College in 1896 and a Master of Arts from Princeton University in 1897. In 1900, he received his Law degree from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, the same year he was admitted to the Bar of Virginia.
Throckmorton served as Dean of the Law School at the Centre College (Danville, Kentucky) Law School from 1902 until 1911, the year he came to the Indiana University School of Law. He taught at Indiana until 1914, at which time he joined the faculty of the Western Reserve University Law School. He remained at Western until his death in 1938.
Throckmorton was the author of three classic West Publishing Hornbooks – Illustrated Cases on Contracts, Illustrative Cases on Evidence and Illustrative Cases on Equity Jurisprudence, all first published in 1913. In the 1920s he compiled the state of Ohio’s standard annotated code (The General Code of the State of Ohio) and the casebook Cases on Code Pleading.