Graduates of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law achieve greatness. Whether practicing law in a small family firm, an international firm with offices around the globe, a start-up tech company, or any number of other settings in and outside the field of law, our graduates make a difference. The graduates listed here are examples of people who have gone the extra mile, not just excelling in their workplace or community, but by leaving their mark on the larger national and international environment.
Arrangement is by year of birth. To search for a specific notable alumni, use the search box in the upper left-hand corner of this screen.
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Samuel Saul Dargan
Samuel S. Dargan was the first African-American graduate of Indiana University School of Law. Dargan was a dedicated law librarian and active community member, who worked to expand educational and professional opportunities for African-Americans.
Dargan was born on December 21, 1869, in Rochester, New York. He attended Cornell University and MIT, and ultimately graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor's degree in science in 1905. Dargan began his legal studies at IU in 1905, and in 1906 he won the junior year oratory prize for his speech "Tariff in the United States." He received his LLB in 1909.
The legal profession afforded few opportunities to African-American lawyers in Dargan's day, and so he accepted the position of assistant law librarian at IU. From 1924 until his retirement in 1948, he held the position of Curator of Law. While working at the Law School, Dargan also operated a business selling law books to students. He was beloved by the law students, and his generosity and quiet dedication to the students earned him the title "father of the IU Law School." Renowned graduates of the day like Wendell Willkie, Sherman Minton, William Jenner, Paul Jasper, and John Hastings remained close to Dargan throughout his life.
With his Law School salary and the proceeds from his book business, Dargan purchased several properties on the west side of the IU campus. He operated several boarding houses for African-American students who were not permitted to occupy any university housing until after World War II. The Dargan House became the first residence for African-American women students, and his other houses served as social centers for black students. Kappa Alpha Psi, the first black fraternity on campus, leased one of Dargan's properties.
In the 1940s, Dargan served on the Bloomington Draft Board, and also on a committee of prominent African-Americans who developed ways of helping Bloomington's black population secure jobs on national defense projects.
When Dargan retired in 1948, a group of law alumni honored him with a portrait in appreciation for "looking after us like a brother and a father." Dargan died in 1954 at the age of 84 and is buried in Bloomington’s Rose Hill Cemetery.
In 1988, he was inducted into the Monroe County Hall of Fame for his community service to Bloomington and IU. He was inducted into the Indiana University School of Law Academy of Law Alumni Fellows in 2009. Additionally, each year the Indiana University School of Law’s Black Law Student Association presents the Samuel S. Dargan award to a distinguished alumnus for continued involvement with the BLSA and Law School communities.
In 2018, the block of Indiana Ave. between 3rd Street and 4th Street (the block of Indiana Ave. that the law school sits on) was designated Samual Dargan Way.
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Joseph S. Dailey
Joseph S. Dailey was born on May 31, 1844 in Wells County, Indiana. After graduating from the Wells County Public Schools, he studied law with a local attorney while teaching school to raise enough money to attend Indiana University at Bloomington. He graduated from the law department in 1866, and was admitted to the bar. In his first year of practice he was elected district attorney of the Wells County common pleas court.
In 1868, Dailey was elected prosecutor for the Tenth Judicial District, for Adams, Allen, Huntington, Wells, and Whitley counties. He served in this office until 1876, and then in 1878 he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives. In 1882 he ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1888 he was elected judge of the circuit court for Huntington and Wells counties, where he served until his appointment to the Indiana Supreme Court in 1893.
Justice Dailey was appointed to the court to fill out the term of Justice Walter Olds. He served on the court from July 25, 1893 to January 7, 1895. He was defeated for a full term in the 1894 election. During his brief tenure on the Court, he authored more than 80 opinions. On leaving the Court, he returned to Wells County to practice law with his son. He died at his home on October 9, 1905 and was buried in the Elm Grove Cemetery in Wells County.
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Arthur Calvin Mellette
Arthur Calvin Mellette was born on June 23, 1842, in Henry County, Indiana. His early education was at the Marion Academy and the Grant County Academy. He then enrolled at Indiana University, graduating in 1863. During the last years of the Civil War, he served in the 9th Indiana Volunteers (1864-65). After the war, he enrolled at the IU school of law and received his LL.B. degree in 1866. After graduation, Mellette formed a law partnership with Thomas J. Brady in Muncie, Indiana. While in Muncie, he purchased the Muncie Times newspaper, which he would run for eight years (1870-1878). Additionally, he was elected Delaware County district attorney in 1870 and a member of the Indiana House of Representatives in 1873.
When, in 1878, his wife (Margaret Wylie - daughter of early Indiana University faculty member Theophilus Wylie) became sick, he moved the family to Springfield in the Dakota Territory, in hopes that a different climate would improve her health. There, he served as registrar of the United States Land Office. The family moved to Watertown, DT, a few years later where he became a prosperous attorney and leading citizen of the town.
A strong advocate for statehood, Mellette was appointed the tenth, and last, governor of the Dakota Territory in March of 1889. When, a few months later, statehood was granted to the new North and South Dakota, Mellette was elected the first governor of the state of South Dakota. He served two, two-year, terms and retired.
Mellette died at the age of 53, in 1895, while in Pittsburg, Kansas
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James Henry Jordan
James Henry Jordan was born in 1842 in Woodstock, Virginia. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to Corydon, Indiana. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted and served in the Third Indiana Cavalry. The Third Indiana served in the Army of the Potomac, thus Jordan participated in all the major battles in the Eastern Theater. He was wounded at Gettysburg in July 1863, and severely wounded two months later at the Battle of Culpeper Court.
With the conclusion of the war, Jordan returned to Indiana and began his studies at Wabash College, later transferring to Indiana University in Bloomington where he graduated in 1868. He returned to Corydon and began to read law under a local judge and another lawyer. He then returned to Bloomington to formally study law, earning his law degree in 1871. He then practiced law briefly in Missouri before moving to Martinsville, Morgan County, Indiana. He established his law practice in Martinsville, eventually serving as prosecuting attorney and city attorney. In 1882 he sought election to circuit judge, and in 1888 to the Indiana Supreme Court, but he lost both times. In 1894 he was elected to the Indiana Supreme Court, where he would serve for the next 17 years, being reelected in both 1900 and 1906.
Justice Jordan wrote 652 opinions during his 17 years on the Indiana Supreme Court. Two opinions stand out. In 1911 he wrote the opinion in Ex parte France (176 Ind. 72), a case seeking to decide if a 1911 statute stripping the Court of some measure of its ultimate authority was constitutional. Jordan wrote the opinion for the majority (in a 3 to 2 decision) that the statute was unconstitutional, stating that “the Supreme Court of this State is, in the full sense of that word, supreme over the other two departments of state government.”
His other significant opinion was his dissent in In re Denny (156 Ind. 105) in 1901. The issue in Denny was how to amend the state constitution, concerning how to define the term “elector.” The definition decided by the Court made it almost impossible to amend the Indiana State Constitution. Jordan wrote a 40 page dissent in the case. In 1935, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the decision in Denny, stating that it had “no hesitancy to re-examine this question”, due to Jordan’s dissenting opinion.
Justice Jordan died in office on April 10, 1912. He was interred at the New South Park Cemetery in Martinsville.
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Clarendon Davisson
Clarendon Davisson was born on December 10, 1817, in Xenia, Ohio. He was educated in Xenia, before enrolling at Indiana University. He received his LL.B. from Indiana University in 1844, one of five graduates in the first class of the school, and then began practicing law in Petersburg, Indiana. He later returned to Bloomington and edited the local newspaper, The Herald.
Davisson would work for several Midwestern newspapers in the years before the civil war, including the Indianapolis Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and the St. Louis Democrat. While covering 1858 Lincoln-Douglass debates, Davisson apparently developed a friendship with Abraham Lincoln. Three years later, President Lincoln appointed Davisson as Consul at Bourdeaux, France, a position he would hold until 1866. Davisson is credited by many as having influenced the French government to prevent Confederate ships from sailing from France.
After the war, Davisson returned to America and settled in New Orleans, working for the New Orleans Republic and working with the Board of Education. Clarendon Davisson died on September 10, 1878, age 60, in Brighton Island, Georgia.
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Willis Arnold Gorman
Willis Arnold Gorman was born in Flemingsburgh, Kentucky, on January 12, 1816. Little is known about his childhood in Kentucky. At the age of 20, Gorman moved to Bloomington, Indiana. Three years later, he was elected to the Indiana legislature and served three terms (1841/42. 1842/43, and 1843/44) representing Brown and Monroe counties. Willis apparently studied law, and was admitted to the bar, prior to receiving his law degree from the Indiana University Law Department in 1845. When war with Mexico broke out in 1846, Gorman enlisted as a private in the Third Indiana Volunteers and rose to the rank of major.
After the war, Gorman returned to Indiana and was appointed to Congress (1849-1853.) In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Gorman to the position of governor of the Minnesota Territory and superintendent of Indian affairs for the territory. He served until 1857, at which time he began practicing law in St. Paul and serving as a member of the State Constitutional Convention. In 1858 he became a Minnesota state representative.
During the Civil War, Gorman served as a colonel in the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, before rising to the rank of brigadier general. After the war, he returned to St. Paul to practice law and serve as the city’s prosecuting attorney from 1869 to 1875.
Willis Arnold Gorman died on May 20, 1876 at the age of 60.
