Georgetown Law Alumni Magazine - Res Ipsa Loquitur
Spring/Summer 2009 - Online Volume 1
Faculty Notes
A Tribute: Dean Paul R. Dean (1918-2008)
Fifty-five years ago, Paul R. Dean became the dean of this institution, and 40 years ago he relinquished that post. Dean, who died August 17, 2008, at the age of 90, was a towering figure at the Law Center. “It was under Paul’s deanship that the foundation for the modern Law Center was set,” said Dean Alex Aleinikoff. Georgetown Law magazine honors Dean on these pages.
It is fitting that Paul R. Dean carried the name of “dean” throughout his 90 years. That he wore it at the beginning of his life was a fortuitous accident of birth; by the end of his life last summer he had not only earned the title of dean of Georgetown Law but was known as the “founding dean” of the modern law school.
When Paul Dean was born on July 12, 1918, in Leetonia, Ohio, no one thought to call Georgetown’s 48-year-old law school by the name of the “Law Center,” and names like the “Prettyman Program” and “McDonough Hall” were a long way off. Dean attended De Sales School of Theology and Youngstown State University before serving his country as an officer in the United States Navy. After World War II, he resumed his education at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration before earning a law degree from Georgetown in 1946. He later served as law clerk to Judge Andrew M. Hood of the Municipal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
But he couldn’t stay away from Georgetown. In 1947, he returned to join the law faculty, teaching contracts, taxation, estate planning and trusts. He earned an LL.M. from the school in 1952 and became the law school’s 10th dean from 1954 to 1969. As dean, he was largely credited with laying the foundation for the modern Law Center.
The list of his accomplishments is truly inspiring: his establishment of the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship Program, which recruited law graduates to represent indigent criminal defendants; his restructuring of the graduate program; his work to attract a stellar faculty and diverse student body; his fundraising and construction planning for McDonough Hall, completed in 1971; and his improvements to the curriculum, particularly in the areas of criminal justice law, poverty law, and trial and appellate advocacy.
Yet as one of his successors, Dean David J. McCarthy, later noted, “What the list fails to capture are the personal qualities Paul Dean drew upon and the uniqueness of his vision … [p]erhaps unique was his humility, most memorably captured in his commitment to hiring faculty … who shared his vision, who brought prominence to the institution, and who were open to change. … Even as he committed Georgetown to becoming one of the nation’s elite law schools, Paul Dean insisted on preserving and improving its graduate programs, its marvelous evening division, its treasured part-time faculty, its unparalleled clinical programs, and its vital curriculum in trial and appellate advocacy.”
Dean’s contributions to the wider community are equally noteworthy. He served as legal adviser to the President’s Commission on Government Contract Compliance in the 1950s; an adviser to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in the 1960s and a member of the President’s Commission on Pension Policy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. An original member of the board of the Loyola Foundation, he served as a trustee for nearly 50 years (1957-2006) and also served as a trustee of the United Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds for over 20 years (1971-1994).
Dean continued to support the Law Center through the years. Annual awards given by the school in his honor recognize outstanding service by Law Center graduates who have exhibited leadership to their alma mater and to the legal profession.
Survivors include his seven children: Brian D. Dean, Teresa M. McCabe, John E. Dean (C’73, L’82), Delores A. Dean (C’78), Mary E. Dean, Paul R. Dean Jr. (C’75, L’79) and William J. Dean (C’77, L’82) — as well as 20 grandchildren and six great grandchildren. His wife, Delores M. Dean, died in 1987; a son, Lawrence Dean, died in 1973 and a daughter, lawyer Patricia Dean (C’75, L’81), died in 2004.
McCarthy said that “in building for the future, [Dean] did not sacrifice the treasures of our past. Indeed, he made them the pillars of our present prominence.” Today, 40 years after the founding dean walked the halls of Georgetown Law, those pillars remain — and they will stand for many years to come.
Dean Paul R. Dean in his own words:
Message to First Year Students
When this message is published, the first year students will be well into the study of law. For some students, therefore, many of the exhortations hereinafter made may be unnecessary. This message will affirm the wisdom of that discerning group. To the less discerning, take heed now before disaster strikes.
My message this year may be summarized in one word: WORK! You are a select group of college graduates whose admission files substantiate our judgment that with full effort on your part you can become a successful lawyer. You are privileged to be in attendance at one of America’s finest law schools staffed by an excellent faculty with a location unique in the law school world. Unparalleled opportunities for observation of the courts, for living the law, for creative and original research are yours to utilize as you desire. The remaining big ingredient necessary for your development is your own motivation and your own actual work.
From Res Ipsa Loquitur,
December 1959
