Dean Harry Shulman

Abstract

Harry Shulman's death is a grievous blow. He died at fifty-two, just as he was beginning a new phase of his devoted and distinguished service to the Yale Law School, and to the cause of law in the United States. Called to the Deanship from a career of extraordinary accomplishment, and promise, he was Dean long enough to make it clear that he intended to lead the faculty in a major reappraisal of legal education, and a major effort to adapt our program of teaching and research to the needs of the next generation. To this task, he brought remarkable resources. His own work, as teacher and scholar, was uniformly at the highest level of thoughtful excellence. He had been a successful and creative leader in the field of labor relations, and had proved himself in policy making, and the conduct of affairs. Above all, he was a wise, sane, and temperate man. As a human being, he was one of those rare people who invariably attract respect and affection in equal measure—the special respect reserved for those who are unshakably devoted to principle, and the affection evoked by transparently sincere generosity, sympathy, and good-will. He might have become an outstanding judge, for he had the quality of spirit we prize most in judges. He would surely have been a great Dean.