In Dedication to Dean Dillard: Man of Depth and Style

Abstract

It is eminently fitting that an issue of the Virginia Law Review designed to make a serious contribution to legal education should be dedicated to Dean Hardy Dillard. For some forty years Dean Dillard has been a distinguished leader in the pioneering efforts in this country to create a more realistic and viable jurisprudence and to put that jurisprudence into effective application in improved legal education. It would be as impossible as unnecessary even to attempt here to describe the many different roles in which Dean Dillard has asserted leadership. Throughout his career he has been a powerful teacher, both in the classroom and in other associations, greatly affecting the more fundamental perspectives of all his audiences. His scholarly publications upon subjects of the greatest variety—international law, jurisprudence, contracts, torts, general philosophy, legal education, and so on—have since the early thirties poured forth in steady and, happily, increasing volume. For these several decades, first as an influential member of the faculty and more recently as dean, he has had a major hand in shaping the destinies of a great national law school. In a time of urgent national crisis he took the indispensable initiative in establishing an important, and enduring, center for training and inquiry in military law and government. He has represented and advised his government on matters of the highest importance both as a military officer and as a civilian. He has been active in the professional organizations of the bar, at both national and local levels, and has held high executive position in influential private associations, such as the American Society of International Law and the Association of American Law Schools. He has lectured in great universities abroad and served as consultant to large philanthropic foundations. Finally, as inimitable friend and mentor, he has stimulated many associates to enlarge their aspirations and capabilities and, hence, to make contributions which might otherwise have been beyond them. To the performance of all these different roles, it must be added, Dean Dillard has brought, in a manner quite distinctive to him, the deepest empathy for his fellowman, an abundance of wit and humor, and an extraordinary grace and felicity in style.