Roger Cramton, '55: 1929-2017

Roger C. Cramton, former dean of Cornell Law School and the Robert S. Stevens Professor Emeritus of Law, died Feb. 3 in Ithaca. He was 87.

Cramton began teaching law in 1957 as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School and then at the University of Michigan Law School, teaching ethics and torts. He became dean of the Cornell Law School in 1973, following work with the Administrative Conference of the U.S. and the U.S. Department of Justice.

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Cramton as chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency dedicated to improve federal administrative procedures. In 1972, Nixon appointed him as assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, a role “much like that of chaplain to the pope,” according to the late Cornell law professor William Tucker Dean. Prior to Cramton’s appointment, the post was held by future Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and Cramton was succeeded by future Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Continue reading: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/02/roger-cramton-former-cornel…