Download Magazine - Levin College of Law - University of Florida

FACULTY NEWSIN MEMORIAMWalter WeyrauchFive decades of scholarshipWalter O. Weyrauch, distinguished professorand Steven C. O’Connell Chair, died Oct. 17at the age of 89.“UF Law lost one of its intellectual giants with thepassing of Distinguished Professor Walter Weyrauch,”said Robert Jerry, dean and Levin Mabie and Levinprofessor of law. “Walter has been an active presenceat the law school. Many of our students and facultyknew him and will mourn his passing.”UF Law Professor Emeritus Walter Weyrauchreached a remarkable, record-setting milestone thisyear — 51 years of continuous teaching at a singleschool. Despite being ill with cancer, ProfessorWeyrauch took obvious pleasure on Sept. 29 inthe company of the nearly 150 people, includingcurrent and former colleagues and students, whogathered in his honor to attend the “Walter WeyrauchSymposium: Refl ecting on the Contributions to LegalThought of Walter Weyrauch.”Weyrauch’s teaching and scholarship focused onfamily law, business organizations, comparative law,law and society, legal philosophy, and autonomousinformal lawmaking, and he has been widelypublished in these areas.His publications since 1999 include Gypsy Law:Romani Legal Traditions and Culture, University ofCalifornia Press, Berkeley, (Los Angeles and London,2001); Das Recht Der Roma Und Sinti: Ein BeispielAutonomer Rechtsschöpfung, Vittorio KlostermannPublisher, (Frankfurt Main, Germany, 2002);“Nonrational Sources of Scholarship: RememberingDavid Daube (1909-1999),” 19 RechtshistorischesJournal 677 (2000); “A Theory of Legal Strategy,”49 Duke Law Journal 1405 (with Lynn LoPucki,2000); “Unwritten Constitutions, Unwritten Law,”56 Washington and Lee Law Review 1211 (1999)(also republished in Charles W. Collier, Basic Themesin Law and Jurisprudence, Anderson Publishers,2000); and “Unconscious Meanings of Crime andPunishment,” 2 Buffalo Criminal Law Review 945(1999).Symposium speakers included ProfessorsInga Markovits, Friends of Joe Jamail RegentsChair, University of Texas School of Law; Lynn M.LoPucki, Security Pacifi c Bank Professor, Universityof California-Los Angeles School of Law; AlisonBarnes, Marquette University Law School; and W.Michael Reisman, Myres S. McDougal Professor ofInternational Law, Yale Law School. The four spokeeloquently on the far-ranging infl uence of Weyrauch’sscholarship and how it has swayed their own viewsand studies.“I don’t think I know anyone as curious as WalterWeyrauch,” began Professor Markovits. “He hasthe investigative curiosity of a three-year-old. He isinterested in not only what happened, but how andwhy it happened. That is what law is all about.”An internationally known expert in comparativelaw, Markovits’ research has concentrated onsocialist legal regimes, and more recently, on lawreform in Eastern Europe. She commented that she,like Walter, is an immigrant to America, and spokeon the value of examining a culture through the lensof another.“Walter is fascinated by the law outside therealm of the mighty and the decision-makers,”she said, and praised his use of qualitative versusquantitative research and analysis.Walter Weyrauch joined the UF Law faculty in1957 as associate professor. He became professor in1960, was Clarence J. TeSelle Professor 1989-94,and became Stephen C. O’Connell Chair in 1994and Distinguished Professor in 1998. He was namedan Honorary Professor of Law at Johann WolfgangGoethe University, Germany, and has been visitingfaculty at the University of California, Berkeley,Rutgers University School of Law and University ofFrankfurt.“The law school has been a wonderfulenvironment, and was a fascinating environment forempirical study,” said Weyrauch in his remarks at thesymposium. “There have been tremendous changesin the 51 years I have been here, including dramaticshifts in the diversity of the faculty and student body.”To honor Professor Weyrauch, Frank G.Finkbeiner (JD 72) and T.W. Ackert (JD 72) haveteamed with UF Law to create an endowment to fundthe Walter Weyrauch Distinguished Lecture Seriesin Family Law. The UF Weyrauch Lecture will affi rmUF’s reputation as a leader in the area of family lawscholarship, and the endowed lecture will attractspeakers of the highest quality, creating a lastinglegacy for UF and for Professor Weyrauch.For more information about the WalterWeyrauch Distinguished Lecture Series in FamilyLaw, please contact Vince PremDas in the Offi ce ofAlumni Affairs at (352) 273-0640 or via e-mail atpremdas@law.ufl .edu.96 UF LAW