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FACULTY PROFILE<br />
THOMAS R. FRENCH<br />
Associate Dean, Law Library; Professor of Law<br />
A fond farewell after a career of teaching, and helping faculty and students<br />
As a history major at State University of New York (SUNY)<br />
Oswego, Thomas French enjoyed not only his classes, but<br />
also his work-study job at the college library. Early on, he knew<br />
that he loved being in a university atmosphere and that he<br />
loved the challenge of academic research. French’s college<br />
advisor suggested law school. “I thought he was crazy,” French<br />
remembers now. It took a while, but French did take the advice,<br />
which led him to an interesting and rewarding career in law<br />
school libraries—researching, teaching and working with faculty<br />
members and students. French came to the College of Law<br />
in 2000 as Director of the Barclay Law Library and Associate<br />
Professor of Law. He was named Associate Dean and Professor<br />
of Law in 2006. He retired this summer.<br />
French received his Bachelor’s Degree in 1971, “with the draft<br />
hanging over my head,” he says. He enlisted in the Navy and,<br />
after fulfilling his obligation, pursued his Master of Library<br />
Science degree at SUNY Geneseo. He went on to pursue his MA<br />
in History at the University of Cincinnati, where he concentrated<br />
on the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth as well<br />
as African-American history. He decided he would next head<br />
to wherever he was offered a job first—in history or in a library.<br />
French worked as a law librarian at the Chase College of Law<br />
of Northern Kentucky University—working full-time while he<br />
pursued his law degree part-time. Although he never planned<br />
on practicing law, he says he knew law school was an essential<br />
pursuit along his career path.<br />
“I learned the literature of the law,” he says. “Law school helped<br />
me understand what the students and faculty are dealing with. I<br />
certainly became more conversant in the language.”<br />
Before his tenure at the College of Law, French worked in<br />
court and academic law libraries in Ohio, Kentucky, Maine and<br />
North Carolina. While serving as the Associate Director of the<br />
Law Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,<br />
French served as a consultant for the United States Agency<br />
for International Development while it helped to establish<br />
and revitalize law library collections in the nation of Eritrea.<br />
He traveled three times to the East African nation in the years<br />
following its 1993 independence from Ethiopia. French saw a<br />
part of the world he had never really expected to see and was<br />
able to witness what it is like to develop a new legal system.<br />
The experience also sparked in him an interest in African,<br />
comparative, civil and Roman law.<br />
French traces another area of interest—Canadian Law—to his<br />
childhood. As a boy growing up in Bath, New York, he would<br />
sometimes accompany his father, a lumber dealer, on his trips<br />
to Canada to collect walnut and deliver it to far-flung places.<br />
“He knew every road between Utica and Saskatchewan,” French<br />
says. French maintained his interest in Canada and Canadian<br />
history throughout his undergraduate and graduate studies. At<br />
the College of Law, French taught Canadian Law, in addition to<br />
International, Foreign and Comparative Legal Research.<br />
When the College of Law started planning the construction of<br />
Dineen Hall, French and other colleagues traveled to leading law<br />
libraries across the country, including Villanova, Marquette and<br />
the University of Colorado, to talk to law librarians and gather<br />
ideas about what would work best at the College of Law. French<br />
had high praise for his staff who worked together to plan, pack<br />
and organize for the move into Dineen Hall. Now, other law<br />
schools are coming to visit the College of Law library, including<br />
a group from Queen Mary College at the University of London,<br />
who visited Syracuse in June.<br />
French says the most rewarding aspect of his job has always<br />
been the interaction with the students and faculty. “The<br />
challenge is to make sure the organization works to produce<br />
what people need. The best part of the job is when a faculty<br />
member or a student asks us, ‘You wouldn’t have this, would<br />
you…’ and we can say, yes we have it, or we can have it for you<br />
within a few hours.”<br />
Retirement for French will mean lots of travel—including a trip<br />
he took to New Zealand shortly after his last day, and perhaps a<br />
move to Maine. And, as fitting for a librarian, there’s something<br />
else on his agenda as well, he says: “I’ve got all the books that<br />
are stacked up that I’ve been meaning to read.”<br />
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