Judge Louis Pollak, a huge figure in both legal academia and the federal judiciary, passed away yesterday. He was 89. Judge Pollak received his LLB from Yale and went on to clerk for Justice Wiley Rutledge on the U.S. Supreme Court. He worked at the State Department as well as Paul, Weiss and he assisted Thurgood Marshall in preparing both briefs and oral argument in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1955 he joined the Yale Law faculty and served as dean from 1966-70. He served as dean of Penn Law from 1975-78. In 1978, he was appointed to federal bench as a judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
I will particularly miss Judge Pollak with whom I came to have a very warm relationship here at Drexel. Judge Pollak served as the Chair of the Board of Visitors at Drexel Law during our first two years and played a signficant role in important law school decisionmaking during his final years. Feisty to the end, Judge Pollak published an article in the very first issue of the Drexel Law Review attacking the US News rankings.
One of the best judges never to sit on the Supreme Court, and a true gentleman. He ruled against my position in some appeals, but he was always right.
Posted by: [email protected] | May 09, 2012 at 05:33 PM
A great gentleman, and one who had a remarkable career in law the kind of which we are not likely to see again.
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Posted by: GED Online | May 19, 2012 at 02:00 AM