IN MEMORIAM
MILLARD HARRINGTON RUUD
Professor Millard H. Ruud, a long-time, highly respected,
and much loved member of the faculty of the University of Texas School
of Law, died on February 10, 1997, in Austin, Texas. He joined the
faculty in 1948 and remained here until his retirement, with the
exception of about ten years during his service in Washington, D.C.,
as Executive Director of the Association of American Law Schools.
As Professor of Law Emeritus, Millard continued to come to his office
regularly and to interact with faculty, students and staff of the
Law School and faculty in other schools and departments on campus.
He and his wife, Barbara, who survived Millard, had numerous friends
throughout the University and Austin communities.
Millard was born in a Norwegian farming community
near Ostrander, Minnesota in 1917 and did not learn to speak English
until the first grade. After graduating from high school in Minneapolis,
he had to work for four years before he enrolled in the University
of Minnesota. He was awarded the B.S.L. in 1942. He fought in World
War II in General Patton's army, and served with the U.S. Occupation
Army as a captain in Germany after the war. He returned to the University
of Minnesota and was awarded the L.L.B. in 1947, graduating at the
top of his class, and was recent case editor and the only person
elected president of law review twice.
UT Law Professor
Millard taught for one year at the University of Kansas
Law School and then was hired by Dean Charles T. McCormick to teach
at the University of Texas School of Law in 1948, later becoming
the John S. Redditt Professor of State and Local Government Law.
Along with McCormick, and later Dean Page Keeton, Millard and his
peers transformed The University of Texas School of Law after World
War II from a second-tier institution to one of the leaders in legal
education. He taught legislation and commercial law. He was the prime
mover in elevating legislation to a more prominent place in the curriculum
at the Law School. He was also influential in introducing other academic
disciplines into law school education at the University of Texas,
and elsewhere. Millard chaired the Admissions Committee of the Law
School in the early 1960's, and served as Associate Dean from 1966
to 1968. He was a pioneer in advocating minority access to The University
of Texas School of Law. In the midst of the student protest movement
of the late 1960s, Chancellor Harry Ransom appointed him as chair
of a faculty advisory committee on legal issues confronting the campus
after the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was banned from
campus.
Millard's best teaching was in seminars, where
he worked closely with individual students. Some of these seminars
involved drafting of legislation. These students had the valuable
privilege of receiving instruction from a teacher who had extensive
experience and remarkable skill in the drafting of statutes. He maintained
very high standards. Students were often required to submit several
drafts of their work.
Millard participated with exceptional effectiveness
in governance of the Law School. He was the quintessential committee
chair, able to obtain involvement by members, and at the same time
move with dispatch toward accomplishment of the task at hand. Unlike
those faculty members who view faculty meetings with distaste, Millard
saw the meetings as opportunities to improve the school. He was always
an active and influential participant in faculty deliberations. Deans
frequently sought his advice.
Millard understood the importance of a spirit
of collegiality among faculty and staff, and did much to promote
it. With unusual frequency, he and his wife, Barbara, entertained
members of the Law School community in their home.
State Law Expert
Millard worked to modernize laws throughout the United
States during the administrations of Governors Connally, Smith, Briscoe,
White and Clements as Uniform Commissioner of State Laws from Texas,
serving with the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform
State Laws. His commissioner colleagues named him a lifetime uniform
law commissioner in 1986. He was active for many years in the State
Bar Section on Corporation, Banking and Business Law, and was one
of the prime movers behind the enactment of the Uniform Commercial
Code in the State of Texas in 1965. He was later the reporter and
drafter for the Uniform Nonprofit Association Act, and for years
a member of the style committee for the Uniform Law Commissioners.
He also chaired the Texas Supreme Court's Study Committee on Judicial
and Court Personnel Education Programs in 1992.
"Mr. Legal Education"
Millard Ruud was the only man to hold the three highest
positions in national legal education. He chaired the Law School
Admissions Council (LSAC) from 1966 to 1969; was the first consultant
to the American Bar Association's Section on Legal Education and
Admissions to the Bar, 1968-1973; and served an unprecedented two
terms as the second executive director of the Association of American
Law Schools in 1973-1980 and 1983-1987. He was instrumental in creating
the American system for accrediting law schools. In recent years,
Millard was the reporter and chair of a committee to revise the Standards
for Approval of Law Schools by the American Bar Association.
Millard also assisted efforts to expand enrollment
of minority students in law schools by participating in founding
and serving as chair of the Council On Legal Education Opportunity
(CLEO) in 1968 and as a member of the CLEO governing board until
1971, and was a member of the LSAC Minority Enrollment Task Force,
1980-1985. He also served on the Scholarship Committee of the Mexican-American
Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). In 1981, Millard was named
national secretary-treasurer of the Order of the Coif, the honorary
scholastic organization for law. He also utilized his keen eye for
editing in the Scribes legal writing society. He served on the LSAC
oral history committee, and most recently the LSAC fiftieth anniversary
(1998) committee at the time of his death. For all this Millard was
known as "Mr. Legal Education."
Nationally Known Scholar
As well as teaching at the Universities of Kansas
and Texas, Ruud was a visiting professor at the Universities of Arkansas,
California, Kansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Utah, and a visiting
scholar at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. He was awarded
honorary doctorates for his work by Georgetown University Law Center,
McGeorge School of Law of the University of the Pacific, New England
School of Law, Widener University School of Law, Southwestern University
School of Law, and John Marshall School of Law. He received the University
of Minnesota Law Alumnus outstanding achievement award in 1980. He
was a member of their board of visitors. He was a member of the prestigious
American Law Institute. The American Bar Association acknowledged
his lifetime of achievement with the Robert J. Kutak Award in 1991.
It recognizes outstanding contributions to the improvement of legal
education and the legal profession. He then served until his death
as chair of the Kutak award committee.
Millard was known by his colleagues and friends
as a warm, caring man, willing to help others, enthusiastic, with
a wonderful sense of humor, extraordinary ability, good common sense
as well as being a hard worker. Even in his final days, he attempted
to complete the work he had in progress. He will be sorely missed.
<signed>
Larry R. Faulkner, President
The University of Texas at Austin
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
This Memorial Resolution was prepared by a special
committee consisting of Professors Stanley M. Johanson (Chair),
Corwin W. Johnson, and Roy M. Mersky.
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