Law Professor Roger Cramton is awarded for his scholarship

By Linda Myers

Roger C. Cramton, the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, was named the recipient of the American Bar Foundation's prestigious 2000 Research Award. The award was presented to him this February in Dallas, where he was cited for his outstanding research in law and government as well as his personal integrity. Lee Teitelbaum, dean of the Cornell Law School, was present at the awards ceremony. The foundation is the research arm of the American Bar Association and the preeminent center for the study of law, legal processes and institutions in the United States.

Cramton, an expert on torts, legal ethics, the legal profession and legal education, is the author of The Law and Ethics of Lawyering (3rd ed. 1999) and Conflict of Laws (3rd ed. 1993), two books that are standard texts in many U.S. law schools. He also has published more than 100 scholarly articles and books.

He was a faculty member at the University of Chicago and University of Michigan law schools before becoming dean of Cornell Law School from 1973 to 1980. He came to Cornell from Washington, D.C., where he had been chair of the Administrative Conference of the United States, then elevated by President Nixon to be assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel. But Cramton was soon dismissed by Nixon after rendering an opinion that clashed with the president's.

"Roger, as a person of principle, follows reason where he thinks it truly leads, in disregard of expediency, of pressure and of any other extraneous considerations," wrote Robert Summers, the William G. McRoberts Research Professor at the Law School.

Tom Erlich, former dean of Stanford Law School, praised Cramton for his scholarship, describing him as "brighter than the rest of us" and adding: "It is a tribute to Roger that he has risen to the top of his profession by relying exclusively on integrity."

Cramton earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1955 and clerked for several judges, including Supreme Court Justice Harold H. Burton, before entering academia in 1957. He was president of the Association of American Law Schools in 1985, the first chair of the Legal Service Corp., 1975-79, and chair of the ABA Task Force on Lawyer Competency, 1979-80.