Rudolf Schlesinger, who taught at the Cornell Law School for nearly three decades and introduced comparative law as a field of study in American law schools, died Nov. 10 at his home in San Francisco. He was 87.
His wife, Ruth Schlesinger, who served in several curatorial posts at Cornell, died along with her husband, according to authorities. She was 76.
"Rudolf is one of the most distinguished and admired teachers and scholars in the Law School's history," said Russell K. Osgood, the Allan R. Tessler Dean of the school and professor of law. "Rudi and Ruth added to our professional life, but they were also vital and important humans and members of our community."
Schlesinger began teaching at Cornell in 1948; in 1950 he published the classic text Comparative Law: Cases-Texts-Materials, which helped put the study of comparative law in law school curricula in the United States. He headed a 10-year study that produced a 1,700-page treatise, Formation of Contracts: A Study of the Common Core of Legal Systems, published in 1968.
In 1956 Schlesinger was named the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of International and Comparative Law. After retiring from Cornell in 1975, Schlesinger joined the faculty at the Hastings College of Law at the University of California, where he remained until he retired in 1994.
Ruth Schlesinger served as director of the Upstairs Gallery in Ithaca from 1960 to 1967 and was curatorial assistant at the Andrew D. White Museum at Cornell and curator of prints at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art from 1970 to 1975.