Endowed Professors

Endowed Chairs

The donor of an endowed chair at Notre Dame becomes part of a teaching tradition nurtured carefully through the years. But while academic chairs are in a very real sense built on the past, their main thrust is forward and their implicit goal is to influence the future. The holder of an endowed professorship will touch the lives of thousands of students, students of uncommon talent who have come to a University which is committed to finding a place for value in a world of fact. And because those appointed to endowed professorships will have exhibited the highest level of scholarly achievement, their influence on their colleagues, and their contribution to the ongoing dialogue of their disciplines should be noteworthy. Apart from skill at teaching and resourcefulness in research and scholarship, the University also looks for another quality in its named professorships: a sense of pro bono publico, of the common good. Notre Dame is particularly interested in men and women who can turn their scholarship to the service of mankind.

The Robert and Frances Biolchini Chair in Law

The Biolchini Family Chair in Law The Biolchini Family Chair in Law was the gift of Robert and Frances Biolchini, a 1962 Notre Dame alumnus and his wife. A graduate of George Washington University Law School, Robert Biolchini is a partner with the firm of Stuart, Biolchini, Turner, & Givray in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition, he is the President & Chief Executive Officer of PennWell Corporation, the Chairman of Valley National Bank in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a director of Bank of the Lakes in Oklahoma and a director of the Bank of Jackson Hole in Wyoming. He also serves as a director of Lumen Energy Corporation and Chairman of Ameritrust Holding Company. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the Notre Dame Law School from 1982 until 2001, when he became a Trustee of the University of Notre Dame.

Frances Biolchini, a graduate of Trinity College, is active in several Tulsa community organizations, including the Girl Scouts, the Thomas Gilcrease Museum, Catholic Charities and a number of other civic and charitable projects. Both Robert and Frances are keenly interested in the missionary work of the Catholic Church. They have six children, five of whom are Notre Dame graduates.

John Mitchell Finnis, the Biolchini Family Professor of Law, joined the faculty of both the Notre Dame Law School and the Notre Dame London Law Center in 1995. He shares a joint appointment with Oxford University, where he received his doctorate in philosophy as a Rhodes Scholar.

Professor Finnis’ research on the foundations of moral philosophy blends the study of constitutional and criminal law with the classical traditions of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas. Considered the leading Catholic legal philosopher, Professor Finnis has also explored in his writings the morality of social issues, including abortion and euthanasia. His scholarship defining the inherent human rights that supersede human laws has resulted in a number of internationally regarded books, including Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision and Truth; Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism; and Natural Law and Natural Rights; and since taking up his chair at Notre Dame he has written and published a major study, Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Theory.

Professor Finnis has served as a governor of the Linacre Center for Health Care Ethics in London and as a member of the Pontifical Council De Iustitia et Pace. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1990 and was appointed a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life in 2001. A native of Australia, he has held appointments at Adelaide University in South Australia, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Malawi and Boston College.

Judge James J. Clynes, Jr. Visiting Chair in the Ethics of Litigation Within the Judicial Process

The Judge James J. Clynes, Jr. Visiting Chair in the Ethics of Litigation Within the Judicial Process in the Notre Dame Law School results from the generosity of the distinguished jurist and Notre Dame alumnus whose name the chair carries. This signal benefaction reflects Judge Clynes’ considered and strong interest in promoting teaching and lecturing directly related to the ethics of litigation within the judicial process at the Notre Dame Law school.

Judge James J. Clynes, Jr., of Ithaca, New York, graduated cum laude from Notre Dame in 1945 with a degree in economics. He then attended law school at Cornell University, earning his J.D. in 1948. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1948, the Federal Court and U.S. Tax Court in 1951 and the U.S. Supreme Court in 1957. A retired partner with Harris, Beach & Wilcox, he was the City Judge from 1969 to 1989. Before serving on the bench, he served as a city attorney and city prosecutor.

Judge Clynes has been active in the Federation of Bar Associations and the Character and Fitness Committees of the Sixth Judicial District and he is a fellow in the American College of Probate Counsel. He served for twenty years as vice chairman of the board of the Tompkins County Trust Company, a New York state banking institution, and has served on the Board of Directors of that corporation for thirty years. He also served as counsel to the bank and has worked in the counsel’s office for forty years.

The Judge James J. Clynes, Jr. Visiting Chair in the Ethics of Litigation Within the Judicial Process seeks to attract honored members of the judiciary at both the trial and appellate levels, esteemed law professors, and prominent members of the bar to teach and conduct public lectures relative to the ethics of litigation within the judicial process.

Because of the generosity of Judge Clynes, the Notre Dame Law School has been able to attract four remarkable and distinguished visitors. The Honorable John T. Noonan, Jr., who was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1985, served as the inaugural Clynes Visiting Chair.

Judge James J. Clynes, Jr. Visiting Chair in the Ethics of Litigation Within the Judicial Process has been held by the following:
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia – Fall 2001
Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist – Fall 2002
Lord Robert Goff – Fall 2003
Judge Antônio Augusto Cançadao Trindade – Fall 2005
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia – Fall 2007

The Fritz Duda Family Chair in Law

Margaret F. Brinig holds the Fritz Duda Family Chair in Law. An expert in family law, Professor Brinig came to Notre Dame Law School from the University of Iowa’s College of Law, where she was the William G. Hammond Distinguished Professor. She earned her bachelor’s degree in history from Duke University, her juris doctor cum laude from Seton Hall University, and her master’s and doctorate in economics from George Mason University.

Her numerous publications include the books From Contract to Covenant: Beyond the Law and Economics of the Family and An Invitation to Family Law: Process, Problems and Possibilities, with Carl E. Schneider.

She is a member of the American Bar Association’s Family Law Section and Divorce Reform Committee, the American Law Institute’s Consultative Group for Principles of Family Dissolution, and many other professional organizations.

The Joseph A. Matson Chair in Law

The Joseph A. Matson Dean of the Law School was endowed through the estate gift of Sylvia F. Matson of Bolivar, New York. It was named for her son, Joseph A. Matson, a 1942 Notre Dame alumnus who died two years after graduation in an Air Force training flight accident. Sylvia, who was 99 at the time of her death in 1985, was the widow of Albert Matson, a Bolivar attorney specializing in the oil and gas business.

Patricia A. O’Hara, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law, was named the ninth dean of the Notre Dame Law School in 1999. She earned her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Santa Clara University in 1971 and her law degree from Notre Dame in 1974, graduating first in her class. Admitted to the California Bar in 1974, she practiced corporate law with the San Francisco law firm of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison for several years before returning to the University.

A specialist in business law, including agency and partnership, corporations and securities regulation, Dean O’Hara joined the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 1981 as an associate professor of law and achieved the rank of professor in 1990. She was chosen as the Distinguished Professor of the Year by law school students in 1986.

Prior to her appointment as Dean of the Law School, Dean O’Hara served as the University’s Vice President for Student Affairs from 1990-1999. In 1997 she received the Howard J. Kenna, C.S.C., Award for outstanding service to Notre Dame and the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Previously held by Dean Emeritus David T. Link (1988-1999).

The John N. Matthews Chair in Law

The John N. Matthews Chair in Law was established in 1967 by Notre Dame Trustee Donald J. Matthews in memory of his father, John N. Matthews. The late Captain John N. Matthews was a ship’s master who in 1929 founded his own marine cargo firm in New York City the Universal Terminal & Stevedoring Corp. from which he retired in 1957.

Donald J. Matthews, a 1955 graduate of Notre Dame, is chairman and chief executive officer of Capital Markets Access Ltd., an insurance holding company headquartered in Bermuda. He was elected to the Notre Dame Board of Trustees in 1971 after having served on the Advisory Council for the College of Engineering. A yachtsman like his father, he sailed on the Weatherly, which successfully defended the America’s Cup in 1962.

John Copeland Nagle, the John N. Matthews Professor of Law since 2005, joined the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 1998. A graduate of University of Michigan Law School, Professor Nagle is in the world of legal scholarship, where he has made a mark for himself in at least three different areas: environmental law, election law, and statutory interpretation.

Prior to joining the Notre Dame faculty, Professor Nagle was an associate professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law from 1994 through 1998. He also worked in the United States Department of Justice, first as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel where he advised other executive branch agencies on a variety of constitutional and statutory issues, and later as a trial attorney conducting environmental litigation. Professor Nagle served as a law clerk to Judge Deanell Reece Tacha of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and he was a scientific assistant in the Energy and Environmental Systems Division of Argonne National Laboratory.

Previously held by Professor Emeritus Alan Gunn until his retirement in 2005.

John P. Murphy Foundation Chair in Law

During the 1998-99 fiscal year, the John P. Murphy Foundation of Cleveland, Ohio made a commitment and initial gift to endow three faculty chairs in the Notre Dame Law School. These chairs will be awarded to scholars whose teaching and research emphasizes moral and ethical values in law.

The Murphy Foundation was established by the late John P. Murphy, the former chairman of the board of Higbee Company of Cleveland, Ohio. A native of Westboro, Massachusetts and a 1912 graduate of the University, John practiced law in Minneapolis and in Montana before the outbreak of World War I, when he joined the Army Air Corps. After the war, he practiced in Cleveland, eventually becoming president of the Higbee Company. In 1928, Murphy was elected president of the Notre Dame Alumni Association and from 1933 until his death in 1969, he served as a Notre Dame Trustee. For his dedication and exemplary service, the University presented him with an honorary doctor of law degree in 1952. In addition to the John P. Murphy Foundation Grant for Law School Chairs, the Murphy Foundation has also significantly expanded the collections and services available in the Kresge Law Library.

A member of the Notre Dame Law School faculty since 1995, M. Cathleen Kaveny was named the John P. Murphy Professor of Law in 2001. A scholar who focuses on the relationship between law and morality, she earned her A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1984, and holds four graduate degrees from Yale University, including her M.A. (1986), M.Phil (1990), J.D. (1990) and Ph.D. (1991). A member of the Massachusetts Bar since 1993, Professor Kaveny clerked for the Honorable John T. Noonan Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked as an associate at the Boston law firm of Ropes & Gray in its health-law group. She also served as the Royden B. Davis Visiting Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at Georgetown University during the spring of 1998.

Professor Kaveny has published over 35 scholarly articles on issues lying at the intersection of law, morality, and religion, in journals such as The Hastings Center Report, Theological Studies, and the Wake Forest Law Review. She has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Law and Religion, The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics and the American Journal of Jurisprudence. Particular topics she has addressed include the function of religious discourse in the public square, the role of law as a moral teacher in a pluralistic society, and the impoverishment of the commodified notion of time that dominates legal practice and the contemporary business world. Much of her scholarship has focused on questions in health care ethics, such as assisted suicide, cloning, and managed care. She lectures frequently about these topics both nationally and internationally. Her current projects include one book on complicity with evil, and another on the relationship between justice and mercy.

Professor Kaveny also participates in the vigorous and ongoing conversation about the relationship of Catholicism and intellectual life. She serves on the steering committee of the Catholic Common Ground Initiative founded by the late Cardinal Bernardin, and is also a member of the advisory board for the University’s Erasmus Institute, which was established in 1997 to focus on reinvigorating the role of Catholic intellectual traditions in contemporary scholarship.

In addition to teaching contracts to first-year law students, Professor Kaveny also teaches interdisciplinary classes in both the law school and the theology department, where she holds a joint appointment. She is best known for her interdisciplinary course entitled “Ethics and Law at the End of Life.” The class, which she has offered at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, explores the questions of assisted suicide and euthanasia from the perspectives of theology, philosophy, public policy, and law.

The William J. and Dorothy I. O’Neill Chair in Law

The William J. and Dorothy I. O’Neill Chair in Law was a gift from William O’Neill, a 1928 Notre Dame graduate, and his wife, Dorothy. This is the University’s second endowed chair position made possible by William and Dorothy O’Neill; they previously established the William J. and Dorothy I. O’Neill Chair in Economics. William O’Neill, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, founded Leaseway Transportation, one of the largest companies serving motor vehicle transportation. He was also a trustee and the first lay president of the Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, Ohio. Dorothy was also a Cleveland native, and graduated from Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods College in Terre Haute, Indiana, with a bachelor’s degree in music.

The William J. and Dorothy I. O’Neill Professor of Law since 1985, G. Robert Blakey is a nationally recognized authority on organized crime and anti-racketeering legislation on the federal and state levels, including electronic surveillance. He received bachelor’s and law degrees from Notre Dame and then served as a special attorney with the U.S. Justice Department. He joined the University’s law faculty in 1964. From 1969 to 1974, he served as chief counsel on the U.S. Senate Subcommittee that drafted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO), Title VII of the 1970 Organized Crime Control Act. He was a consultant to the Subcommittee when it processed Title III on wiretapping of the Safe Streets Act of 1968. He also served as chief counsel and staff director to the congressional committee that investigated the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Before he returned to the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 1980, Professor Blakey taught at the Cornell Law School, where he was a professor of law and director of the Cornell Institute on Organized Crime.

Professor Blakey is a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has argued a number of appeals. He also participates in writing briefs and making arguments in federal appeals courts and district courts in a variety of areas. Professor Blakey is the author of many books, including The Development Of The Law of Gambling 1776-1976, Racket Bureaus: Investigation and Prosecution of Organized Crime, and The Plot to Kill The President, as well as numerous law review articles. He was the Reporter for the ABA Project on Minimum Standards for Electronic Surveillance in 1968, and was a presidential appointee to the National Wiretap Commission in 1976. He was given the Award of Merit by the National Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1979 for his work in bringing to public attention the value of science in law enforcement, the Appreciation Award in 1985 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his work in helping design major organized crime investigations and prosecutions, and the 1989 Notre Dame Law School Faculty Member of the Year Award. He was also named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States by The National Law Journal in 1985, 1988 and 1991. He was the 1995 recipient of the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice Achievement Award for his work in pro bono representation of the indigent, and the 1996 Black Law Students Association’s Charles Crutchfield Professional Excellence Award. Professor Blakey is a member of the American Law Institute.

The Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corp. Chair in Legal Ethics

The Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corporation Chair in Legal Ethics was created with a gift from the Fort Howard Corporation, a diversified manufacturer of paper and paper-related products in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The chair is named for its former chairman and chief executive officer, Paul Schierl, who holds a 1957 bachelor’s degree and a 1961 law degree from Notre Dame. Joining the company in 1964 as general counsel and holding its leadership since 1974, Paul led the management group that, with the Morgan Stanley Group, Inc., took the company private in 1988. Paul retired from the Fort Howard Corporation in 1990 and currently serves as president of the Cornerstone Foundation of Northeastern Wisconsin, Inc. The Fort Howard Corporation has also endowed a library collection at Notre Dame in western European history.

Paul has been a member of Notre Dame’s Law School Advisory Council since 1981 and is also a member of the advisory councils for the Salvation Army, Wisconsin Policy Research, and the Green Bay Packers. He is co-founder and past president of the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation and a former member of the Saint Mary’s College Board of Regents. He and his wife, Carol, reside in DePere, Wisconsin. He has five children, all of whom are Notre Dame or Saint Mary’s graduates.

Robert E. Rodes, Jr., a Notre Dame Law School faculty member since 1956, was named the Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corporation Chair in Legal Ethics in 2000. Professor Rodes teaches legal ethics, administrative law, legal history and jurisprudence, with a particular interest in the latter two subjects and in church-state relations. During his tenure at the University, he spent the 1960-61 and 1969-70 academic years conducting research at Oxford and in 1970-71 served as the director of the Notre Dame London Law Centre. He is the author of six books, The Legal Enterprise, Law and Liberation, Pilgrim Law, and a massive three-volume study of the legal history of church-state relations in England. He has also co-authored Premises and Conclusions: Symbolic Logic for Legal Analysis with Howard Pospesel from the University of Miami.

Before joining the faculty at the Notre Dame Law School, Professor Rodes taught for two years at Rutgers Law School and worked for two years in the legal department of Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. During the summers of 1955 and 1956, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Alfred Clapp, senior judge of the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court. Professor Rodes earned his bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 1947 and, after serving for two years as an ensign in the U.S. Navy, earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1952.

Robert and Marion Short Chair in Law

The Robert and Marion Short Chair in Law was a gift from the late Robert E. Short and his wife, Marion, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Bob received his bachelor’s degree from the College of Saint Thomas and earned his law degree from Georgetown University. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, from 1942 to 1946. Enlisting as an ensign, he resigned with the rank of commander.

After practicing law for several years, he bought an interest in a small truck line and proceeded to build it into a major freight carrier known as Admiral Merchants Motor Freight. He later expanded into real estate and the hotel business.

Bob’s business ventures brought him some attention, but he was mostly known for his love of sports and politics. At one time, he was the owner of basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers and baseball’s Washington Senators. Entering politics in 1946, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress. He also served as treasurer of the Democratic National Committee during Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign but was best known for the fiery, losing battle he waged for a U.S. Senate seat in 1978.

Bob was a longtime supporter of Notre Dame and served as a member of the Law School Advisory Council from 1974 until his death in 1982. Following his death, Marion succeeded her husband as president and chief executive officer of the Short business concerns. For nine years she served on the board of trustees of the University of Saint Thomas. The Shorts have seven children, five of whom have earned a total of 10 Notre Dame degrees. Their son, Brian, is currently a member of the University’s Law School Advisory Council.

Mary Ellen O’Connell joined the faculty as the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law in 2005. Prior to joining the Notre Dame faculty, Professor O’Connell was the William B. Saxbe Designated Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law of Ohio State University. She earned her B.A. in History, with highest honors, from Northwestern University in 1980. She was awarded a Marshall Scholarship for study in Britain. She received an MSc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics in 1981, and an LL.B., with first class honors, from Cambridge University in 1982. She earned her J.D. from Columbia University in 1985, where she was a Stone Scholar and book review editor for the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. After graduation, she practiced with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. She then taught at Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington; at The Bologna Center of The Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Bologna, Italy; and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; and the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

The author of three casebooks, four edited collections, and more than sixty articles and book chapters, Professor O’Connell has been active in the Academic Council on the United Nations System, the American Society of International Law, the German Society of International Law, the International Institute for Humanitarian Law, the International Law Association, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

She teaches contracts as well as a number of courses in the area of international law. Professor O’Connell’s primary research focuses on international legal regulation of the use of force and conflict and dispute resolution, especially peaceful resolution of disputes prior to an escalation to armed conflict.

In conjunction with research on these issues, she continues to examine the processes by which international law is made, applied, and enforced and is particularly interested in the enforcement of international law and the question of whether it is time for a classical revival in international law.

Previously held by Steven D. Smith (1998-2002) and by Professor Emeritus Thomas L. Shaffer until his retirement in 1997.