Faculty & Administration View All
Robert E. Rodes, Jr.
Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Legal Ethics
Office Number: 320 Law School
Telephone: 574.631.6573
Fax: 574.631.4197
Email: Robert.E.Rodes.1@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: LuAnn Nate
Robert E. Rodes Jr. joined the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 1956 as an assistant professor of law, achieved the rank of associate professor of law in 1958, and a professor of law in 1963. In 2000, the University honored Professor Rodes over 40 years of teaching and scholarship in the fields of legal ethics and jurisprudence by naming him the first permanent holder of the Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Paper Corporation Chair in Legal Ethics. He earned his A.B. from Brown University in 1947 and his LL.B. magna cum laude from Harvard in 1952, where he also served on the staff of the Harvard Law Review. A member of the Massachusetts Bar since 1952 and the Indiana Bar since 1959, Professor Rodes has worked as an attorney with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company in Boston (1952-54), with Kaufman & Harris in Pittsburgh (summer 1977), and with the Legal Services Program of Northern Indiana (summer 1982). He has also taught as an assistant professor of law at Rutgers University (1954-56).
Professor Rodes teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, ethics, jurisprudence, law and theology, legal history and welfare legislation. He is a member of the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs.
About the Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corporation Chair in Legal Ethics
This chair is a 1988 gift of the Fort Howard Paper Corporation, a diversified manufacturer of paper and paper-related products in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in honor of its former Chairman and CEO Mr. Paul J. Schierl, a member of the NDLS Class of 1961. Mr. Schierl joined Fort Howard in 1964 as general counsel, became chair in 1974, and retired from the corporation in 1990. He currently serves as president of the Cornerstone Foundation of Northeastern Wisconsin, Inc.
Mr. Schierl has served as a member of the Law School Advisory Council since 1981, and also serves on the advisory councils for the Salvation Army, Wisconsin Policy Research, WFIC and the Green Bay Packerrs. He is co-founder and president of the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation and is a member of the board of regents of Saint Mary’s College. All of his five children have graduated either from Notre Dame or Saint Mary’s.
LAW70315, Administrative Law
LAW70813, Jurisprudence
LAW70827, Ethics II
LAW73835, Medieval Legal History
Faculty Expertise Areas
- Church and state
- Jurisprudence
- Legal ethics and professional responsibility
- Medieval legal history
Books
On Law and Chastity (Carolina Academic Press 2006).
Classic Problems of Jurisprudence (Carolina Academic Press 2005).
Pilgrim Law (University of Notre Dame Press 1998).
Premises and Conclusions: Symbolic Logic for Legal Analysis, with Howard Pospesel (Prentice Hall 1997).
This House I Have Built: A Study of the Legal History of Establishment in England, a three-volume collection of the following:
Law and Modernization in the Church of England: Charles II to the Welfare State (University of Notre Dame Press 1991);
Lay Authority and Reformation in the English Church: Edward I to the Civil War (University of Notre Dame Press 1982);
Ecclesiastical Administration in Medieval England: The Anglo-Saxons to the Reformation (University of Notre Dame Press 1977).
Law and Liberation (University of Notre Dame Press 1986).
Sanctions Imposable for Violations of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: A Report to the Federal Judicial Center from the Thomas J. and Alberta White Center for Law, Government and Human Rights, Notre Dame Law School, with Kenneth F. Ripple and Carol Ann Mooney (Federal Judicial Center 1981).
The Legal Enterprise (Kennikat Press 1976).
Book Segments
Catholic Universities and the New Pluralism, in The Challenge and Promise of a Catholic University 305 (Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., ed., University of Notre Dame Press 1994).
Articles
Professor Rodes has published numerous articles in legal and theological publications, including:
On Lawyers and Moral Discernment, 46 Journal of Catholic Legal Studies 259 (2007)
On Marriage and Metaphysics, 7 The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 693 (Winter 2007)
On Professors and Poor People: A Jurisprudential Memoir, 22 Journal of Law and Religion 527 (2007)
On the Historical School of Jurisprudence, 49 American Journal of Jurisprudence 165 (2004)
On Juridical Elements in Theology, 28 Louvain Studies (2003)
Forming an Agenda – Ethics and Legal Ethics, 77 Notre Dame L. Rev. 289 (2002)
On Law and Chastity, 76 Notre Dame L. Rev. 643 (2001).
What O’Clock I Say: Juridical Epistemics and the Magisterium of the Church, 14 Journal of Law and Religion 285 (2000).
De Re and De Dicto, 73 Notre Dame L. Rev 627 (1998).
Nonrepresentative Jurisprudence: A Centennial Reading of ‘The Path of the Law’ 42 American Journal of Jurisprudence 263 (1997).
Social Justice and Liberation, 71Notre Dame L. Rev. 619 (1996).
Pluralist Establishment: Reflections on the English Experience, 12 Cardozo Law Review 867 (1991).
Religion and Procedure, 4 Journal of Law and Religion 179 (1986).
Law, History, and the Option for the Poor, 6 LOGOS (USA) 61 (1985).
Greatness Thrust Upon Them: Class Biases in American Law, 28 American Journal of Jurisprudence 1 (1983).
On Clandestine Warfare, 39 Washington & Lee Law Review 333 (1982).
Pluralist Christendom and the Christian Civil Magistrate, 8 Capital University Law Review 413 (1979), and 9 Communio 321 (Winter 1982).
On Validity and Invalidity of Sacraments, 42 Theological Studies 580 (1981).
Law, Social Change and the Ambivalence of History, 49 Proceedings of American Catholic Philosophical Association 164 (1975).
Natural Law and the Marriage of Christians, 35 Jurist 409 (1975).
The Last Days of Erastianism — Forms in the American Church-State Nexus, 62 Harvard Theological Review 301 (1969).
Sub Deo et Lege — A Study of Free Exercise, 4 Religion and the Public Order 3 (1968).
The Passing of Nonsectarianism — Some Reflections on the School Prayer Case, 38 Notre Dame Lawyer 115 (1963).
Due Process and Social Legislation in the Supreme Court — A Post-Mortem, 33 Notre Dame Lawyer 5 (1957).
A Prospectus for a Symbolist Jurisprudence, 2 Natural Law Forum 88 (1957).
Workmen’s Compensation for Maritime Employees: Obscurity in the Twilight Zone, 68 Harvard Law Review 637 (1955).
