Historical Faculty

W. Bryan Bolich was an active member of the law school faculty for 39 years.  He was hired in 1927 as a Professor of Law and Acting Dean of the Law School after Samuel Fox Mordecai’s death.  Bolich taught classes on many aspects of law but his particular areas of interest were property, real estate, and legal history.  He also played a major role in revising and modernizing the law school curriculum and supported adding a required third year to the program.  Bolich created the Duke Law Alumni Association and edited the first alumni directory in 1935.  He organized the first Law Day event, arranging for panels of influential speakers to address the students.

Bolich studied English and Economics at Trinity College (later Duke University), completing an A.B. in 1917.  During World War I he served in the Navy.  He returned to Trinity College after the war and studied law from 1921-1922.  Bolich was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and completed his law degree at Oxford (B.A. 1923, B.C.L. 1924, M.A. 1927).  In 1927 he was elected to a seat in the North Carolina House of Representatives and joined the Duke Law faculty.  In 1950 he was a legal attache at the American Embassy in Rome.  Bolich was a visiting professor of law at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1951 and 1955 and at the University of Houston in 1957.  He assumed Emeritus status in 1966.  To mark the one hundredth anniversary of the Trinity College/Duke University law school in 1968 Bolich wrote a history of the school that was published in the alumni directory.  He retired to St. Petersburg, Florida, and died in 1977.

Sources:

Duke University, School of Law, Bulletin of Duke University School of Law [serial]

Historical Note, Guide to the W. Bryan Bolich papers, 1891-1972, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University [perma.cc/2U9D-4DPW}