Historical Faculty

Dean Justin Miller successfully outbid the University of Chicago to persuade Lon Fuller to leave the University of Illinois law school and come to Duke.   After visiting at Harvard in 1939, however, he left Duke, as he wrote to a colleague because he enjoyed teaching larger classes which gave him “the experience of presiding over a public meeting.”  Fuller remained at Harvard for the rest of his career and became a well-respected legal philosopher.

Fuller completed both his A.B. and J.D. degrees at Stanford in 1924 and 1926.  He took his first teaching position as an assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon in 1926.  While on the faculty at Duke Law he was a visiting professor at the University of Washington, the University of North Carolina, and the University of California.  He died in 1978.

Sources:

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

Robert F. Durden, The Rebuilding of Duke University's School of Law, 1925-1947 (Part I)[https://perma.cc/K4QM-XH3A], vol. LXVI, no. 3, July 1989 North Carolina History Review 321

Robert F. Durden, The Rebuilding of Duke University's School of Law, 1925-1947 (Part II)[https://perma.cc/V2QP-KHR2], vol. LXVI, no. 4, October 1989 North Carolina History Review 443

Robert F. Durden, The Launching of Duke University, 1924-1949 (1993)