NEW YORK, NY — Mary C. Daly, the James H. Quinn Professor of Legal Ethics at Fordham Law School, was named dean of St. John’s School of Law on Friday, Jan. 30. She will begin her tenure as dean on Aug. 1, 2004, succeeding Dean Joseph W. Bellacosa.
“It is with great anticipation and excitement that I accept the appointment as dean of St. John’s School of Law,” said Daly. “I want to express my gratitude to the Fordham community. The leadership of Dean Feerick and Dean Treanor, the compan-ionship of my colleagues and the enthusiasm of my students have enriched my career and life.”
Daly, a 1972 graduate of Fordham Law School, has served on its faculty since 1983. She is the director of the graduate program and co-associate director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics. The Stein Center sponsors programs, develops publications, and supports scholarship on contemporary issues of law and ethics, and encourages professional and public institutions to integrate moral perspectives into their work.
“Mary is simply irreplaceable, and her departure will be an extraordinary loss, but I am delighted that the St. John’s community – and the legal community as a whole – will have the opportunity to benefit from the way she will use her great gifts as dean,” said William M. Treanor, J.D., dean of Fordham Law School. “’In the service of others’ is the motto of our law school; her life bears eloquent witness to that motto every day.”
As a law student she served as the editor of the Fordham Law Review and gradu-ated cum laude. After receiving her J.D. from Fordham, Daly studied at the University of Paris Law School as a Zichkla Fellow, and she later completed her LL.M at New York University Law School.
Considered an authority on issues of legal ethics, she has published numerous articles on the subject, especially in the area of cross-border practice. She is one of the editors of Rights, Liability, and Ethics in International Legal Practice (1995) and the editor of The New York Code of Professional Responsibility: Opinions, Commentary, and Caselaw (1997, 1999).
She has served as a reporter for the ABA Commission on Multidisciplinary Practice. She is also a past chair of the Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Professional Responsibility Section of the Association of American Law Schools, the Graduate Programs for For-eign Students Section of the Association of American Law Schools and the Editorial Board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct.
Prior to her career at Fordham Law School, Daly worked as an associate at Rogers & Wells from 1973 to 1975, when she joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in 1975. She worked as an Assistant U.S. Attor-ney in the Civil Division until 1980. From 1980 to 1983, she served as deputy chief and chief of the Civil Division.
Fordham University School of Law was founded in 1905, and has more than 14,000 alumni practicing in all 50 states and throughout the world. Over the past 20 years, Fordham Law School has secured a place as a national leader in public interest law, legal ethics and human rights law.
