Law Professor Mary Daly Named Dean of St. John’s Law School

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.

Considered an authority on legal ethics, Daly graduated from Fordham Law School in 1972 and 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.

As a law student, Daly served as the editor of the Fordham Law Review and graduated 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.

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 is a past chair of the Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the editorial board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct.

Prior to her career at Fordham Law School, Daly worked for Rogers & Wells from 1973 to 1975 and then went to work for the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. She worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Civil Division until 1980. From 1980 to 1983, she served as deputy chief and chief of the Civil Division.

— Michael Larkin