Ronald D. Rotunda, R.I.P.

I am saddened to report that Professor Ronald D. Rotunda died unexpectedly yesterday of pneumonia after a brief hospital stay. He was 73. A distinguished professor of law, Ron, as he was known to his friends, was a visiting senior fellow in constitutional studies at Cato during the 2000 calendar year. He remained a Cato senior fellow in constitutional studies until 2008 and served on the editorial board of theCato Supreme Court Review from its inception in 2001 until 2008. After leaving Cato in 2000 he joined the faculty of the George Mason University School of Law. In 2008 he joined the faculty of Chapman University ’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law where he was the Doy and Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at the time of his death.A graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School, Ron was for much of his career the Albert E. Jenner, Jr.  Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law. I first met him in the early 1990s when the college’s Federalist Society chapter invited me to speak there. Ron was the chapter’s faculty advisor. He picked me up from the airport in his vintage Rolls Royce. Ever the showman, he was famous for his colorful collection of bow ties, matching his colorful character. But beneath the show was a serious scholar of immense erudition. He is perhaps best known for his five-volumeTreatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure, co-authored with John E. Nowak, but his scholarship covered man...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs