Lois Lee CRISSEY

CRISSEY - Lois Lee March 31, 2014 at home in Hilton Head, SC. With her at the time was her aide and friend, Paula McDonald. Lois lived and worked in Buffalo, NY from 1950 until she retired and moved to Hilton Head in 1981. She was well known in the academic and legal community having either taught or worked with every City Court, County Court and Supreme Court Judge. Although born with cerebral palsy, she came to Buffalo with great credentials and earned honor and respect from the people she met or worked with. Lois graduated with a B.A. from Cornell University and a J.D. from Cornell Law School. She received training at Columbia University School of Library Service. Then, Lois worked as an Assistant Law Librarian and Instructor at the University of Illinois. She moved to Buffalo and was the Law Librarian and a Legal Bibliography Professor at the University of Buffalo Law School from 1950 to 1960. From 1960 to 1972, she was a Law Assistant in the Buffalo City Court Law Library. She was the Confidential Law Clerk for Erie County Court Judges from 1972-1975 and the Principal Law Librarian in the Supreme Court Library, 8th Judicial District, from 1975-1981. Because of her fabulous memory up to the time of her death, she could recite the name of every student she taught at the law school (over 2000). Attorneys and students often called her for help. Local trial attorneys recall that during a trial, when a technical issue arose, the Judge would stop the trial and say, "get Miss Crissey." Lois was the last survivor of her immediate family. Her father, John Crissey and her mother, Marion Hallock, both Cornell graduates, as well as her sister, Ruth Crissey, having predeceased her. Ten years ago, she established a $1,000,000 trust at Cornell University in honor of her parents. Burial will be private in the family plot in Danbury, CT.