Monroe Freedman

1928 - 2015

MONROE H. FREEDMAN The Hofstra community is deeply saddened by the passing of Monroe H. Freedman, a professor of law and the former dean at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, on February 26, 2015. Freedman, a professor of law for 42 years, was an internationally-renown scholar and pioneer in the field of legal ethics who instilled in thousands of students the responsibility of lawyers to zealously represent their clients, as well as to stand for social justice. He received the American Bar Association's highest award for professionalism, in recognition of "a lifetime of original and influential scholarship in the field of lawyers' ethics," and a Martin Luther King Award for "decades of work to advance human dignity and social justice." For 30 years he lectured annually on lawyers' ethics at Harvard Law School, and from 2007-2012 he was a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center. His current book is Understanding Lawyers' Ethics has been required reading at law schools including Harvard, the University of California, Berkeley, and Georgetown, is assigned or recommended at other law schools, has been used in training programs for the bar in Canada and is being translated into Chinese. During the 1960s, Freedman served as chair of the National Capital Area Civil Liberties Union, was counsel to several civil rights organizations and was a consultant to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Beginning in 1963, he was also the first volunteer general counsel of a gay rights organization, and consulted pro bono in death penalty and Guantánamo cases. In 1980, Freedman became the first executive director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. In tribute to the memory of Professor Freedman, all Hofstra University flags were lowered to half-staff. Alan Bernon Chair, Board of Trustees Stuart Rabinowitz President Hofstra University