Edward S. Godfrey III

Edward S. Godfrey, III
PORTLAND, ME -- Mr. Godfrey, founding Dean of the University of Maine School of Law and a former Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court died in Portland on January 12, 2005.
Dean Godfrey was born in Phoenix, Arizona, on July 21, 1913, the son of Edward S. Godfrey, Jr. and Alma Deane McDonald. He grew up in Albany, New York, where his father served as New York Commissioner of Health for many years.
He graduated from the Albany Academy in 1930, from Harvard College (summa cum laude) in 1934, and from Columbia University Law School in 1939. Between college and law school, he taught English at the Albany Academy. After law school, he first worked as an attorney in the General Counsel's Office of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.
He served in the United States Army from 1941 to 1946, the last year as a Management Control Officer in General MacArthur's headquarters in Manila. He was awarded a Bronze Star Medal and separated in the rank of Major. After military service, he returned to Albany to practice law. He attracted the attention of the Dean of the Albany Law School by writing a successful brief on behalf of the Dean for the New York Court of Appeals and, in September 1948, he became a professor at the Albany Law School, where he taught until 1962. In 1957-1958, he did graduate work at the Harvard Law School as a Ford Foundation Fellow. During the 1950s, he served as a consultant to the New York Law Revision Commission preparing a study of the Uniform Commercial Code before its adoption in New York.
In 1962, he was appointed the first Dean of the revived law school of the University of Maine, retiring as Dean in 1973. Under Dean Godfrey's leadership, the new law school quickly achieved accreditation by the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools and became one of the nation's finest small law schools.
He was teaching at the law school when Governor Longley appointed him to the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine in August of 1976.
He retired from the Court in 1983 at age 70 and accepted a one-year appointment as Carl Hatch Professor of Law and Public Administration at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. He returned to Maine to teach part-time at the University of Maine Law School for many years, also returning many times to New Mexico to teach there. He was awarded the Order of the Coif at the University of New Mexico Law School. From 1984 to 1987, he served as Chairman of the Maine Labor Relations Board. He also served at various times as a member of the Board of the Portland Urban Renewal Authority, the Maine Judicial Council, the Maine Bar Foundation and the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He was a member of the Cumberland Bar Association, Maine State Bar Association and the American Bar Association, as well as the American Law Institute, the Order of the Coif, University of New Mexico, and the Torch Club International. He held honorary degrees from Union University and the University of Southern Maine.
He enjoyed reading and gardening, and he was a Life Master bridge player. He was respected by all who knew him for his intellectual depth and strength of character and loved for his humor, his kindness and his greatness of spirit. His generosity to his students and colleagues was legendary.
He is survived by his sister-in-law, Norma Godfrey, of Cary, NC.; a nephew, Edward S. Godfrey, IV, of Albany, N.Y.; a niece, Suzanne Giggins, of Cary, NC.; a niece, Wendy Dean, of Charlotte, N.C.; and two grand nieces, Emily and Amanda Giggins. Plans for a memorial service will be announced at a later date. Those wishing to make a memorial contribution are invited to consider the Godfrey Fund at the University of Maine School of Law.