AUSTIN, Texas—The University of Texas at Austin School of Law on Nov. 14 will pay a special tribute to the late Charles Alan Wright, a UT Austin law professor and one of the nation’s leading authorities on the federal courts and the U.S. Constitution. Wright was 72 when he died on July 7 at a local Austin hospital.
The tribute, which is open to the public, will be held from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. in the Lyndon B. Johnson Auditorium, 2313 Red River St. A reception will immediately follow in the Townes Hall Atrium of the School of Law, 727 E. Dean Keeton St.
Speakers from across the country who will honor Wright during the tribute include:
- Larry R. Faulkner, president of The University of Texas at Austin
- William Powers, dean of the UT Austin School of Law
- The Honorable Carolyn D. King, chief judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- Mary Kay Kane, dean of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law
- Michael Traynor, president of the American Law Institute
- Scot Powe, the Anne Green Regents Chair in Law and professor of government at UT Austin
- Samuel Issacharoff, professor of law at Columbia University
- Brian Leiter, the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law and professor of philosophy at UT Austin
- Douglas Laycock, the Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law and associate dean for research at UT Austin
In addition, remarks prepared by the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and by Darrell K Royal, special assistant to the president of UT Austin will be read.
Additional information is available by contacting Roy A. Mersky at the UT Austin School of Law, (512) 471-7735.
For 45 years, Wright served as a valuable faculty member and earned a reputation as one of the foremost legal scholars. In the month prior to his death, Wright had been named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal. Only 10 other professors were on the list. Although officially retired, Wright continued to teach on a halftime basis and held the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the UT Austin School of Law. Wright’s 54-volume Federal Practice and Proceduresrecognized as the leading academic authority of its kind, has been used by lawyers who practice in the federal courts and often is cited in judicial decisions. Since 1993, he had served as president of the law reform institution, the American Law Institute, the first law professor ever to have been selected for this honor.
During his career, Wright argued 13 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 11, and many cases in courts of appeals and state supreme courts. He was consultant to counsel in the Watergate Tapes case involving President Richard M. Nixon.
Wright, who began his law-teaching career at the University of Minnesota in 1950, moved to Austin in 1955 and became a member of the UT Austin faculty.
