Issue of
January 13, 1999

Gunther to receive Order of the Coif, highest accolade for scholarly work in law

Gerald Gunther, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, emeritus, has been chosen to receive the 12th Triennial Book Award of the Order of the Coif, the nation's highest accolade for scholarly work in law.

Gunther was presented the award by Dean Mary Doyle of the University of Miami, president of the Order of the Coif, during the annual luncheon of the Association of American Law Schools in New Orleans Jan. 8.

A panel of distinguished judges and legal educators chaired by Dean Michael Hoeflich of the University of Kansas chose Gunther to receive the award, which is made every three years in recognition of the "authorship of a written work evidencing creative legal talent of the highest order." Gunther was recognized for his 1994 book, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge, in which he examines the life and work of the influential federal appeals court judge. In 1995, Gunther won the Erwin N. Griswold Triennial Prize of the United States Supreme Court Historical Society for the Hand biography.

Before joining Stanford's law faculty in 1962, Gunther taught at Columbia University. Early in his career, he served as a clerk to Hand, justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and later to Chief Justice Earl Warren at the U.S. Supreme Court. Gunther is considered one of the preeminent constitutional law scholars of the century. He is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and numerous legal volumes, including the most widely used constitutional law casebook in the United States. He has received many national honors, including the Learned Hand Medal for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence and the Richard J. Maloney Prize for Distinguished Contributions to Legal Education.

The Order of the Coif, which sponsors the Triennial Award, is the national scholastic honor society for law. The society established the award in 1964. This is the fourth time a Stanford law professor has won the award. The late Herbert L. Packer won it in 1970 for his book, The Limits of the Criminal Sanction (1968); Lawrence M. Friedman, the Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law, received the award in 1976 for his books, A History of American Law (1973) and The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective (1975); John Hart Ely, a former Law School professor who served as dean of the school from 1982 to1986, was honored by the Coif in 1983 for his book, Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review (1980). SR