Thomas Lindsay Shaffer (April 4, 1934 – February 26, 2019) was a

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

, professor,

legal ethics Legal ethics are principles of conduct that members of the legal profession are expected to observe in their practice. They are an outgrowth of the development of the legal profession itself. In the United States In the U.S., each state or territ ...

scholar, dean of the Notre Dame Law School, and the most prolific American legal author, having written over 300 scholarly works.

Early life and education

Thomas L. Shaffer was born in 1934 in Billings, Montana, and grew up in Wyoming before attending Fruita Union High School in Colorado. He grew up and was baptized a Baptist, but then converted to Roman Catholicism. Shaffer served in the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s. He received his B.A. from the University of Albuquerque in 1958 and his J.D. from Notre Dame Law School in 1961, cum laude, and he was ranked first in his class and was chosen as editor-in-chief of the law review, the ''Notre Dame Lawyer''. In 1983, he received an honorary LL.D. from St. Mary's University.

Career

Before becoming a professor, Shaffer worked as an attorney with Barnes, Hickam, Pantzer & Boyd from 1961 to 1963 in Indianapolis. Starting in 1963 Shaffer began teaching estate planning at Notre Dame Law School, and then served as associate dean from 1969 to 1971 and as dean from 1971 to 1975. Between 1980 and 1988 Shaffer served as the Robert E.R. Huntley Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law and as the director of the school's Frances Lewis Law Center. In 1988 Shaffer returned to Notre Dame as a full professor and then focused on clinical ethical instruction through the Notre Dame Legal Aid Clinic serving the underprivileged in the South Bend area. Shaffer served as a visiting professor of law at

U.C.L.A. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, University of Virginia, University of Maine, and Boston College Law School. He wrote nearly 300 works in various areas of the law including legal ethics, Christianity and the law, estate planning, mediation and other. He was a member of the Society of Christian Ethics, the Jewish Law Association, the AALS Executive Committee, and the ABA accreditation Committee, on the board of advisors of the Journal of Law and Ethics. The Thomas L. Shaffer Public Interest Fellowship at Notre Dame Law School is named in his honor.

Major works

*''Legal Interviewing and Counseling in a Nutshell'' *''On Being a Christian and a Lawyer'' (Brigham Young University Press, 1981) *''The Planning and Drafting of Wills and Trusts'' *''Lawyers, Clients, and Moral Responsibility'' *''Property Law: Cases, Materials and Problems''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaffer, Thomas L. 1934 births 2019 deaths People from Montana People from Wyoming Notre Dame Law School alumni Notre Dame Law School faculty American Roman Catholics University of Albuquerque alumni 20th-century American lawyers