[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 97 (Tuesday, July 9, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S5566]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING DANIEL JOHN MEADOR

 Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute today 
to Daniel John Meador, who was born in 1926 in Selma, AL. Mr. Meador 
attended the Citadel and graduated from Auburn University and the 
University of Alabama Law School, and received a master of laws from 
Harvard Law School in 1954. He served in the U.S. Army, first in 
artillery, then in the Judge Advocate General's Corps in Korea during 
that conflict. Following the war, he returned to the United States and 
served as a law clerk to Justice Hugo L. Black of Alabama, then on the 
U.S. Supreme Court. He practiced law in Birmingham, AL, for a short 
time before joining the faculty at the University of Virginia. In 1965-
66 he was a Fulbright lecturer in England, and from 1966 to 1970 was 
the dean of the University of Alabama, School of Law, departing just as 
I was starting law school there. In 1970, he rejoined the University of 
Virginia law faculty as James Monroe Professor of Law, a position he 
held until his retirement in 1994. At the University of Alabama, he was 
a true reformer who wanted the school to be one of national stature. He 
also was a strong and principled leader for racial progress during 
those difficult times of discord. We can take pride in the fact that 
his work paved the way for the school to be one of the very best public 
law schools in America.
  Dean Meador's major professional interest was the State and Federal 
appellate courts, and he was involved in numerous projects and studies 
designed to strengthen and improve them. From 1971 to 1975, he served 
on the Advisory Council for Appellate Justice and in 1977-79 he was an 
assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice where, at the 
request of Attorney General Griffin Bell, he organized a new office in 
the Department--the Office for Improvements in the Administration of 
Justice. Its mission was to identify problems in the Federal and State 
courts and develop solutions. In addition, he served on numerous boards 
and committees working to further improve the Court system in our 
Nation. He was a good writer. I enjoyed his novel, His Father's House, 
set in Marengo County, Alabama, and Germany.
  Few lawyers have been held in higher esteem, or have received more 
honors, or participated in more projects for the betterment of the 
profession than Dean Meador. While Alabama has perhaps produced a few 
lawyers better known than Dean Meador, few have given more brilliant 
and sustained service in so many ways to the nurturing and development 
of the law and the courts than he. The great American rule of law 
system was enriched by him throughout his life.
  He is best remembered by those who knew him as a masterful teacher 
with a passion for history, friends and family. He leaves behind his 
wife, Alice, brother, three children, and seven grandchildren. They 
have been given a great legacy indeed. Dean Daniel John Meador was a 
great Alabama native, one of its greatest servants of the law, and I am 
honored to be able to pay tribute to his many contributions to 
education, the law, and the courts.

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