Dean Jacob D. Hyman
Jacob D. Hyman, former dean of the University at Buffalo School of Law and a longtime faculty member, became dean in 1953 and held that post until 1964, when he returned to full-time teaching. He retired, at age 90, after 54 years at UB law school. After he died April 8, 2007, esteemed members of the legal community and university officials and friends gathered to celebrate his memory.
About this Interview
Interview Date(s)
- May 3, 2000
- October 5, 2000
- Oct. 13, 2007
Occasion
- UB Law Day 2000
- Memorial at UB
Interviewed By
Lynn Clarke (May 2000)
Ilene Fleischmann (Oct. 2000)
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About Dean Jacob D. Hyman
The only child of Jewish parents, “Jack” Hyman was born in Boston. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1931 and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1934.
Hyman began Harvard law school with 600 classmates and graduated with 200. His Judaism did not seem to affect his law school experience. While in law school, he enjoyed working with the Legal Aid Bureau, which exposed him to the courtroom and litigation. Professor Roscoe Pound was his dean. Though he married while in law school, there was no time for socializing and he made no lifelong friends.
Hyman began his legal career in New York City, then moved to Washington, D.C., in 1939. He first worked on the legal staff of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. With the shift to a war economy, he moved to the Office of Price Administration, where he became associate general counsel in charge of litigation in the special federal court that reviewed price control orders, until 1946.
Hyman then decided to go into law school teaching. He visited Harvard and was referred to Ernest Brown, a professor who had come from Buffalo law school. Brown recruited him to Buffalo. Hyman was impressed by the faculty and accepted a teaching position at the small law school on West Eagle Street for half the pay he had been earning as a practitioner. His scholarly specialties were administrative law, constitutional law, jurisprudence, and state and local government law.
Starting in 1936, a decade before Hyman arrived in Buffalo, Buffalo had begun to attract star faculty. As a result, the character of the law school began to change from a small, local law school to one with a national focus. These celebrity scholars had a positive impact on the reputation of the law school. Though they would move to Harvard after World War II, their presence in Buffalo made it easier to recruit bright young faculty when Hyman became dean of the law school in 1953.
He held that post until 1964, when he returned to full-time teaching. He retired for the first time in 1981 but kept teaching part time until 2000, when he again retired.
He was most proud of his involvement implementing the Legal Methods program, which assisted underrepresented minorities in law school.
Born Dec.11, 1909—Died April 8, 2007
Friends and Colleagues Praise Jack Hyman
Dean R. Nils Olsen
“Jack Hyman was the personification of UB law school’s very best qualities. He was committed to diversity, was a pioneer in studying the contexts within which law is made and practiced, and was dedicated to the law school and its students, whose admiration for him was the envy of his colleagues.”
Judge Hugh Scott ’74
“He showed a genuine interest in civil rights, understanding the struggles of the movement for basic human rights. He made a connection between what was learned and what could be done to effect societal changes that fueled so much unrest in the ’60s. Jacob Hyman was cognizant of the personal issues minority students of that time brought with them, and he took a personal interest in keeping abreast of their adjustment to the school.”
Dean Thomas Headrick
“Because of Jack, the law school of today pushes the conception and boundaries of law well beyond its disciplinary turf to help us understand how people, groups, movements and nations act, and how legal and social structures shape, foster and impede those actions. UB Law sees, studies and teaches law without borders. … UB Law today is Dean Hyman’s law school: larger, more expansive and better financed, but it is the law school of his vision. His spirit inhabits its essence, sitting at its core. Jack Hyman was a gracious, gentle, humane, principled man, blessed with a subtle, acute intelligence, fully engaged in worlds both near and far, fun and challenging for his friends, helpful and instructive to all.”
Vivian Garcia
“As I watched him in action in the classroom, I only gradually learned the full measure of the substantive breadth of what he was delivering. I learned something every time Jack spoke. Over the years I wrote him long—and short—letters about this or that disappointment or achievement. Over the years, I loved and appreciated him more and more. As I suspect many of you know, he always wrote back ... always. He appeared constantly amazed at my courage and accomplishments. I have all his letters.”
President William Greiner on Jack Hyman “getting it right”
“Meeting Jack Hyman, I was impressed by his intelligence, which was on display at a very high order, and I was also impressed by the dignity of the individual. He combined great humanity with great wisdom. … He was always the formidable presence, the dignified Dean Hyman, but you knew (and he did have a great laugh) that underneath that somewhat austere demeanor there was this warm human being ready, on a personal level, to help if he could. Jack used to attend my classes and give me advice, and it was always good advice. He was a friend. He was a helper. And he was a leader. But more than anything else he was a teacher, and I think that’s how we should remember him. Over my lifetime I’ve often said to myself, “How would Jack do it?” And if I ever came even close to how Jack did it, then I knew I was at least getting it right.”
Richard Griffin ’57
“ ‘Jack Hyman: investor extraordinaire.’ Not investor in the financial sense, but investor as defined in the dictionary: ‘To devote morally or psychologically as to a purpose; to commit to others.’ Jack Hyman invested big time in the law, its practice, civil and human rights, our law school, its students and our alumni. Jack Hyman invested heavily in the students and in the alumni of our school. … We celebrate the life of an extraordinary ‘investor.’ He dedicated and committed his life to others and to great causes. This life is a model for us all.”
John Schlegel’s love of Jack Hyman
“Ours was a love affair of the head, not of the heart. Not an affair born of passion, but a growing affection that, while it never traveled through wild passion (Jack was not given to excess), over time grew into love. Jack always pushed me to think as well as I could, and in that way he tried to be not just a wrestling partner but a teacher, too, as he, like most good teachers, could never stop teaching. Jack cared about faculty as a good teacher would care about his students. … The loss of anyone narrows the circle of life of the active mind. Jack is gone; my circle is narrowed. I miss my wrestling partner; my life is more empty for his absence, because for all of these years his presence made my life, my thoughts, better, richer and more careful—about all one can ask of a colleague, a teacher and a friend.”