THE NATURAL By Sarah Shebek
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f law schools kept yearbooks, Daniel Dye, L’03, would have been voted “Most Likely to Teach” by his peers — even if he didn’t yet know it himself. “It was so funny because some of my classmates and Webb Hecker all said, ‘Oh yeah, we knew you were going to be a teacher,’” he said. “Everyone knew it except me, but I tried it, loved it, and wouldn’t change anything about it.” Although Dye had always dreamed of pursuing a law degree, his aspirations didn’t originally extend to full-time teaching, and he decided to work in commercial litigation in Phoenix upon graduation. What happened next changed his entire career path. “My wife actually connected with a woman through a community service organization that she’s a part of,” he said. “She mentioned to us that there was a new law school opening, and it so happened that her husband was on the local board of directors for the school and knew the new dean. So I met him in 2004, and we just were in touch on and off again for a little over a year.” That school was the Phoenix School of Law, which opened one year later. Shortly after, the dean offered Dye a part-time teaching position, which morphed into a full-time appointment. Today he primarily teaches Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, and Conflict of Laws as an associate professor, and has realized
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that teaching was his ideal career all along. “I thought I would teach maybe after practicing for 20 years and just kind of do it as a second career, but I tried it and I was hooked,” he said. Long before discovering his calling, Dye grew up in Detroit, where a middle school social studies class first sparked his interest in law. Keeping his ultimate goal in mind, he attended Florida A&M University for college and worked for a few years before applying to law schools. “When I got into the application process, KU wasn’t the best offer I had financially,” he said. “But KU was the most responsive of the schools I considered. Just the feel that I got from KU told me that this was the place.” The first in his family to attend law school, Dye excelled through a combination of hard work and natural leadership skills. He won multiple awards for advocacy and leadership, including the Foulston & Siefkin Award for Oral Advocacy, the Justice Lloyd Kagey Leadership Award, the LaTina Sullivan Student Leadership Award, and the Judge Kit Carson Roque Scholarship. “The thing that prepared me most — and I think this goes back to about the people that I met and worked
with — was that there was always somebody available,” he said. “So that’s the kind of presence and the kind of approach that I try to bring to my own experience as a teacher.” Today his leadership extends into service. Since moving to Phoenix, he has served on the board of directors for both the Literacy Volunteers of Maricopa County and Valley Christian Centers, as Region IX deputy director for the National Bar Association, and as north and central Arizona area director for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., among other positions. He currently sits on the board for the Sphinx Educational Fund, which raises and awards scholarship money for post-secondary education. He also chairs Phoenix Law’s faculty appointment committee, which includes work on a comprehensive curriculum overhaul. “My mother always said that whenever someone is given a lot, there’s a lot required of that person,” Dye said. “I have a responsibility to make it more than about what I’m able to accomplish. I’ve got to give something back.” n