Mary C. Daly

By Dean Michael A. Simons

Mary Daly holds a special place in history as the first woman to serve as dean of St. John’s Law. Here, Dean Michael A. Simons remembers his colleague, the impact she made leading the Law School, and the enduring legacy she left to guide him, as her successor, and the institution forward.

It’s been almost 13 years since Mary Daly’s untimely death in November 2008, so decades of students have come through St. John’s Law without knowing her personally. Still, they have benefitted from her deanship because she left an indelible mark on the Law School—not just as a trailblazer, but as a visionary leader whose work here defines our institution today.

Mary came to St. John’s in 2004, following a career path that took her from Big Law, to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and then to Fordham Law—her alma mater—where she spent decades as an esteemed professor and as a noteworthy scholar of professional responsibility and legal ethics. Her predecessor in our dean’s office, Hon. Joseph W. Bellacosa ’59C, ’61L, ’87HON, had guided the Law School deftly out of a tumultuous period and Mary was the perfect person to lead the next leap forward. As an outsider with a fresh perspective, she recognized our strengths. But, just as clearly, she saw opportunities for improvement and moved quickly to seize them.

Understanding the global nature of the legal profession, Mary stewarded the expansion of transnational offerings at St. John’s Law. She created our Rome summer program, started our first LL.M. program for foreigntrained lawyers, and established our first international partnership with the Kenneth Wang School of Law in Soochow China. We now have dozens of international partner schools; we send students all over the world for travel courses, international practica, and exchange programs; and our multiple LL.M. programs are filled with foreign-educated lawyers who enrich the life of the Law School and the wider profession.

Mary also understood how much students benefit from learning the law hands on. To expand our skills training programs, she established our in-house Child Advocacy Clinic, Securities Arbitration Clinic, and Center for Dispute Resolution. She also oversaw the addition of several skillsbased courses. When Mary became dean, there were only two clinics at St. John’s Law. We now have a dozen clinics, a stellar skills faculty, and countless drafting and advocacy courses.

All of that is Mary’s tangible legacy. Less tangible, but just as important, is the personal impact she had on the Law School community. Her leadership style was defined by strength, decency, grace, and kindness. She led by example—including the example she set by balancing her work as dean with her roles as a parent to her three children Anthony, Stephen, and Meg, and as a spouse to her husband, Tony. And, for most of her time as dean, Mary was dealing with the cancer that would ultimately take her life. She did so with courage, steadfastness, and faith.

To me, Mary was both a mentor and a role model. She gave me my first administrative role as Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship and I learned so much by watching her gentle and effective approach to leadership. When I succeeded her as dean in 2009, it was with a great sense of responsibility. I consider myself lucky to have served with her, to assume the deanship of an institution she enhanced, and to build on all she did—and looked forward to doing—to help St. John’s Law thrive.