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“REMEMBERING DANIEL JOHN MEADOR” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S5566 on July 9, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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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