Law Commons^™

Frank Allen: An Appreciation, Richard Lempert

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Francis Allen was the Dean who hired me. First deans are, in their own way, as memorable as first kisses; they set expectations for all that follows. The expectations that Frank Allen set were high indeed. In this young professor's mind (I was 24 when I received my offer; 25 when I joined the faculty) he embodied what I still regard as the two most important academic virtues: scholarship and decency. These virtues combined to make him, at the time he accepted the Michigan deanship, perhaps the nation's most powerful voice for criminal justice reform and the country's leading scholar …