A Tribute to Lynn Mather

Lynn Mather has been a key contributor to the intellectual life of the SUNY Buffalo Law School, a person of principle, and one of our most honored and respected scholars. Her colleagues have benefited immeasurably from her encouragement and advice, and her students have been enriched by her wealth of knowledge about law, legislation, and the legal profession. Lynn has been a mentor and friend to new faculty members and a valued source of advice to those who are farther along in their careers. Her departure leaves a void that will be very difficult to fill.

For more than forty years, Lynn Mather has been one of the most recognized, respected, and influential figures in the international Law and Society field. Her studies of lawyers and the legal profession, in particular, are considered the gold standard by her peers. She has received many awards and other forms of recognition for her writings and her leadership, including election to the presidency of the Law & Society Association in 2001-2002. In 2013, her contributions and outstanding reputation were recognized by the State University of New York with her promotion to the rank of SUNY Distinguished Service Professor.

Lynn came to SUNY Buffalo Law School in 2002 as the result of an international search for the next Director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy. She had spent most of her professional career at Dartmouth College, where she was the Nelson A. Rockefeller Professor of Government. We were thrilled to have her join us here at UB, and she began to have an impact on faculty and students almost from the moment she arrived. Although she was hired primarily in an administrative capacity, she is a skilled teacher who immediately made her mark in the law school classroom teaching courses on the legal profession, statutory interpretation, courts and social change, and other courses and seminars dealing with law and society topics. As a political scientist, she also taught and mentored graduate students and fostered dialogues across the disciplines on our campus.

Colleagues at UB came to know Lynn for her extraordinarily generous and selfless support of faculty scholarship. One of her innovations at the Baldy Center, the Book Manuscript Workshop for UB authors, brought noted scholars to our campus to lead discussions of books that were nearing completion. Many faculty members later commented that these sessions had contributed significantly to the success and visibility of their work. Lynn herself is a meticulous reader, who has provided many of us with detailed comments on our work, a role she has played for scholars around the world.

Lynn has been a dedicated member of our faculty, never hesitant to speak her mind, always devoted to the betterment of our community. The dozen years she spent with us seem far too short. Her countless contributions to our faculty, our students, and our international reputation will be sorely missed.