Phil C. Neal, former dean of The University of Chicago Law School and partner at Neal Gerber & Eisenberg, died on Tuesday night. He was 97.
Dean Neal was born in Chicago in 1919. He graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1940 and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1943, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he served for two years as a law clerk to Justice Robert H. Jackson of the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1945, he left his clerkship to assist Department of State official Alger Hiss in his work as secretary general of the United Nations organizing conference.
In 1948, he began his career in legal education at Stanford Law School. While at Stanford, he taught two future U.S. Supreme Court justices – William H. Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor.
In 1961, he joined The University of Chicago Law School, where he served as its sixth dean from 1963 to 1975. He taught a wide range of subjects, including Elements of the Law, Antitrust, and Constitutional Law.
Throughout his time in education, he was appointed to several government bodies, serving as Chairman of the White House Task Force on Antitrust Laws (1968); Executive Secretary of the Coordinating Committee for Multiple Litigation, U.S. District Courts (1962-68); and Chairman of the Pacific Regional Enforcement Commission of the Wage Stabilization Board (1950-52).
In 1986, he changed careers and cofounded the law firm Neal Gerber & Eisenberg, where he focused on trial and appellate litigation, with an emphasis on antitrust, securities laws, and regulatory matters, as well as constitutional litigation.
Dean Neal was elected to The American Law Institute in 1977. He served as an Adviser on Restatement of the Law Third, Restitution and Unjust Enrichment, and on the MCG of Restatement of the Law Third, The Law Governing Lawyers.
ALI President Roberta Cooper Ramo was a student at The University of Chicago Law School when he was the dean. She accepted the ABA Medal in 2015 in honor of Dean Neal, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the mother of golfer Nancy Lopez, three people who she credits as playing pivotal roles in her career. Specifically, Dean Neal supported her in finding her first job.
“In 1967 when I couldn't find anyone who would even answer my letters as [my husband and I] were about to move to North Carolina … [Dean Neal] called me in to find out why I didn’t have a job,” she said in her ABA Medal acceptance speech. “When I explained, without hesitation and with me sitting right there, he picked up the phone and called [former North Carolina] Gov. Terry Sanford, who just stepped down from the governorship. He demanded that Gov. Sanford personally take on the job of finding me some place to work, posthaste. And out of fear of Phil Neal, he did.” That year, President Ramo joined a foundation working to end racial discrimination and poverty.