In memory of J. Paul Lomio: Director, Robert Crown Law Library.

• Position: Stanford Law School - Testimonial

In memory of the services provided to Stanford Law School and the Stanford Law Review, we dedicate the first issue of Volume 68 to the memory of J. Paul Lomio, an extraordinary director of the Stanford Law School library and an irreplaceable member of the Stanford community.

J. Paul Lomio was born in 1950 in Schenectady, New York. He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from St. Bonaventure University in 1972 before serving in the U.S. Army as a platoon leader until 1975 at Nike Hercules batteries in Fort Story, Virginia and Camp Holiday, South Korea. He went on to earn a law degree from Gonzaga University in 1978 and a master's degree in law from the University of Washington School of Law in 1979. He was admitted to the Washington State Bar Association in 1978 and served as a guardian-ad-litem for the King County Juvenile Court. He then clerked for judge T. Patrick Corbett of the King County Superior Court in Seattle in 1980 and went on to earn a master's degree in library science in 1982 from the School of Library and Information Science at Catholic University of America.

Lomio joined the law school staff as a reference librarian in 1982, and in 2005, then-Dean Larry Kramer named him director of the library. Over the course of a career spanning more than three decades, he became a specialist in legal research and the development of digital reserves--and much more.

The following tributes were given during Paul Lomio's memorial on May 12, 2015.

M. Elizabeth Magill

Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School

Thanks to all of you for being here to help us remember and celebrate a great soul, Paul Lomio. Thank you especially to Erika Wayne who has come back from Florida to be with us, and to Rita Lomio who has come from Washington.

All of us have our stories about Paul; stories that tell us what he meant to us; stories that explain how and why we admired him so much; stories that illustrate what he did to make us better. I have fewer stories than most because I only had the privilege of knowing Paul for a couple of years. Even so, I knew Paul long enough to know that I wanted to be like him in many ways--especially in two ways.

The first is that Paul always thought about the people who were not in the room. I have dozens of examples, but let me give you one issue we talked a lot about last year. Last year, the senior staff and I talked a great deal about the construction in the library building and the effect it was having on people working in the building, what we could do to lessen those effects, and how to improve morale. Paul had great insight into both the way it was affecting people, and what we might do to respond. We would come up with a plan. Paul would point out that we were not thinking about the fact that people worked at 11 pm and on the weekends or that students used this part of the building at this or that time of day or night. We would come up with a plan to build morale, and Paul would point out that our gesture would not be meaningful for this group of people or that group of people.

Now I make him sound like a nitpicker, and he most assuredly was not. He was always constructive and helpful--he was just making us better. I've been thinking in the last couple of weeks about what it took to be able to do that. It took a habit of mind--one that was not afraid to speak when the group was reaching a conclusion that left out the consideration of those people outside the room. And it took knowing and noticing what every person who was part of this place did, and what they cared about. He made us better for that knowing, and that noticing.

That knowing is the other part about Paul that stood out to everyone. If you are here, at this event, Paul probably knew what you cared about, what you worked on, what you studied, and even what you watched and listened to. I bet many of us here have had the experience of starting to work on or think about something new, and Paul somehow noticed that, predicted that, intuited that, and he would start sending you things that you might be interested in. He would send you things you didn't know you would need--until you saw them. Most shockingly, he knew that even when we didn't tell him. It was a magical power--as if there was some Vulcan mind meld between everyone here and Paul.

Larry Kramer

Former Dean of Stanford Law School

There are things one is sometimes asked to do that just seem wrong--that we shouldn't have to do. Speaking at a memorial for Paul Lomio is one of those things. There are things one is sometimes asked to do that one feels utterly inadequate for. Speaking at a memorial for Paul is one of those things too, for me at least.

That's not for lack of things to say. There is plenty to talk about: stories to tell, quirks to recall fondly, memories that provide insights into the person we are here to remember and mourn and celebrate. I will offer some of those presently. But none of it feels sufficient. None of it feels remotely adequate to offer real solace to Paul's friends and family, much less to do justice to his memory.

There are things that happen too soon, before we should have to expect them. This is one of those things. Death may be unavoidable, but it shouldn't be this unexpected or unjustifiable. It frustrates me, as well as making me sad, to have to say anything--so prematurely, so many years before it makes sense.

I've been blessed in my career and my life to encounter many extraordinary people. Great universities are filled with them, and the foundation world has opened new doors behind which are still more people to admire and learn from. Paul is high on my list of such people. He was someone I grew to admire enormously--for what he did and for how he did it. He was someone from whom one could, and from whom I did, learn a great deal.

I'm not an Ayn Rand fan. I read her, of course. Like so many young men, I read and loved The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The stories were great (though, to be honest, and with due respect to anyone who feels otherwise, even in my late teens, I thought it apparent that her so-called "philosophy" was silly). There was one idea that I got from her, though, that always stuck with me: the idea that it's not what you do that matters so much as how you do it, that there can be greatness and artistry in any task. I'll come back to this in a moment, but first let me say a few things about working alongside and being friends with Paul.

I arrived at Stanford almost a year after Lance Dickson had resigned as head of the law library. His successor had not yet been picked, though a committee had been conducting a search. The search presented me with a confounding problem. My predecessor and the head of the search committee had not hidden the fact that they thought we should go outside for our next library director, but many members of the faculty were urging me to promote Paul. Being new, I wasn't confident about my ability to judge who might be right or wrong.

So we made Paul the acting director while the search continued. Fortunately, as it turned out, the search committee was slow--too many members had too many other obligations--which gave Paul an opportunity to take control and show what he could do. I think...