Larry Raful

• Publication year: 2022

37 Creighton L. Rev. 835. LARRY RAFUL

Creighton Law Review

Vol. 37

MICHAEL MCKAY(fn*)

In 1988, Father Michael Morrison asked Lawrence Raful, Associate Dean and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, to come to Creighton University Law School to become its seventh dean. Word of this appointment shocked many of us in the Pacific Northwest. Brothers Bill (Creighton Law, 1987) and John (Creighton Law, 1982) and I, all products of the University of Washington undergraduate program, were stunned. "My God, they've hired a Trojan to run our law school," Bill exclaimed.

We quickly learned that, in spite of this deficiency, Dean Raful brought energy, intellect, humor, integrity and love, not just to Creighton, but to many graduates and friends of the law school, as well.

Early in his tenure, Larry directed that a small memorial for Kevin Cashman (Creighton Law, 1976) be moved from an obscure corner of the law school building up into the Commons, outside the Klutznick Law Library, where students could be inspired by the actions of a successful Creighton Law graduate who lost his life helping the less fortunate. This gesture of love also gave considerable solace to a family still grieving the loss of a bright, wonderful son and brother.

He was a dean who taught ethics. Is there a better way to communicate to students what is really important in their professional lives? But his teaching was not limited to the classroom. Larry gently chided me, when I was the United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington, about the then-policy of the United States Department of Justice relating to contact with represented persons, a policy which was, as a result of such prodding, never executed in the Pacific Northwest.

When my brother, John, became the president of the Legal Services Corporation ("LSC")(fn1) in 1997, a critical time for LSC because its very existence was in serious doubt, Dean Raful flew to Seattle to share the podium with the Chief Justice of the Washington State Supreme Court and the King County Prosecutor, to speak at John's send-off dinner. Larry then made sure he was in Washington, D.C. to take John out for a beer at the end of his first day on the job, a thoughtful and much-needed gesture because John was being attacked from the outside by those who hated...