UVA Law announces the retirement of my mentor, teacher, and friend Michael Dooley:
University of Virginia School of Law professor Michael Dooley, a widely recognized expert in corporate law and longtime chair of the Graduate Program Committee, is retiring after more than four decades at the Law School. ...
One of Dooley's former law students, Stephen Bainbridge '85, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Dooley sparked the inspiration for his career path.
"I was lucky enough to learn corporate law from Michael Dooley," he said. "In addition to taking several courses from him, I worked as his research assistant the summer after my first year of law school and then through both my second and third years. Mike's passion for corporate law as a subject of inquiry, his skill at teaching and intellectual prowess inspired me to set aside plans for a career in patent law in favor of becoming a corporate law academic."
Bainbridge said that Dooley was always supportive of his ambition to become a legal academic, though sometimes in "backhanded ways."
"I remember coming into his office one day when he was chatting with [then-Virginia Law professor] Bob Scott," he said. "I had just pulled an all-nighter working on a Law Review edit. I was wearing my dad's old Army field jacket. I needed a haircut and a shave. In sum, I was pretty scruffy. Mike looked at me, laughed, and said to Scott: 'It's hard to believe there's a good legal mind under all that mess.' I decided to take it as a compliment and treasured it."
Dooley, who taught at the University of Illinois College of Law before joining the Virginia faculty, helped Bainbridge land a job there early in his career.
"I was later told by some of my new colleagues that Mike's endorsement had been the decisive factor in their decision to make me the offer," he said. "Indeed, one remarked that I probably would not have gotten the job had it not been for Mike's recommendation. By an odd coincidence, when I arrived at Illinois, I was assigned Mike's old office. So, once again, I was following in Mike's footsteps."
Bainbridge added that Dooley's article "Two Models of Corporate Governance" provided the intellectual framework on which he constructed the theory of director primacy, for which he has become best known.
"I owe Mike a debt of gratitude that I can never repay," he said. "He was the best mentor a guy could have."
I plan a detailed appreciation of Mike's contributions to the corporate law academy and my career. Hopefully, the Virginia Law Review or their Business Law Journal will pick it up. If not, watch this space.
