William Bassett: Teacher, Scholar, Counselor

It takes a particular intellectual curiosity to become a recognized expert in medieval admiralty law, the canon law of the Catholic Church, and California community property law. Over his 40-year career, Professor William Bassett has pursued all of these and other topics, with passion and rigor.

His two most prominent works written for practicing attorneys are Bassett on California Community Property Law: The Expert Series (Thomson-West) and Religious Organizations and the Law (Thomson-West). For 20 years he has updated both books annually. Two forthcoming works will add to his list of more than 50 bylined publications.

Bassett's interest in religious law dates to his doctoral studies in canon law at the Gregorian University in Rome in the early 1960s, when he also served as a facilitator at the Second Vatican Council. He returned to the United States as vice chancellor of the diocese of Peoria, Ill. and later taught at Catholic University. A National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship took him to Munich in 1973 to study medieval legal history.

Delos Putz, who was dean at the time, lured him to USF as visiting professor in 1974, with the promise of teaching jurisprudence and legal history. Despite being assigned instead to teach Wills and Trusts, Property, and Community Property, Bassett joined the faculty full-time a year later. "So, my involvement with one of the topics I have become known for was something of a fluke."

Bassett also has served a large client base of nonprofit institutions, commercial, and private interests. He said this "has enriched me and my teaching immensely. A consistent, positive involvement with the practical life of the bar adds authenticity to my role as mentor for students and as a helpful link to the job market for them."

Throughout his teaching career, Bassett has sustained wide-ranging scholarly pursuits. For many years he continued as an editor of The Jurist, a publication devoted to canon law, and the international journal for theology Concilium.

"Teaching at a law school affiliated with a Jesuit university is very satisfying. I especially appreciate Dean Brand's renewed focus on our mission as a Catholic institution. I've always been comfortable with my fellow faculty members, although I'm not sure they always knew what I was doing in my scholarship," he said with a smile.

Bassett is "the consummate law professor" according to John Osborn, a distinguished scholar in residence at the law school. "He is a mentor to me and many others. He is the soul of USF."

Paul McKaskle: Committed to the Welfare of the Law School

Asked to name his favorite course to teach, there is no hesitation in Professor Paul McKaskle's reply: "Civil Procedure. It is technical and intricate, but mostly I just enjoy the youth and eagerness of first-year students."

Over the span of his teaching career, "Paul taught thousands of students the fundamental building blocks of a legal education in his Civil Procedure and Evidence courses. He also has been a terrific colleague, dedicated to the law school and to its students," Professor Suzanne Mounts said.

McKaskle created courses including a constitutional law seminar that became known as Poverty Law and Environmental Law. His research and publications have focused on voting systems and reapportionment, as well as the European Court of Human Rights, a topic closely related to a course in comparative civil liberties he taught in the USF summer abroad program.

From 1975 to 1981, McKaskle served as dean of the law school. He characterized the creation of the Board of Counselors as "one of the good things" he accomplished during his tenure as dean. "At the time, the law school had no direct control over fundraising, no strategic planning function in place to determine its own future," he said. "This group played an important role in the law school taking charge of its own destiny."

"During his 37 years of teaching, no one on the faculty has cared more about the welfare of the law school, and, in particular, the experience of our students," Professor Steven Shatz said. "He has done more than his share of the 'heavy lifting' in the classroom, usually teaching more units and carrying far more student credit hours than anyone on the faculty. And I owe a personal debt to Paul, who, then in his first year on the faculty, recruited me to come to USF, a decision on his part and mine that I have been grateful for ever since."

Before joining the faculty, McKaskle worked as a deputy district attorney in Ventura County and was litigation director of the Western Center on Law & Poverty. While at USF, McKaskle twice served on the staff of the California Supreme Court as chief counsel for the Special Masters on Reapportionment when California redistricted its legislative districts. "There was never a successful challenge to the redistricting he did," said Professor Delos Putz.

McKaskle's less scholarly, but no less insightful, writing can be found in a series of reviews on Amazon.com. An astute opera and film fan, his reviews of Handel's opera Rinaldo and various productions of Austen's Pride and Prejudice suggest that he may have a second career as a critic.

Delos Putz: Dean, Professor, Practitioner

When Delos Putz was hired as dean of the USF School of Law in 1971, there were just ten faculty members and approximately 300 students. With national law school enrollment rising dramatically in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the university agreed to allow Putz to double the school's faculty and student body.

But soon after he arrived on campus, USF faced a severe budget crisis, which would prompt long-standing conflicts surrounding the university's authority over the law school to come to a head. While dean, Putz led an effort to permit the law school to take control of its own budget. This would allow the school to preserve a healthy student-faculty ratio by hiring additional faculty and to raise salaries to a level in keeping with the national median. USF ultimately cooperated, and today the university and the law school enjoy a positive, mutually supportive relationship.

"In the early 1970s, law school populations were blossoming, and USF knew it had to be a different and larger school," he said. "We did that by bringing the full-time faculty up to 20, plus a dean and associate dean, and growing the student body to 650."

After earning his law degree from New York University, Putz clerked for a federal judge and practiced with the firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York City before returning to NYU Law School as assistant dean. When he learned USF was looking for a dean, he was immediately interested.

"I applied for the job because I wanted to return to the West Coast and I had Jesuit roots, having attended Gonzaga University and a Jesuit high school," said Putz, who became dean at age 33.

Putz served as dean for four years before returning to the classroom, where he has spent over three decades in the law school's largest lecture halls, teaching Civil Procedure, Remedies, and Complex Civil Litigation. "I'm concerned that we do our best to produce lawyers prepared to practice in the real world by offering them a solid core curriculum," he said.

Professor Steven Shatz said Putz's deanship was a watershed for the law school. "Among other things, he fought for, and established, a measure of financial independence from the university; he diversified the faculty, hiring the school's first African-American, first Latino, and first woman; and he established the first client clinical program in the Bay Area," Shatz said.

Throughout his career, Putz has maintained some level of involvement in law practice, serving as a consultant on complex civil cases in federal and state courts, and as a mediator and arbitrator.  He has been a member of the ADR Panel of the Federal District Court in San Francisco since 1988.  He also served as an accreditation inspector for the American Bar Association for more than 10 years.

"I've been extremely fortunate to have had some involvement in law practice throughout my academic career," he said. "It has contributed to my ability to be an effective teacher. It keeps me in touch with what lawyers are actually doing."

In retirement, Putz looks forward to spending time with his wife, two grown children, and four grandchildren, hiking, and horseback riding. But he won't leave the law behind completely. He intends to continue serving as a mediator for the federal and state courts in San Francisco and to do some private mediation, he said.