Biography
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One of the nation's foremost scholars of constitutional law, Professor Gunther had been on the faculty of the Stanford Law School since 1962. He wrote "Constitutional Law," a 1965 volume of case studies that is the standard text on the subject in most American law schools; the latest edition was written with Kathleen Sullivan.
Professor Gunther was a teacher and mentor of judges, including one who made it to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: "Gerald Gunther was my teacher, my adviser, my friend, our nation's leading constitutional law scholar and judicial biographer. His commentary and counsel I retain in my mind will continue to guide me through all my days on the bench."
Professor Gunther, who was then on the Columbia faculty, "got me my clerkship by pressuring every judge in the Southern District," Justice Ginsburg said. She said that Professor Gunther had to promise that "if I didn't work out, he would find a male lawyer to replace me." She was hired by Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the Southern District.
Professor Gunther's constitutional views were nonpartisan but liberal in their effect. When Justice Ginsburg was working for the American Civil Liberties Union, he advised her on ways to extend constitutional rights to classes, like women, not specifically mentioned in the law.
Professor Gunther also wrote "Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge" (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), which a reviewer for The New York Times called "the fullest, most sensitive, most penetrating of judicial biographies." The Supreme Court Historical Society gave the book its triennial award in 1995 for "the best original work pertaining to Supreme Court history."
Professor Gunther, who fled Nazi Germany as a boy, served in 1953 and 1954 as a law clerk to Judge Hand, who sat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He also was a clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1954 and 1955, during the time that the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision was handed down by the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Warren credited his clerk with significant contributions to his writing of the decision.
Professor Gunther spent more than 20 years researching and writing the 818-page biography of Judge Hand. He said in an interview that one major advantage he had was that the judge had "a nice upstate New York Calvinist-Presbyterian" aversion to throwing anything away. Professor Gunther read about 40,000 of the judge's letters and 4,000 of his legal opinions.
