On October 8, Elon University President Leo M. Lambert led a portrait unveiling ceremony to honor F. Leary Davis, founding dean of Elon University School of Law.
The portrait was commissioned by the Board of Trustees of Elon University and created by national award-winning artist Michael Del Priore.
Davis, one of North Carolina’s most experienced and respected legal educators, was appointed founding dean of Elon University School of Law in March 2005, after conducting the original feasibility study for the law school in 2004.
Lambert described Davis’ contributions as fundamental to the success of the law school. “Leary Davis is the sine qua non of Elon Law, without which not, essential,” Lambert said. “On behalf of the Board of Trustees, it is my great honor to dedicate this portrait and to extend our most heartfelt thanks for your advancement of not only this great institution, the school of law, but of the entire university. Your hard work, your determination, but most of all your vision, has a place in Elon’s history and we thank you.”
Davis’ vision for the law school was built around Elon University’s strengths in engaged learning, leadership education and civic responsibility. As founding dean, Davis created an innovative preceptor program at Elon Law, involving practicing attorneys who serve as coaches and mentors to law students. He also worked with faculty to develop a strong academic program, preparing students to begin their careers with deep knowledge of the law and a good understanding of legal practice.
Damon Duncan and Chad Hinton, two graduates of the law school’s charter class who each served as president of its Student Bar Association, reflected on their experiences with Dean Davis.
“Anything I could say would be an understatement of what Dean Davis did for our class,” Duncan said. “I want to say thank you to Dean Davis’ wife and to all his family and friends. You’ve given up a lot of time to allow Dean Davis to do so much for us. Thank you for allowing him to be a part of the Elon family.”
Hinton called Davis a pioneering visionary in legal education, a caring professional and a proven leader. “I don’t think many of us would be here today without Dean Davis’ leadership,” Hinton said. “We all followed him here, from the first open house in March of 2006 when he wore his hard hat over to this unfinished building, to his enthusiasm in talking with us about a law school with a difference. Thank you Dean Davis for leading us here today. Thank you for your work for the profession and for Elon Law.”
Hinton also highlighted Davis’ dedication to Elon Law students. “Dean Davis has always been sincerely concerned about the life of every student here at Elon and wanted us to succeed,” Hinton said. “He could not have been a better Dean to work with as a student bar president.”
Davis said that his time with Elon, beginning ten years earlier when he initially spoke with Lambert about legal education, had been a wonderful experience for which he was grateful to the entire Elon community. “I’ve had wonderful family, wonderful friends, and wonderful opportunities, chief among them has been the opportunity to be a part of Elon University School of Law,” Davis said.
Davis said that Elon University’s leaders had been successful in creating a law school that would make the world better. “I could not be more pleased with what the faculty, staff and students have done,” Davis said, “and also the preceptors, adjunct faculty members, the judiciary, all the people who have worked with the students to make this really a different law school, to connect our students to the profession in a way that they are not in any other school, connecting not just with the profession but with the values that brought us all to the profession together.”
Davis thanked a number of individual family members and friends for their love and support over the course of his adult life and career, emphasizing the central importance in his life of his wife Joy.
On June 27, 2009, the North Carolina Bar Association honored Davis with the Judge John J. Parker Award, the association’s highest honor. Bestowed in recognition of conspicuous service to the cause of jurisprudence in North Carolina, the Parker award is presented only as merited, with only 32 recipients honored since the award’s creation 50 years ago.
