Edward (Ed) Sherman, a long-time faculty member at Texas Law, passed away on June 7, 2022, at the age of 84. A veteran of the U.S. Army, Sherman joined the faculty here in 1977 and spent nearly two decades positively impacting law students, including his commitment that they received quality instruction in the area of legal writing.
Wayne Schiess, Senior Lecturer in Texas Law’s Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing, and Appellate Advocacy, reflects on Sherman’s influence at Texas Law:
“Professor Sherman worked with me to develop legal-writing assignments when I was a new writing lecturer from 1992-1995, but I’d like to thank him for what he did before I arrived. He was committed to the idea that legal-writing instruction should be delivered to our students by full-time, credentialed professionals. Until the changes he pushed through came about, all research and writing instruction at the Law School was delivered by upper-class students, the TQs, who were part-time teaching assistants. And although they did fine work, none held a J.D. or had ever practiced law.
Professor Sherman initially hired faculty holding English Ph.D.s to teach writing, but he eventually realized that the way to go was full-time lawyers—faculty who’d practiced law and who could teach research and writing. This was in the late 1980s, and it was not much later that I became one of those faculty members.”
A preeminent scholar of civil procedure, complex litigation, mediation and military law, Sherman also worked pro bono on many civil rights and social justice cases throughout his life. He left the Forty Acres in 1996 to become the dean of the Tulane Law School, a position he held for five years. In his career, he frequently served as an expert witness and consultant, published nearly a dozen books and 100 articles and book chapters, and was the principal drafter of the Texas and Louisiana mediation statutes. He also was very active with the Louisiana State Bar Association and Texas Bar Association.
Read Edward Sherman’s full obituary online.