Professor John Scheid has stepped out of the classroom and graded his last paper to begin retirement after more than 43 years at The John Marshall Law School.
Scheid, who taught a wide range of courses, including Contracts, Torts, Real Estate Transactions, and Philosophy of Law, will be on sabbatical this semester before taking full retirement in June.
His colleagues wished him well at a retirement party Jan. 21. Scheid was one of the longest-tenured faculty members. He was the eighth full-time faculty member hired by Dean Noble
Lee in 1967. He moved into the full-time ranks after serving as a part-time faculty member in 1965 and 1966.
In 1974, when Dean Fred Herzog got John Marshall admitted into the Association of American Law Schools, full-time faculty numbers increased, and Scheid was one of those responsible for developing faculty self-governance in the conventional way prevalent elsewhere in legal education.
“Many of the provisions we find in our basic documents of faculty self-governance flowed from John’s pen, including, most significantly, our Academic Freedom Policy and the earliest version of our Tenure and Promotion Policy,” Professor Gerald Berendt told guests at Scheid’s luncheon. “Others followed to lead the transition to self-governance, including Dean Leonard Schrager, Professors Claude Carr, Walter Kendall, Michael Seng, and yours truly. But were it not for the collaboration between Fred Herzog and John Scheid, we would not have the firm foundation
of academic freedom and faculty governance we employ to this day.”
“John always had a passion for teaching. He loves teaching and really cares about the students and the institution,” said colleague Professor Ronald Domsky who remembers those 1960s and early 1970s days of only essay exams and class loads of 12 hours per semester.
In those days of Scheid’s career, “we would grade 200 essay exams each semester,” Domsky remembered. Your curriculum and workload was set by Dean Lee without question. Although it was a heavy load, Domsky said “it was a time when classroom teaching was far more important than anything else a faculty member might do. It was the golden age for the faculty—no pressure to publish, no faculty committees, and infrequent faculty meetings.”
Scheid shared his expertise on medical malpractice and product liability with Irish law students, barristers, and judges through a number of guest lecture presentations at Trinity College-Dublin, School of Law. In the classroom, Scheid tried to add some levity to his subjects. For Halloween, he would become “Super Prof ” wearing his own Superman cape and T-shirt. He also was known for his years of portrayals of Santa during the Student Bar Association holiday parties.