Building Portraits
The portraits displayed throughout the building show notable individuals throughout our history, including deans, professors, and alumni.
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Location
First Floor - Career Services hallway -
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Artist: C.J. Fox
As a young man, Mr. Barnes was a messenger for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and one of the first employees of the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s. He later founded James T. Barnes & Company mortgage banking firm, which became one of the largest privately owned mortgage company in the country. He was Chair of the University of Detroit Renaissance Campus (as the law school campus was then known) Campaign in 1973-1976. After his death at the age of 65 in 1978, many friends of Mr. Barnes contributed funds to establish a memorial in his honor: The James T. Barnes, Sr. Memorial Scholar Award is given annually to a faculty member at University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. In 2015, Mr. Barnes children, James T. Barnes Jr. and Christine Barnes Krichner, expanded the fund to include a scholarship for students.
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Faculty Scholar Awardees 1980-present
Location: First Floor - Atrium
Faculty Scholar Awardees
- 2023 Cara Cunningham Warren
- 2022 Stephen Wilks
- 2021 Julia Belian
- 2020 Nicholas Schroeck
- 2019 Kyle Langvardt
- 2018 Gary Maveal
- 2017 Khaled Beydoun
- 2016 Karen McDonald Henning
- 2015 Cristina Lockwood
- 2014 J. Richard Broughton
- 2013 David Koelsch
- 2010 Pamela Wilkins
- 2009 Pamela Wilkins
- 2005 Browne Lewis
- 2004 Lee Goldman
- 2003 Pamela Lysaght
- 2002 Patrick Keenan
- 2001 Harry Hutchison
- 2000 Alan Saltzman
- 1999 Lawrence Dubin
- 1998 Laura Hirshfeld Hollis
- 1997 Richard Myers
- 1996 Lee Goldman
- 1995 Lois Fielding
- 1994 Stephen Safranek
- 1993 Harry Hutchison
- 1992 Howard Abrams
- 1991 Alan Saltzman
- 1990 Lawrence Dubin
- 1989 Lee Goldman
- 1988 Stephen Mazurak
- 1987 Barry Furrow
- 1986 Joan Heifetz Hollinger
- 1985 Richard Seid
- 1984 Howard Abrams
- 1983 Daniel Lazaroff
- 1982 William Downs
- 1981 James O'Fallon
- 1980 Peter Linzer
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Location
Second Floor - Hallway to the right of center stairway
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Artist: John S. Coppin
Dean Brake was a University of Chicago law graduate and a professor of law at University of Detroit from 1925-1957. He served as Acting Dean from 1941-1946, while Dean McKenna served in the Army in WWII.
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Location
Second Floor - Hallway to the right of center stairway -
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Artist: Henry Heading
Gift of the 2020-2021 Student Bar Association
Dean Crocker was the first women to serve as Dean at Detroit Mercy Law. She became Dean in July 2014 and retired from the position in July 2021. Dean Crocker is a nationally recognized authority on the death penalty.
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Location
First Floor - Hallway on other side of double doors to left of entry
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Artist: Unknown
Father Dooley was the ninth University of Detroit President from 1911-1915, and founder of the School of Law. Father Dooley died at the age of 43 having served only four years as president.
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Location
First Floor - Hallway off Atrium, next to room 137A -
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Artist: Robert Arte O’Quinn
Gift of the 2022-2023 Black Law Students Association
Dean Jefferson Exum became Dean in July 2021. She joined the Detroit Mercy Law community as the Philip J. McElroy Professor of Law in 2019. She is a nationally recognized expert in sentencing law and procedure.
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Location
First Floor - Hallway off Atrium
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Artist: R.L. Bruce
Judge Foley served on the Wayne County Circuit Court from 1965-1990. He received his undergraduate degree from University of Detroit in 1947 and his JD from University of Detroit School of Law in 1950. During WWII he served as a pilot in the US Navy. As a judge he served as Chair of the State Judicial Tenure Commission.
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Location
Second Floor - Hallway to the right of center stairway
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Artist: Unknown
Gift of Judge William J. Giovan
Dean Hosmer was the first dean of University of Detroit School of Law from 1912-1921. Dean Hosmer received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, read for the bar at Griffin and Dickinson, wand was admitted to the bar in 1878. He became a judge in the Wayne County Circuit Court in 1888 and held that office until 1921 when he died at the age of 66. He received an honorary degree from University of Detroit in 1916. The painting that hangs in Detroit Mercy Law is a copy of the original painting that hangs in the Prismatic Club of Detroit.
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Location
First Floor - Hallway off Atrium
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Artist: Unknown
Gift of Clarence R. Charest 1951
Professor Joyce taught Latin and Greek at University of Detroit High School from 1921-1930, and taught at the law school from 1931-1965. He also taught in the Evening College of Business until 1950. During World War I he served with the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet near France. In the 1950s and 1960s he was a judge on the television program Traffic Court.
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Location
First Floor - Career Services hallway
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Artist: J Giordano
Mr. McElroy taught physics at University of Detroit from 1925-1941. He established his law office in 1948, located in the Fisher Building in Detroit. In 1965 another University of Detroit graduate, Dennis J. Pheney, Sr. '63, joined him and they practiced together until Mr. McElroy’s death in 1993 at the age of 89. Mr. McElroy was active in his communities, serving on boards of the Michigan State Bar Association for 62 years and the Novi Civic Improvement Association. For more information on the McElroy Lecture Series, visit the law school website.
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Location
Second Floor - Hallway to right of center stairway
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Artist: John S. Coppin
Dean McKenna was the first full-time dean at the law school, serving in that capacity 1932-1955. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School. He served in the Army during WWII, during which time Merle E. Brake served as Acting Dean.
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Location
Second Floor - Hallway to right of center stairway
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Artist: John S. Coppin
Dean Monaghan practiced law from 1902 to 1942, including while serving as dean from 1926-1932. At the University’s Golden Jubilee celebration in 1927, Dean Monaghan, along with former Dean Scallen, was one of sixteen prominent citizens to receive a Doctor of Laws degree from University of Detroit. After serving as dean, the University was one of his clients at Monaghan, Crowley, Clark, and Kellogg.
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Location
First Floor - Atrium
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Artist: Henry T. Heading
Judge Langford Morris '82, the first African American elected to the bench in Oakland County, has served as a judge on the Oakland County Circuit Court since 1992. Prior to becoming a judge, she served as an Assistant US Attorney (Civil Division) in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and as an Oakland County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney. Judge Langford Morris served on the University of Detroit Mercy Board of Trustees and serves on the Detroit Mercy Law Dean’s Advisory Board.
Judge Langford Morris’s portrait is the first of a woman and of an African American to grace the law school walls. Four student groups commissioned this portrait: The Black Law Student Association, Women’s Law Caucus, Law Review, and the Student Bar Association.
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Location
First Floor - Hallway off Atrium
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Artist: H. Chalmers Cooper
Justice Murphy served as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan (1919-22), as a judge on the Recorder’s Court where he presided over the Ossian Sweet trial (1923-30), Mayor of Detroit (1930-33), Governor of Michigan (1936-38), Attorney General of the United States (1939-40), and US Supreme Court Associate Justice (1940-49). He also taught as an Adjunct at University of Detroit School of Law. The Honor Society at Detroit Mercy Law is named for Justice Murphy.
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Location
First Floor - Atrium
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Artist: Unknown
Judge Ryan served as a Justice of the Peace (1963-66), Judge on the Wayne County Third Circuit Court (1966-75), Justice on the Michigan Supreme Court (1975-85), and Judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (1985-2010). He taught as an Adjunct at Detroit Mercy Law.
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Location
First Floor - Atrium
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Artist: John S. Coppin
Judge Scallen served as Assistant Dean and Acting Dean from 1921-1926. At the University’s Golden Jubilee celebration in 1927, Judge Scallen, along with Dean Monaghan, was one of sixteen prominent citizens to receive a Doctor of Laws degree from University of Detroit. Dean Scallen was elected to the Record’s Court and served as a judge of that court from 1930-1968. He was active in civic life, serving as President of the University of Detroit Alumni Association, a life member of the NAACP, a member Roundtable of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, and founder of the Manresa Layman Retreat.
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Location
First Floor - Career Services hallway
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Artist: Richard Lewis
Henry H. Tarrant was the first African American graduate of the law school in 1922. Born in rural Alabama, he moved to Detroit as part of the Great Migration around 1919. He enrolled at University of Detroit School of Law in September 1919 at the age of 27 and worked as a clerk at the US Post Office throughout law school. He practiced law in Detroit for the next sixteen years. During the 1920s as racial violence was prevalent across the country and in Detroit, Mr. Tarrant was active in organizations that sought racial equality and justice, including the Harlan Law Club. You can learn more about Mr. Tarrant here.
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Location
Second Floor - Hallway to right of center stairway
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Artist: Unknown
Father Wirtenberger was a Professor of Economics and Dean of Commerce Night and Law from 1939-1956. After serving at University of Detroit, he became the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He later co-founded the University of the Pacific (Universidad Del Pacifico) in Peru. His last appointment was as a Professor of Philosophy and Business Ethics at Loyola University-Chicago.