Citadel Alumni Obituaries

Daniel John Meador III, 86, died on Saturday, February 9, 2013, in
Charlottesville. He was a retired University of Virginia law professor.
Professor Meador was born on December 7, 1926, in Selma, Alabama, the son of
Mabel Kirkpatrick and Dr. Daniel John Meador Jr. He attended The Citadel and
was graduated from Auburn University and the University of Alabama Law
School. He pursued graduate study at the Harvard Law School and received the
degree of Master of Laws in 1954. During the Korean War, he served in the
United States Army, first in the artillery and then in the Judge Advocate
General’s Corps in Korea. He attained the rank of Colonel in the JAGC
reserve. In 1954-55 he was law clerk to Justice Hugo L. Black of the United
States Supreme Court. He then entered law practice in Birmingham, Alabama,
with the firm of Lange, Simpson, Robinson, and Somerville. In 1957 he joined
the law faculty at the University of Virginia. In 1965-66 he was a Fulbright
Lecturer in England, and from 1966 to 1970 he was dean of the University of
Alabama Law School. In 1970 he rejoined the University of Virginia law
faculty as James Monroe Professor of Law, a position he held until his
retirement in 1994. Professor Meador’s major professional interest was the
state and federal appellate courts, and he was involved in numerous projects
and studies designed to strengthen and improve them. From 1971 to 1975 he
served on the Advisory Council for Appellate Justice, the body advising the
Federal Judicial Center and the National Center for State Courts on
appellate matters. In 1977-79 he was an Assistant Attorney General in the
United States Department of Justice. At the request of Attorney General
Griffin Bell, he organized a new office in the Department, the Office for
Improvements in the Administration of Justice. Its mission was to identify
problems in the federal and state courts and develop solutions. Among the
numerous bills it drafted, and which were introduced in Congress, the most
significant was the bill that created the United States Court of Appeals for
the Federal Circuit and the Court of Federal Claims. He was often referred
to as the father of the Federal Circuit. Other bills drafted in the Office
and enacted by Congress dealt with the enlargement of federal magistrates’
jurisdiction, terms of chief judges, reorganizing circuit judicial councils,
and the Supreme Court’s discretionary jurisdiction. The Office also took the
lead in promoting nationwide programs of alternative dispute resolution. He
served on the boards of directors of the State Justice Institute, the
American Judicature Society, and the American Society for Legal History. In
1987-90 he chaired the American Bar Association Standing Committee on
Federal Judicial Improvements. In 1998-99 he was executive director of the
congressionally created Commission on Structural Alternatives for the
Federal Courts of Appeals, chaired by Justice Byron White. Professor Meador
did extensive research in the English and German appellate courts. In 1983
he spent three months in East Germany studying legal education and courts in
that Marxist-Leninist regime. In 1984 he was a visiting professor of law at
the United States Military Academy. He had a major interest in legal
education. In addition to his deanship at Alabama, he was the founding
director of the Graduate Program for Judges at the University of Virginia
Law School, and served in that capacity from 1979 to 1995. In 1964-65 he was
chairman of the Southeastern Conference of the Association of American Law
Schools. He chaired the advisory committee for the Journal of Legal
Education in 1966-70. His professional memberships included the American Bar
Association, Virginia State Bar, Virginia Bar Association, Alabama State
Bar, American Law Institute, the American Society of Legal History, and the
Judicial Conference of the Fourth Circuit. At various times he was a member
of the board of directors of the Charlottesville unit of Recording for the
Blind and Dyslexic. He served as an elder in the First Presbyterian Church
of Charlottesville. In earlier years he was a member of the Farmington
Country Club and the Cosmos Club. At the University of Virginia he received
the Raven Award, the Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award, and
the Thomas Jefferson Award, the University’s highest honor. Because of his
support of the University’s Honor System, he was invited several times to
speak on it to entering students and new faculty members. He received the
Justice Award from the American Judicature Society, the Distinguished
Service Award from the National Center for State Courts, the Samuel E. Gates
Litigation Award from the American College of Trial Lawyers, and the William
B. Spong Professionalism Award from the Virginia Bar Association. His former
wife, Jan, died in 2008 after 52 years of marriage. He is survived by his
wife, Alice P. Meador of Charlottesville; and by three children, Barrie
Meador Boyd and her husband, Robert D. Boyd, of Atlanta; Anna Meador Palms
and her husband, John M. Palms Jr., of Dallas; and Daniel J. Meador Jr. and
his wife, Mary Lewis Bowen Meador, of Charlottesville; seven grandchildren;
and a brother, Dr. Clifton K. Meador of Nashville. A memorial service will
be held 3 p.m. Friday, February 15, 2013, at First Presbyterian Church, 500
Park Street, Charlottesville. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may
be made to Learning Ally (successor to RFB&D), 3500 Remson Court,
Charlottesville, VA 22901, or to a charity of choice.

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