Hello,
I am heartbroken to tell you that our friend and colleague, Professor Alexander M. Meiklejohn, died on June 1, 2023, from a lung infection. For nearly four years, Professor Meiklejohn had been battling a blood disorder that eventually overcame his immune system. His brother Stuart shared that Sandy’s death was peaceful and “as painless as possible.”
To review some of Sandy’s many achievements, I reproduce below, with a few edits, an email I sent to our community when he announced his retirement in 2022.
Alexander M. Meiklejohn, by Nancy Spielman
In 1981, after a stint in law practice with the Woodstock, Vermont firm of Niles & Gibbs, Sandy Meiklejohn joined the law faculty of Quinnipiac University School of Law (then known as University of Bridgeport). For more than forty years he profoundly influenced the lives of his students and, through them, the legal profession in Connecticut and beyond. Over the years, Professor Meiklejohn taught Contracts, Commercial Law, Secured Transactions, Real Estate Transactions, and Franchise Law. With Professor Robert White and our alumna, Professor Lisa Oak, Professor Meiklejohn designed the highly successful “Commercial Transactions Workshop,” weaving together in one course the perspectives of Oak as businessperson, White as business lawyer, and Meiklejohn as business law academic. |
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| Over the years in his Contracts and Commercial Law courses, to make up for the limitations of a large classroom Professor Meiklejohn met with students in small groups throughout the year. "They're not just following along with what I'm doing in class,” he once said of his students. “They do the analysis and the thinking, and I go over with them what they have done." Meiklejohn recognized that the early months of law school can be overwhelming for his Contracts students, so he made it his job to, in his words, "bring as much order to the chaos as possible." He encouraged group study and outline development, so that students could be clear on the issues of the cases. "I think he's an absolutely outstanding teacher, both in his ability to guide students and in his devotion to them," said Toni Robinson, Professor Emerita at Quinnipiac University School of Law. "He spends an enormous amount of time helping students learn how to learn," she said. "He's the perfect example of what we all aspire to if we care about teaching."
Students understood how special Professor Meiklejohn was; he was selected by the graduating class as “Professor of the Year” at least a dozen times and served as a hooding professor countless additional years.
But Professor Meiklejohn’s impact did not end with commencement. He built meaningful and lasting relationships with his students, continuing as mentor and friend to graduates ranging from his early career to the present.
In 2004, Professor Meiklejohn was honored for his excellence in teaching by Quinnipiac University’s Center for Excellence and in 2016 he received the Connecticut Law Tribune Award for Professional Excellence. His reputation as a master teacher was so strong that one year, the Association of American Law Schools invited Professor Meiklejohn to present a demonstration class at a conference for new law teachers.
He was a member of the ABA Forum on Franchising and the Executive Committee of the CBA Section on Franchise Law, for which he served as Legislative Liaison. He also served as lead editor on a prominent text in the field, “Franchising: Cases, Materials, and Problems,” published by the ABA. This text takes a decidedly practice-oriented approach to the subject, including writers who are private practitioners as well as a few full-time professors. Thus the book is able to blend theoretical and practical perspectives on the legal and policy issues raised by franchising.
No tribute to Professor Meiklejohn would be complete without a recognition of the critical role he played in transitioning the UB School of Law to Quinnipiac in 1992. The first (but not the last) of its kind in legal education, this reaffiliation of an existing law school from one university to another was extremely complex. Professor Meiklejohn, together with Richard Litvin, the late (then dean) Terence Benbow, and the late Professors David King and David Rosettenstein, worked tirelessly to negotiate the school’s affiliation with Quinnipiac University and to insure our ongoing accreditation with the American Bar Association. It truly can be said that were it not for the vision, discipline, and hard work of Professor Alexander Meiklejohn, Quinnipiac Law would not exist today. We all owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude, not only for this good shepherding of our school and its accreditation, but for his passion for the law, his talent in the classroom, and his dedication to student learning and development.
On May 20, 2023, although he was hospitalized, Sandy was able to tune in via Zoom to an event at the law school celebrating his retirement and thanking him for his many years of outstanding service to the law school. At that event, we announced a scholarship in Sandy’s honor created by QUSL alumnus Ed Cerasia, we dedicated Room 350 to Sandy and named it the Alexander M. Meiklejohn classroom, and we unveiled a portrait of Sandy to be displayed in that classroom. Sandy shared brief remarks at the event, starting at about 30:20 in this recording. Toni Robinson, Mary Ferrari, and Ed Cerasia also spoke about Sandy and his impact.
Contributions in Sandy’s memory may be made to the Alexander M. Meiklejohn Endowed Scholarship here: | | Sandy, you have left an indelible mark on Quinnipiac Law, and you will long be remembered for all you have done.
With very kind regards,
Jen | 
| Jennifer Gerarda Brown
Dean and Professor of Law
Quinnipiac University School of Law |
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