William “Chip” Mellor, visionary cofounder and longtime president of the Institute for Justice—a number one public curiosity regulation agency centered on financial liberty, property rights, and free speech—handed away on October 11. Right here is an excerpt from the obituary posted on the IJ web site, written by John Kramer:
On Friday, October 11, America misplaced one of the vital vital civil liberties pioneers of the previous 40 years: William “Chip” Mellor—the founding president and up to date board chairman of the Institute for Justice, a nationwide, public curiosity regulation agency—died at his residence in Moab, Utah, after a battle with leukemia.
Mellor’s philosophically and tactically constant method to defending the rights of odd People—particularly these of modest means—led him to cofound the Institute for Justice in 1991 with Clint Bolick. He created IJ to guard personal property and free speech, to problem arbitrary authorities laws that intrude with financial liberty, and to develop academic alternative for these caught in failing public colleges. Within the course of, he and IJ reshaped America’s authorized panorama and the way public curiosity instances are litigated within the courts of regulation and within the court docket of public opinion.
“Chip demonstrated outstanding imaginative and prescient and a knack for public curiosity litigation all through his life,” mentioned Scott Bullock, who labored with Mellor for 25 years and in 2016 succeeded him as IJ’s president. “He introduced collectively cutting-edge authorized advocacy, media relations, grassroots activism, legislative work, and strategic analysis in a pioneering and modern method. He made the Institute for Justice a powerhouse for the safety of constitutional rights.”
Due to Mellor’s imaginative and prescient and the advocates he employed and impressed, IJ has gained many pathbreaking constitutional instances which have set the usual for authorized change. Mellor understood that principled change takes time, so he established IJ to have interaction in long-term, strategic public curiosity litigation reasonably than react to present controversies or problems with the week. He fostered an entrepreneurial, pleased warrior tradition inside IJ, the place many make their careers to alter the world for the higher.
As a regulation pupil, I served as a regulation clerk at IJ in the course of the summer time of 1998, at which period I received to know Chip. His management was extremely spectacular. Largely because of his efforts, IJ litigated and gained quite a few precedent-setting instances. Few may match his talent at combining strategic litigation with efficient campaigns within the court docket of public opinion.
The time I spent at IJ helped generate an abiding curiosity in constitutional property rights that has been a significant a part of my work ever since. The establishment Chip performed a key function in creating had an analogous influence on many different future legal professionals and lecturers.
Chip will likely be tremendously missed. I prolong my condolences to his colleagues, household, and pals.
