Minnesota Law Mourns the Passing of Professor Emeritus Daniel Gifford

Professor Emeritus Daniel J. Gifford  died on April 8 at his home in Wimauma, Florida. 

Professor Gifford joined the University of Minnesota Law School faculty in 1978. He was Julius E. Davis Professor of Law from 1982-82 and subsequently the Robins Kaplan Professor of Law until his retirement in 2016. He was recognized as an expert on antitrust law and administrative law. He published extensively in these areas, authoring more than 60 scholarly articles, a number of legal case books and contributing sections to edited books. He published his last book in 2014, when he was in his 80s: The Atlantic Divide in Antitrust: An Examination of US and EU Competition Policy, written with Robert Kudrle, was praised as "an intellectual tour de force" that "should be on the reading list of all antitrust lawyers." 

Gifford was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School and at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a visiting fellow at the University of Warwick, England. He also has taught law at universities in France, Belgium, and Sweden. He chaired the Minnesota State Bar Association Section on Antitrust Law and served on the Executive Committee of the Antitrust Section of the Association of American Law Schools. He was a member of the American Law Institute and of its Consultative Group on Unfair Competition as well as the American Bar Association and the Minnesota State Bar Association.

Daniel Gifford was born on January 7, 1932 in Utica, New York, to Lyle and Elizabeth Gifford. His father was the manager of a textile mill. His mother was a homemaker. He was the first person in his family to attend college, earning an A.B. degree from Holy Cross College and going on to receive an LL.B. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was Case Editor of the Harvard Law Review. As a Ford Fellow, he received a J.S.D. degree from Columbia University. After receiving his LL.B. degree, Gifford practiced law with the New York firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. He left private practice behind to pursue legal scholarship, joining the law faculties of Vanderbilt University and the State University of New York at Buffalo before arriving at the University of Minnesota Law School. 

A memorial service will be held on June 10 at 11:00 a.m. at Saint John's Episcopal Church in Minneapolis.