Felix F. Stumpf

Felix F. Stumpf, a nationally recognized figure in legal education, passed away at his home in Reno, Nevada on August 16, 2015, at the age of 97. Born on February 10, 1918, in Boston, Massachusetts, he attended Harvard University from 1934 to 1938, graduating magna cum laude in political science, and went on to Harvard Law School from 1938 to 1941. After finishing law school he joined the Boston firm of Hale & Dorr, before being drafted into the Army in 1942, where he served as an intelligence officer and legal attache with the 31st Bomb Squadron of the 5th Bomber Group in the Pacific. He was in private practice as an attorney from 1946 to 1953 in San Francisco, California.

Mr. Stumpf devoted much of his career to advancing the professional development of lawyers and judges. In 1953 he became the first executive director of California's Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB), a University of California program that grew under his leadership into one of the nation's premier continuing legal education programs. He served as the first president of The Association for Continuing Legal Education and consulted internationally on legal education, including work in Nigeria, South Korea, and Japan. From 1971 to 1973 he was a staff attorney for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

In 1973 Mr. Stumpf moved to Reno to serve as director of the academic department of The National Judicial College, where he broadened the College's programs for judges and later served as academic liaison officer, project consultant, and publications manager. He authored Inherent Powers of the Court and Bench Trial Skills and Demeanor, works that remain in use. From February 1985 to August 1988 he served as dean of the Nevada School of Law in Reno, teaching conflict of laws, civil procedure, and federal courts. Among his many honors, he received the NJC Award for Teaching Excellence, the Harrison Tweed Award, the Rawle Award, and, in 2001, an Access to Justice Lifetime Achievement Award from the State Bar of Nevada.