William B. Lawless, 84; ex-judge, president of Fullerton law school

William B. Lawless, 84, a retired New York Supreme Court justice who served as president of Western State College of Law in Fullerton from 1982 to 1987, died Monday in San Francisco after a long illness, his family announced.

Lawless, an attorney committed to educating aspiring lawyers, also served as dean of the University of Notre Dame Law School in South Bend, Ind., from 1968 to 1971 and taught at the National Judicial College at the University of Colorado Law School before becoming dean of the college from 1987 to 1990, after it had moved to Reno.

Walter Burns Lawless Jr. was born June 3, 1922, in Buffalo, N.Y. After earning his law degree from Notre Dame in 1944 and serving with the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II, he returned home and completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Buffalo in 1949.

A year later he earned a degree in constitutional law from Harvard University.

Returning to Buffalo, he entered private practice and got into Democratic Party politics, serving on the City Council from 1956 to 1960. He sat on the New York State Supreme Court from 1960 to 1968.

Lawless worked in private practice in New York City in the 1970s and again in the ‘90s with Capretz and Associates in Newport Beach. He also helped found the Judges Mediation Network, a service to resolve disputes.