Flashback
70 years ago
John Lord O’Brian receives Norton Medal
John Lord O’Brian, left, accepts the Norton Medal from Chancellor Samuel P. Capen. Photo: UB ARCHIVES
Seventy years ago this month, Buffalo native and 1898 UB Law School graduate John Lord O’Brian received the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal, UB’s highest honor.
The award was established in 1922 by former Chancellor Charles P. Norton, who had added a clause to his will requesting that the university “recognize some citizen who performed some great thing which is identified with Buffalo,” and that the award be presented at the annual University Day convocation. The first award was made in 1925.
In Norton’s letter of instruction about the award, he stated that the purpose of his bequest was “to personify civic patriotism and vivify public service in the eyes of the citizens of Buffalo,” and, thereby, also dignify “Buffalo in the eyes of the world.”
When presenting the medal to O’Brian in 1940, Chancellor Samuel P. Capen said: “No other has influenced the life of the community in so many different directions. None has a more consistent record of active civic patriotism.” O’Brian was recognized, Capen said, “not for a specific act or a single accomplishment, but for a life of eminent service to city, state and nation, which has justly brought you to high personal distinction and has dignified Buffalo in the eyes of the world.”
In 1909, O’Brian was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to serve as U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York. He continued to serve in the position through the administrations of presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. During World War I, O’Brian served as head of the War Emergency Division in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was responsible for prosecuting cases of espionage and sabotage.
At the end of World War I, O’Brian returned to Buffalo to practice law. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover appointed O’Brian to serve as assistant attorney general of the Antitrust Division at the justice department, where he was responsible for arguing more than 15 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed O’Brian to serve as general counsel of the War Production Board. From 1945 until his death at age 98, O’Brian practiced law in Washington, D.C.
O’Brian’s service to the UB Law School began soon after his graduation in 1898. From 1907 through 1921, he was a volunteer instructor in insurance law. Beginning in 1931 and continuing for the next 17 years, he served as member of the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York. O'Brian received the Law School's first Distinguished Alumnus Award for Public Service.
In recognition of his public service and service to the Law School, the home of the UB Law School was named in his honor in 1973 when it first opened on the North Campus.
At the formal dedication of O’Brian Hall in April 1974—a year after O’Brian’s death—a portrait of O'Brian painted by Virginia Cuthbert was presented to the Law School. It currently hangs on the second floor in the Charles B. Sears Law Library.
The papers of John Lord O’Brian are housed in Special Collections of the Law Library. Click here for more information about O’Brian and a finding aid to the collection.
The most recent recipient of the Norton Medal was UB’s 1958 football team, “which made history when it rejected a post-season bowl bid because two African-American team members would have been prohibited from playing” and, thereby, in the words of Chancellor Norton, “dignified Buffalo in the eyes of the world.”
—John Edens, University Archives
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