On the Passing of Jean Braucher

Jean Braucher was a giant in our field, and she has been a great friend to this blog, helping us launch our virtual symposium on Stewart Macaulay and contributing to our virtual symposium on Margaret Jane Radin’s book, Boilerplate.

Bill Whitford posted the notice provided below on the Contracts Listserv, and he has given us permission to share it here.  We will also share any comments that people might want to post with Bill, who will then pass them along to Jean’s family.

It is my very sad obligation to inform the contracts community of the death of Professor Jean Braucher of the Arizona College of Law. Jean passed away on Tuesday, Nov. 25th. The cause of death was uterine cancer. Jean was 64 at her death. She was the daughter of the late Professor and Justice Robert Braucher, of the draftpersons of the Restatement, Second, of Contracts. She is survived by her husband and two children, among others.

Jean’s academic career was outstanding. She was a prodigious scholar, writing most about contracts, consumer protection and consumer bankruptcy. She did original empirical work, many times, among other things. She was also an activist in many different venues. As a member of the American Law Institute, she took great interest in revisions of the Uniform Commercial Code and the Restatements, particularly as they impact consumer and software contracts. Here is a link to her CV:
http://www.law.arizona.edu/faculty/facultypubs/documents/cv/33/33.pdf.

Jean was a close friend, a fellow co-editor of the Macaulay et al. casebook (Contracts: Law in Action), my co-author on several other publications, and an intellectual collaborator and colleague for many years. I sometimes felt that we shared a brain, since we so often viewed issues similarly, but that was obviously not the case since over the years I learned a great deal from her work. And she also made many suggestions that helped me improve my own work. No words can adequately express my sense of personal loss at this untimely death.

Update:  Bob Lawless has posted In Memoriam on Credit Slips, and quite a few people have added their own words of remembrance for Jean there.