Three McGeorge School of Law faculty each dedicate 40+ years of service to the law school

The University of the Pacific honored fifty faculty members at the 2023 Faculty Retirement and Years of Service Celebration on Wednesday, May 3. During the celebration, three McGeorge School of Law faculty were recognized for teaching at the law school for 40 years or longer. Distinguished Professor Stephen McCaffrey and Professor Christine Manolakas have both served on the law faculty for the past 45 years. Associate Dean for Scholarship and Distinguished Professor of Law Franklin Gevurtz has taught at the law school for 40 years. 

Five additional faculty also celebrated significant years of service anniversaries this year. Professors Leslie Gielow Jacobs and John Sprankling have taught at the law school for 30 years. Professor Rachael Salcido celebrated her 20-year teaching anniversary at McGeorge this year. Professors Jeffrey Michael and Brian Slocum both have served on the faculty for the past 15 years.

     Distinguished Professor Stephen McCaffrey has taught courses on Environmental Law, Water Law, and                    various Public International Law topics at McGeorge School of Law for the past 45 years.

Stephen McCaffrey – 45 years of service

McCaffrey serves as the Carol Olson Endowed Professor of Law at McGeorge School of Law. McCaffrey joined the law faculty in 1977, and he has taught courses on Environmental Law, Water Law, and various Public International Law topics for the past 45 years.

McCaffrey is one of the world's foremost authorities on international water law, having been the 2017 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate for his unparalleled contribution to the evolution and progressive realization of international water law. The Stockholm Water Prize is regarded as being comparable to a Nobel Prize in the field of water.  McCaffrey was the first attorney to win this award. He also received the 2018 Elisabeth Haub Award for Environmental Law and Diplomacy, which is the world’s most distinguished award in the field of environmental law.  In addition, the ABA Section of International Law conferred the Louis B. Sohn Award for Public International Law upon McCaffrey in 2020.

McCaffrey has been involved in eight cases brought before the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration concerning international water law, representing various countries. He also served two terms as a member of the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) and chaired that prestigious body's 39th session from 1987-88. He was only the third American to do so.

He has published widely in the fields of international and comparative law, in the form of articles, book chapters, edited books, and books of which he is the sole author. He has his own published books for the courses he teaches at McGeorge, including co-authored coursebooks on Public International Law, International Environmental Law, and Transnational Litigation, a treatise on the Law of International Watercourses for the seminar on that subject, and a co-authored supplement, Global Issues in Environmental Law.

McCaffrey earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Colorado, a JD degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and a doctorate from the University of Cologne in Germany.

McCaffrey’s father, Stanley McCaffrey, served as the University of the Pacific’s president from 1971 to 1987.