John "Jack" Philip Rooney

1932-2022

Jack Rooney, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, died November 8th, 2022, at the age of 90.

Born May 1, 1932, at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, Jack grew up on the North Side of Chicago. Nevertheless, he was a lifelong White Sox fan. In high school, Jack was a recurring panelist on the popular nationally broadcast radio show The Quiz Kids. He graduated first in the Class of 1949 at Loyola Academy and enrolled the following fall at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

His interest in mathematics led him to transfer to the University of Illinois, where he majored in Math and minored in Philosophy. At Illinois, he served on the College Council for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and as President of the Omicron Chapter of Psi Upsilon. Upon graduation in 1953, he was awarded Class Honors, elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Pi Mu Epsilon, and nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship.

Following college, Jack fulfilled his ROTC commitment by serving as a computer programmer in the Army Security Agency which assigned him to the nascent National Security Agency. Upon his discharge as a First Lieutenant, the Korean-era GI Bill enabled him to matriculate at Harvard Law School where he was a member of the Chancery Club and received his law degree in 1958.

Jack briefly practiced law at the Chicago firm Chapman and Cutler before relocating to the San Francisco area, eventually becoming a solo practitioner focusing primarily on real estate transactions and related litigation. He briefly served as an adjunct professor at San Francisco Law School before being recruited to teach full-time at Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan.

During nearly forty years as an active member of the Cooley faculty, Jack primarily taught Property and Jurisprudence, including a series of seminars focused on different aspects of law and semiotics. He was the inaugural winner of the school’s Stanley E. Beattie Teaching Award. He served on the Michigan Land Title Standards Committee for approximately fifteen years.

He is survived by his devoted daughter, Caitlin Mairin Rooney of Bath, as well as his nephews, Kevin Vincent Klose of Dayton, Ohio, and Christopher Gerard Klose of Washington, D.C., and his niece, Megan Gerard Klose of Falls Church, Virginia, and their respective families.

He was preceded in death by his father, John McCaffrey Rooney, his mother, Bernadette Marie (O’Brien) Rooney, his sister, Nancy (Rooney) Klose, her husband, Gilbert Charles Klose, and their son, David John Klose.

The family would like to thank Maria Rosas of Eagle, his helper of many years, as well as the staff at Ingham County Medical Care Facility on Dobie Road in Okemos where he resided for the last fifteen months of his life.

A Celebration of Life will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lansing, 5509 South Pennsylvania, Lansing at eleven o’clock on May 1, 2023.

Donations may be made in his memory to the East Lansing Public Library, 950 Abbot Road, East Lansing MI 48823.

Expressions of sympathy may be made at www.greastlansing.com.