Thomas Kauper
Thomas “Tom” E. Kauper
TERM AS TRUSTEE
April 24, 1985 - June 2018
BIOGRAPHY
Thomas E. Kauper served at the Department of Justice during the Presidencies of Gerald R. Ford and Richard Nixon. He served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel from 1969 to 1971, where he was deputy to William H. Rehnquist, and then as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division from 1972 to 1976.
Professor Kauper is the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Michigan Law School. He is best known as a property law and antitrust expert. Professor Kauper is the coauthor of “Property: An Introduction to the Concept and the Institution,” a leading property casebook. Kauper served for 14 years as a member of the American Bar Association Council of the Antitrust Section, and served one year as vice-chairman of the Section. Professor Kauper was the John M. Olin Visiting Professor of Business, Economics, and Law at Harvard Law School in the winter of 2002.
At Michigan Law, Kauper was editor-in-chief of the “Michigan Law Review” and was elected to the “Order of the Coif.” Professor Kauper earned both his AB and JD degrees at the University of Michigan. Following a clerkship with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, Kauper practiced law in Chicago from 1962 to 1964 before joining the University of Michigan Law School faculty in 1964. Kauper taught property, antitrust, unfair trade practices, trusts and estates among other courses.
Kauper retired as an active faculty member at Michigan Law and assumed emeritus status on May 31, 2008. He and his wife Shirley reside in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
(L-R) Foundation Trustees Carla Hills and Tom Kauper, and Shirley Kauper at the Gerald R. Ford Museum on July 13, 2017. (Photo Courtesy of Dr. Robert M. Humphries)