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Welcome Message from the President
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Our Second Dean
Bob Krinock was introduced to me by Mike Devine. Mike had served as my law clerk when I was first elected to the supreme court. Later, when I was appointed chief justice, Mike undertook the duties of my chief of staff.
The Detroit riots of 1967 had left the criminal dockets in Wayne County a shambles. Literally thousands of cases were pending. Some defendants, unable to make bond, were lingering in jail for more than a year.
We determined to undertake a crash program to clean up the mess. Mike suggested I talk to Bob Krinock, an FBI agent then working in Chicago. Bob had attended the University of Detroit High School and had gone on to take his law degree at the
U. of D.
He turned out to be just the man for the job. Together we reopened the old Recorders Court Building, recruited District Court Judges from all over Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties, and doubled the effective size of the Detroit Recorders Court. Bob did a marvelous job of cajoling, nudging, and motivating the various local government officials into cooperation.
That was in 1970. Over the next eight years, Bob Krinock and I became the very closest of friends. He was my appointee, my protege, my squash playing partner, my traveling companion, my confidant, my body guard, and my drinking buddy. Not that there was ever any disrespect or over familiarity on his part. Bob always called me 'judge.'
When John Swainson and G. Mennen Williams, two former Democratic governors, were elected to the supreme court in 1970, I knew that my tenure as chief justice was at an end. Bob graciously tendered his resignation, taking a job as a governmental relations specialist for Wayne County.
We stayed in touch over the next few years, and when I started the law school, I urged Bob to return to Lansing and work with me at Cooley. He did, and from 1973 until full accreditation was achieved in 1978, we traveled all around the country attending meetings and drumming up support for Cooley.
Bob had an easy, contagious, sometimes outrageous, sense of humor. In many ways, he was like a fun loving teen ager. His friends had long since dubbed him "Crazy Krinock", usually shorted to the nickname "Craze."
His father was a long time squash professional at the Detroit Athletic Club. Once, during one of our spirited squash matches at the old YMCA in downtown Lansing, I broke one of Bob's front teeth with my racquet. The loss of the tooth was not nearly so troubling to him as the fact that he had to go to the dentist to get it fixed. Bob didn't like going to the dentist. His explanation: "I can stand anything but pain."
Not long after that incident, Bob introduced me to his mother and dad who had come up to Lansing for a visit. His mother eyed me warily. "Are you the man who broke my son's tooth?" she asked. Before I could answer, Bob's dad intervened. "He should have gotten out of the way," he announced sternly, and I got a sense of where Bob learned his manly code of personal responsibility.
Nominating Bob Krinock to be my successor as dean of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School came almost automatically. He had been with me from the beginning, had served on the board, had helped devise the year around academic calendar, had supervised the clerical staff, and managed the faculty.
Unfortunately, we never really detailed what his appointment was to mean to both of us. Quite properly, he expected to be the dean in the same sense that I had been the dean. He was decisive, respected, self assured. He shared my vision of what kind of a law school we had created. But I'm also sure that he had some dreams and aspirations of his own. I'm certain that he wanted to put his own fingerprint on the history of Thomas Cooley Law School. Properly so.
At first, I intended to play a limited role. I bought a little house in East Lansing, and outfitted it as an office. I didn't want to have a physical presence that would overshadow Bob's administration. Nevertheless, I still considered myself the chief operating officer of the school. I thought of Bob as the chief academic officer, in much the same way as deans of university law schools are described. Having been his boss for so many years, I guess, I just assumed that Bob would continue to defer to me, at least on important matters.
Not surprisingly, our relationship changed over the next two years, We spent less time together. He was busy at the school. It was a time of faculty ascendency. He had his hands full trying to accommodate the new mode of faculty governance.
When I read in the paper that Cooley Law School intended to purchase the old drive in bank property from the state of Michigan, I realized that, if I was to continue as Cooley's CEO, I had to become more active in corporate decision making.
By September of 1978, my sabbatical was effectively over.
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This Page was last updated on:
08/19/2004