Ashbel Green Gulliver

Ashbel Green Gulliver (November 23, 1897 – July 3, 1974) was the dean of Yale Law School from 1940 to 1946. His nickname was "Pail"—from ashpail.

Early life and education

Gulliver went to Groton School for high school. where he was secretary of the Elizabethan Club and a member of the Wolf's Head secret society.

Gulliver graduated with an LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1922. He was the class valedictorian.

Career

After graduating, he worked at Alexander & Green, which was founded by Ashbel Green, his grandfather. He became dean in 1940, and held that position until 1946. During World War II, he recommended that other law schools merge or close. While dean, in 1941, he wrote his classic article on trust law, "Classification of Gratuitous Transfers", with Catherine J. Tilson.

During World War II, Gulliver was the chairman of the Alien Hearing Board for Connecticut. After the war, he was a member of the Connecticut Post-War Planning Board and chairman of the Yale University Post-War Planning Committee, and he worked for the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

After his deanship, he continued to teach, and by 1967, had become the Garver Professor of Law Emeritus at Yale Law School. In general, Gulliver was considered a solid, enterprising, and a "mild-mannered man."

The Ashbel G. Gulliver Memorial Library Fund at Yale Law School is endowed in his name.

Selected works

Cases and Other Materials On the Law of Estates, 1932 Classification of Gratuitous Transfers with Catherine J. Tilson, 1941 Cases and Materials On the Law of Future Interests, 1959 Cases and Materials On Decedents' Estates, 1966 Cases and Materials On Gratuitous Transfers: Wills, Intestate Succession, Trusts, Gifts, and Future Interests, 1967