Cornell Sun
Faust F. Rossi J.D. ’60, Samuel S. Leibowitz Professor of Trial Techniques, Emeritus, died on Wednesday, March 6 at the age of 91. Rossi was a long-time member of the Cornell Law community and an influential member of the legal world as a scholar in evidence and trial advocacy.
With a nearly 50-year tenure, Rossi is estimated to have taught more students in the Law School than any other professor. Rossi previously achieved the prestigious Roscoe Pound Jacobson Award for Excellence in Teaching Trial Advocacy.
Throughout his career, Rossi wrote Evidence for the Trial Lawyer and co-authored the Handbook of New York Evidence, a comprehensive guide to rules and principles of evidence within New York courts.
After graduating from Law School in 1960, Rossi’s legal career began in the United States Department of Justice Honors program — one of the nation’s top federal attorney recruitment programs — where he worked as a trial attorney and later became a litigation partner at a law firm in Rochester.
Rossi joined the Law School faculty in 1966 where he dedicated his career until he retired from the University in 2013. Among Rossi’s most-revered classes were civil procedure, evidence and trial advocacy.
Rossi was also a visiting professor at Central European University in Budapest and a faculty member at Cornell’s summer institute in Paris.
During Rossi’s retirement celebration in 2013, Prof. Stewart J. Schwab, law, who was the dean of the Law School from 2004 to 2014, emphasized Rossi’s distinguished career educating and inspiring law students.
“For 47 years, Cornell Law School has had one of the great treats of teachers in Faust F. Rossi,” Schwab said. “[Rossi] has helped train literally thousands of Cornell Law students and many other lawyers across the country.”
At the same 2013 ceremony, Schwab announced that Rossi’s career at the University would be honored by naming one of its three moot court competitions after him. The Faust F. Rossi Moot Court Competition invites Law Students to argue complex issues and develop oral advocacy skills.
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