Historical Faculty

Charles Lucien Baker Lowndes joined the Duke Law faculty in 1934 as a professor of federal income and estate and gift taxation.  He taught at Duke over thirty years and served as acting dean for two of them.  In 1955 he was honored with Duke Law’s first named distinguished professorship, the James B. Duke Professor of Law.

In 1956 Lowndes published Federal Estate and Gift Taxes which he co-authored with Robert Kramer.  At the time Kramer was also a Duke Law faculty member.  This book eventually ran to three editions and the latter two were in the Hornbook series.

While Lowndes was known for his expertise on tax law he was also widely recognized as a versatile teacher in many areas of law.  Joseph A. McClain, Jr., Duke Law Dean from 1950 to 1956, wrote that William L. Prosser, author of Prosser on Torts, once asked him, “Do you know that Professor Lowndes is one of the finest tort teachers in the country?”

Lowndes completed his AB at Georgetown in 1923 and an LLB at Harvard in 1926.  He began teaching as an assistant professor of law at Georgetown in 1927.  In 1930 he returned to Harvard and completed an SJD in 1931.  He taught until shortly before his death in 1967.

Sources:

Duke University, School of Law, Bulletin of Duke University School of Law [serial]

Elvin R. Latty et al., Charles L. B. Lowndes – Five Tributes, 1967 Duke Law Journal 906-917