Breaking Ground: Celebrating Tulane Law’s Cindy Samuel
This August marks a milestone for Tulane Law: 50 years since the hiring of its first female law professor, Cynthia (Cindy) Samuel.
Samuel stepped into the role of professor in August 1975, returning to the classrooms where she had earned her law degree only three years earlier. Before returning to her alma mater, she practiced at a leading New Orleans law firm. At Tulane, she quickly established herself as both a pioneering faculty member and a leader, holding the John E. Koerner Professorship and the W.R. Irby Chair in Law, and serving as associate dean for academic affairs from 1984 to 1987.
Her students quickly came to admire and value both her teaching and mentorship. “I had the great fortune of having taken Successions from Cindy, a course that I now teach,” noted Professor Ron Scalise. “She not only awakened my interest in the subject, but she also was instrumental in helping me enter academia and return to Tulane.”
An expert in civil law and Louisiana private law, Samuel was pivotal in reforming Louisiana community property law. Her scholarship centered on family wealth, community property, successions, donations, and trusts, and she later developed a respected expertise in copyright law. As she once said, “What is more important than the laws we govern ourselves by?”
That conviction guided her service beyond Tulane. Samuel became active in law reform projects early in her career, serving on the advisory committee to the Joint Legislative Committee on Louisiana Community Property Reform. She later advised the governor on women’s issues, and as one of the principal draftsmen for the Louisiana State Law Institute’s committee on trusts and subcommittee on charitable trusts, she played a crucial role in reshaping the state’s laws to make them more equitable and enduring.
While Samuel was Tulane Law’s first female tenure-track faculty member, her appointment helped pave the way for others, including Catherine Hancock in 1976 and Sidney Watson in 1977.
“When I arrived at Tulane, Cindy had been teaching for a year and we were the only women faculty on the tenure track,” said Professor Catherine Hancock. “Cindy's office was a refuge where I could go anytime and receive friendship and a cup of tea. I always admired Cindy's grit and confidence — and the speed with which she became both a hit in the classroom and one of the highly valued Civil Law scholars on the faculty.”
In recognition of her extraordinary career, she was inducted into the Tulane Law School Hall of Fame in 2014. Today, Samuel’s influence is still deeply felt in the laws of Louisiana that she helped shape and in the classrooms and halls of Tulane Law, where her scholarship and leadership continue to inspire.
