© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
(Dec. 2) – Joseph McKnight pulled a ragged looking book off the shelf. He held it gently like a newborn baby.
“This book was published in the 1600s,” he said, opening the cover. “See those perfect little holes? Worms. Book worms. Little bastards.”
McKnight, an avid collector of rare books, trained legions of law students and lectured tens-of-thousands of practicing lawyers on family law in the state, which he knew better than anyone. Of course, he should have known it better. He wrote it.
“He truly was our patron saint and our living link to the very beginning of modern Texas family law,” says Brian Webb, founder of the Webb Family Law Firm and a student of McKnight’s three decades ago.
“During the 1960s and early 1970s, Joe was primarily responsible for putting together the Texas Family Code and getting it passed by the legislature,” says Webb, who now teaches McKnight’s family law class at SMU Dedman. “It was the first Family Code in the country and dramatically impacted the practice of family law and the lives of those it touched. It particularly benefitted married women who gained a level of freedom and equality unheard of before its passage.”
When Webb was a student, a legal publication published an article describing a fellow professor, Eugene Smith, as the Father of the Family Code.
“Never one for false modesty, Joe posted that article in the doorway of the offices of the SMU Legal Clinic with this typewritten note attached: ‘If Gene Smith is the Father of the Family Code, then I am the Creator of the Family Code, and our relationship is not unlike that of man to God,’” Webb says.
McKnight retired from SMU last May as Professor Emeritus and Jane Harlan Faculty Fellow Emeritus. He was a prolific scholar, authoring more than 100 articles and several books.
In 2011, he donated his collection of more than 6,000 rare legal history books to Dedman Law’s Underwood Law Library. The oldest book in the collection was printed in 1481.
“Joe McKnight was a truly remarkable teacher and scholar and a wonderfully kind and generous colleague,” said SMU Dedman Law Dean Jennifer M. Collins. “Throughout his distinguished academic career, he was an inspiration to all who knew him.”
Former students McKnight flooded social media Wednesday with the news of McKnight’s passing.
“Rest in peace my great friend and fellow bibliophile,” famed legal writer and historian Bryan Garner wrote on Facebook. “I will miss him.”
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