Samford University President Beck Taylor reported that longtime Cumberland Law School Dean John Carroll died on Monday. Carroll served as Dean at Samford’s prestigious law school for 13 years. He also served as a federal judge in Montgomery for 16 years.
“The Samford family mourns the passing of Judge John Carroll, Dean of Cumberland School of Law from 2001-2014,” Taylor wrote on Twitter. “Judge Carroll was a beloved colleague and friend. Prayers extend to Susan and the entire family.”
Carroll was a native of Washington, D.C., and served as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. He received his undergraduate degree from Tufts College, his law degree from Samford, and his master’s in law from Harvard.
Cumberland was Carroll’s alma mater. He graduated from Cumberland in 1974 and went to work for the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as its legal director – a position he held for ten years.
He served as a law professor at Mercer for a short term after leaving the SPLC.
In 1985 he became a federal judge and served in the Middle District in Montgomery. He left the bench in 2001 to return to his beloved Cumberland School of Law. While at Cumberland, the school focused on trial advocacy.
Carroll founded and served as the supervising attorney for the Cumberland Veterans Legal Assistance Clinic, which became more commonly known as C-VETS. Since the program launched in 2020, it has positively impacted the lives of countless veterans across the state of Alabama.
Carroll also served on the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, a group that analyzes and makes recommendations to the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress on possible changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
“Samford is a unique place—it really is,” Carroll said. “It’s a Christian-oriented school but one that’s a convening place for all sorts of different ideas and the exchange of different ideas. It was a great experience, and I’m very, very thankful for the opportunity to serve both the law school and the university.”
Cumberland School of Law dean Blake Hudson said, “Judge Carroll was a beloved colleague and friend. We owe him a great deal of gratitude for simply being who he was―an inspiring leader who always put others, and country, before himself.”
Carroll stepped down as dean in 2014 as one of the longest-serving law school deans in the nation to return to being a full-time law school professor at Cumberland.
In law school, Judge Carroll taught courses related to mediation, evidence, trial practice, ethics and professionalism, and e-discovery.
He is survived by his wife, Susan, and their children.
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