IJ bears his mark in particular, of course, as does conservative public-interest law in general.
William H. “Chip” Mellor, the founding president and recent board chairman of the Institute for Justice (IJ), died last week in his beloved Utah. We were blessed to know him well from our time at Milwaukee’s Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which supported his public-interest legal work at IJ and other groups before that.
To know Chip personally has always been to know his genuine smile, seen in the several photographs of him in IJ’s announcement of his death, and that quintessential good nature it represents. One looked forward to any time spent with him. In our case, it often included talking baseball; he had a close family connection to the Milwaukee Brewers.
A consummate and courteous professional, he successfully matched an inspiring vision with the tenacity to pursue it. He didn’t invent public-interest law, of course, but he improved it. He helped pioneer the bringing of conservative and libertarian principles to bear in constitutional and other cases in courts of law in a way they hadn’t been before, as well as in the also-important court of public opinion. He was awarded a Bradley Prize in 2012.
Under his leadership, IJ selected causes and cases that—and probably as important in this case, too, clients who—could best expose how overbearing exercises of governmental power at all levels could so adversely affect the exercise of personal, private rights. None of these strategic selections ever compromised IJ’s core mission, of which he was fiercely protective. We admired his willingness to prevent divergence from IJ’s founding intent; from our standpoint, we particularly admired it when such diversions were suggested by (other) donors.
He and IJ represented parents who just wanted the ability to choose their own kids’ schools, which is how we at Bradley came to know him. Similarly, he and IJ also represented: entrepreneurial hair braiders who just wanted the ability to, well, braid hair without having to jump through regulatory hoops created by competitors; also-entrepreneurial food-truck operators who wanted to operate food trucks without protectionist hoops, either; and homeowners and businesspeople who want to keep their homes and businesses intact without having to yield to abusive “eminent-domain” powers of the government.
He was determined that IJ work with—and for—real people just trying to make their way in an America they knew should let them do so. Basically ignored by the progressivism regnant in so much policy and in so much of the rest of public-interest law, IJ stood up and argued for them. For those who have come to think that conservative legal activism is invariably on behalf of the rich and powerful, he showed that we are also willing to act on behalf of the least of these.
IJ bears his mark in particular, of course, as does conservative public-interest law in general. He’ll be missed. Hopefully, though, he’ll be emulated, professionally and personally. So, Chip, we smile.
