New Scholarship Established at Law School
A new endowed scholarship has been established at the School of Law by the law firm Tyler Cooper & Alcorn and The Hartford Courant.
The Ralph Gregory Elliot Memorial Scholarship is being established in honor of the late Ralph Gregory Elliot, partner of Tyler Cooper & Alcorn, longtime outside counsel to the Courant, and adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. Elliot died earlier this year at the age of 68, following a long illness.
The amount pledged by the Tyler Cooper & Alcorn Foundation Inc. and the Courant – $30,000 – will be administered by the Law School Foundation for the benefit of the School of Law.
The scholarship is intended to provide support for students enrolled at the UConn law school, with preference given to students with undergraduate degrees from Yale College. Once the endowment has grown to a sufficient size, it may be used to establish a professorship in first amendment law.
Elliot graduated from Yale in 1958 and from Yale Law School in 1961. He joined Alcorn, Bakewell & Smith (a predecessor firm to Tyler Cooper & Alcorn) in 1962, and was named partner in 1967. He was part of Tyler Cooper & Alcorn’s litigation department and its media law group.
Since 1974, he had taught courses on media and the law and legal ethics at the School of Law as an adjunct professor. In October, the school awarded Elliot its Medal of Excellence.
Elliot’s professional association with The Hartford Courant spanned more than 40 years. He was a champion of the First Amendment and a trusted collaborator with generations of Courant editors. He defended the paper’s ability to gather the news and print it without fear, fought energetically to open up secret court cases, and a staunch advocate of freedom of information.
