Joseph Crea teaching at Brooklyn Law School in the 1990s. (Courtesy photo.)

Editor’s Note: Joseph Crea ’47, professor emeritus at Brooklyn Law School, died Aug. 2 at the age of 104. For more than 60 years, Crea was a teacher and mentor and a trusted counselor to dozens of professors and deans. Entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman ’67, founding partner of Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks, recalls the professor who was known as tough but compassionate.

Everyone I know who is associated with Brooklyn Law School has a Joe Crea story. People like to talk about his wry wit, his sage wisdom and his “Creaisms” like “Don’t drop your briefcase and run!” But most of all he was a deeply caring human being, and I can definitively say that I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Professor Joseph Crea.

I graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1967. In that day, there were two six-credit courses, contracts and torts, and if you failed either one of them, your law school career was over, so a lot of students didn’t end up making it all the way through.

As luck would have it, my torts final consisted of a 60-point short answer section and one 40-point essay. Sadly, the essay I turned in was incomprehensible–I didn’t know what I was talking about. I knew I’d failed the final based upon that alone, and therefore, would fail out of law school.

So I told my friend, Stuart Salles, “Stuie, it’s done. It looks like I’m destined to be a salesman in the garment center, following in the historic Grubman tradition.” Stuie encouraged me not to give up and said, “What do you have to lose? Why don’t you call Professor Crea and talk to him?” and so I took his advice. It was a Sunday, so I looked up Joe Crea in the phone book and called him at his home.

I said, “Professor, it’s Allen Grubman, I’m in your torts class.” He said, “I don’t recognize your name.” (That was because I had never raised my hand.) I told him what had happened with the torts final, how I had completely flubbed the essay and I was devastated to think I was going to fail out of law school. He said, “I’ll tell you what, Grubman, go take the rest of your finals. If you pass all of them with Cs or better, I’ll give you a D.”

So, with that motivation, I dug in. I finished my other finals with a C or better, and true to his word, Professor Crea gave me a D.

That D changed my life. I passed the required six-credit torts class, allowing me to finish law school—certainly not at the top of my class—but it was enough to go on to work in the industry I longed to be in–entertainment law.

So it came to be that 20 years later, I received a visit from David Trager, who was then dean of Brooklyn Law School. He wanted to show me the plans for the law school building expansion and see if I wanted to make a meaningful contribution. I saw on the blueprints a beautiful double-height ceiling area, which Dean Trager told me was to be the new reading room of the library. After he described it to me, I was sold. I was going to fund the law school’s new reading room. But, I told the dean, I’m naming the room after Professor Joseph Crea, and when he asked me why I shared with him my story.

A week after our meeting, I received a call from Professor Crea, who I hadn’t spoken to since the day I graduated. He said, “Grubman, I remember that conversation on that Sunday like it was yesterday.” We laughed about it, and it gave me great pleasure to do that for him, to dedicate the Joseph Crea Reading Room in his name.

I’ve been very, very fortunate in my career. Not many people get to spend their lives doing what they love, but I have. Not being a particularly good student, I needed a lot of support and encouragement to keep me going. Professor Crea was the first person to give me that shot, and I know I wasn’t the only one. And I speak for all of us whose lives have been touched by him, when I say, we are eternally grateful.