Joseph Perillo (1933-2017)

Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law

Fordham Professor of Law

Years of Service
1963- 2017

Perillo served as the School’s acting dean from 1981 to 1982 and founding director of the Fordham Belfast/Dublin Summer Program. Later he was selected as Fordham University’s first Distinguished Professor.

  • Biography

     

    In Memoriam

    Professor Perillo joined the Fordham Law faculty in 1963 and taught courses in contracts, comparative law, damages, remedies, conflicts of law, agency partnership, and the law and visual arts.

    The single-volume treatise written by Professor Perillo and the late Professor John D. Calamari, The Law of Contracts, is a seminal work in the field and has gone through seven editions; for years it was called Calamari and Perillo on Contracts.

    Among his innumerable, influential scholarly articles, he published a piece in 1994 with the Fordham Law Review about the UNIDROIT principles of international commercial contracts. Professor Perillo also notably provided consultation to the National People’s Congress of China as it enacted its first contract law.

    Perillo pulls book from bookshelf

    Professor Perillo also served as supervising editor of the revised edition of Corbin on Contracts, a 16-volume treatise that provides a comprehensive analysis of the rules of contract law.

    Professor Perillo received an A.B. and J.D. from Cornell, where he served as the note editor of Cornell Law Quarterly. From 1960 to 1962, he studied at the University of Florence as a Fulbright scholar. His many honors included the inaugural lifetime achievement award from the International Conference on Contracts, which he received in 2008. After his retirement, Professor Perillo continued to study and work on contract issues.

     

    “Whenever and wherever I needed help, I turned to Joe during my two decades as dean, and he never said no. There wasn’t anything he touched that he did not make better.”

    -Dean John Feerick ’61

     

    Fordham Law Yearbook 81

    Professor Perillo survived by his wife, Diane, three children, Joe Paul, David, and Catherine, and seven grandchildren.

  • Selected Publications

    The Origins of the Objective Theory of Contract Formation and Interpretation, 69 Fordham L. Rev. 427 (2000)

    The Law of Lawyers' Contracts Is Different, 67 Fordham L. Rev. 443 (1998)

    Restitution in the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, 81 Colum. L. Rev. 37 (1981)

    Restitution in a Contractual Context, 73 Colum. L. Rev. 1208 (1973)