Professor Robert L. Fletcher, who spent over 30 years of his distinguished teaching career at the University of Washington School of Law, died last Friday at the age of 83. His students knew him as talented and demanding professor who stimulated an excellent learning environment with his exceptionally retentive mind and his amicable sense of humor. Fletcher graduated from Stanford Law School and entered private practice with Chadwick, Chadwick, and Mills in Seattle before he began teaching at the University of Washington in 1956. He taught constitutional law, property, and wills and estates. He wrote several seminal articles on the Rule Against Perpetuities, regarded to be one of the most complex doctrines in property law. Towards the latter part of his teaching career he served as Associate Dean. After mandatory retirement from the University of Washington at age 70, he taught at UC Hastings College of Law, the Vermont Law School, and Seattle University School of Law. Professor Fletcher was a man of many interests, including carpentry and sailing. He was a devoted family man who enjoyed travelling with his children. He is survived by his wife, Judge Betty Binns Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, four children, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
See Robert L. Fletcher, The Seattle Times, Jan. 4, 2012.
