A Kansas University law professor who died Thursday is being mourned by his colleagues and remembered for being a classic intellect and researcher in the area of legal education.

Philip “Flip” Kissam, 63, died at a Burlington, Vt., hospital after a long battle with biliary duct cancer. He began teaching at KU’s School of Law in 1973 and became a full professor in 1977.

“Flip was one of the most thoughtful and really articulate members of the faculty,” said Webb Hecker, the law school’s associate dean, who joined the faculty a year before Kissam did.

Fellow law professor Tom Stacy considered Kissam a mentor when Stacy arrived at KU in the 1980s. Both held a special interest in constitutional law and Stacy said he was grateful for the time Kissam took to read and comment on his research.

“He was really broad-range and deep in his approach to the law generally and constitutional law in particular,” Stacy said.

In addition to his study of constitutional law, Kissam also was noted for his research into legal education and published works on both. In 2003 his book “The Discipline of Law Schools” was published.

“He became very interested in legal education and the kind of teaching that was being done in law schools,” Hecker said. “I’m just so happy he was able to get that major piece of work completed before his death. He will really be missed by the law school.”

Kissam had a varied background that included teaching economics in Nigeria and practicing law with the New York City firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison in the late 1960s. He also was an exchange professor in the London Law Consortium in 1997 and in 1991 an exchange professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Obituary: Philip ‘Flip’ Kissam

A memorial service will be held in Lawrence at a later date.