John E. Murray Jr.
John E. Murray Jr. (December 20, 1932 – February 11, 2015) was an American lawyer, professor, and university leader. He served as the 11th president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh from May 1988 to May 2001, and then as chancellor from May 2001 until his death in 2015.
He was born in Philadelphia and studied at La Salle University (1955), the Catholic University of America (1958), and the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1959). Before joining Duquesne, he was the dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and the Villanova University School of Law.
As president of Duquesne, he helped the university grow from a smaller, financially troubled school into a major research university with more than 10,000 students, a strong endowment, and many new buildings and facilities.
Murray was a noted contracts scholar. He wrote Murray on Contracts and contributed to Corbin on Contracts, along with authoring 19 books and numerous law review articles.
In 1992, he helped start the Pittsburgh law firm Murray, Hogue and Lannis. In 2004, Governor Edward Rendell appointed him to the City of Pittsburgh’s Oversight Authority. He received the Distinguished Lifetime Service Award at the 2013 International Conference on Contracts.
A Philadelphia native, Murray lived in Pittsburgh and died of a heart attack in 2015 at the age of 82. He was survived by his four children, six grandchildren, and his second wife, Marjorie Smuts.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 16:23 (CET).