James Vorenberg '48, a former dean of the Harvard Law School (HLS) and a former Watergate associate special prosecutor, died on Wednesday of cardiac arrest. He was 72.

Vorenberg, who was Pound professor of law, started teaching at HLS in 1962 and served as the law school's ninth dean from 1981 to 1989.

Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox '34 said Vorenberg was a key member of the special prosecutor's team.

"I've always been greatly indebted to Jim Vorenberg, especially for the summer he gave me in '73 when he came to Washington and took on the great bulk of the work of organizing and carrying out everything to do with the management of the Watergate special prosecution force," said Cox, who is also Loeb professor emeritus at the law school.

According to Cox, Vorenberg was responsible for "everything running from a major role in the choice of personnel to locating space and what security arrangement we should have with the FBI."

"He was also very valuable in talking over questions of policy and other close decisions about the investigation and prosecution," Cox added.

Ames Professor of Law Philip B. Heymann, who also worked on the Watergate investigation, said Vorenberg helped to build the office of the special prosecutor so it would endure political upheavals, like the firing of Cox by President Richard M. Nixon in October 1973.

"He built it really sturdy," Heymann said. "It didn't matter who the special prosecutor was--there were about five of them--the office survived."

Vorenberg was dean of the law school during the 1980s, when ideological disagreements divided the faculty and the school was under pressure to hire more minority professors.

"He saw us through that period without the law school falling apart," Heymann said. "He tried extremely hard to be fair to the critical legal studies people and law and economics people and the traditionalists."

In contrast to traditionalists, who study the law as a neutral institution, critical legal scholars say those with money and power manipulate the law to their own advantage. Law and economics scholars see the law as a way to achieve economic efficiency.

According to Heymann, Vorenberg also put together the nation's top minority faculty.

"He brought very, very talented minority lawyers," he said. "There can't be anywhere in the country that begins to approach the raw talent we have here."

Vorenberg also served as director of HLS' Center for the Advancement of Criminal Justice, where he worked to promote understanding of legal issues by police officers. Many of the officers who participated in the program later became police chiefs throughout the country.

Vorenberg graduated from Harvard Law School in 1951 after having served as president of the Harvard Law Review, and went on to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter from 1953 to 1954.

He held several positions in the federal government, serving as director of the Justice Department's office of criminal justice under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

He later directed President Lyndon B. Johnson's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. The commission distributed about $1 billion a year to state and local criminal justice agencies.

Despite a long battle with Parkinson's disease, Vorenberg taught criminal law and legal ethics at Harvard until the time of his death.

He suffered a heart attack Monday and was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he died Wednesday afternoon.

In statements issued Wednesday, University officials remembered Vorenberg's long association with the College and HLS.

"The Law School has lost one of its greatest citizens," said HLS Dean Robert C. Clark.

"Jim Vorenberg will be remembered not only as an outstanding dean and a brilliant lawyer, but as a wonderful human being, someone whose constant devotion to his students and colleagues has left an imprint that will last for generations," said University President Neil L. Rudenstine.

Vorenberg is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and by three children, two stepchildren and 10 grandchildren.

A service will be held in Vorenberg's honor at Memorial Church at 2 p.m. on May 10.