Don Harper Mills, a longtime clinical professor of pathology and psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, died May 21. He was 85.

Don Harper Mills

Mills, who taught at the Keck School and was a past president of Salerni Collegium, was also a practicing attorney. He served as medical director of the County of Los Angeles Medical Malpractice Program, devoted to claims management for the public hospitals and clinics in the county.

Mills was a past president of the American College of Legal Medicine and a Distinguished Fellow and past president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. He participated in the development of the academy’s code of ethics and was chairman of the Ethics Committee for many years.

A member of the editorial board of the Journal of Legal Medicine, Mills wrote extensively in the medical-legal field. He was on the first editorial board of the Journal of the American Medical Association in the 1970s.

He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Lillian, his two children and their spouses, and his four grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations be made to the Don Harper Mills Scholarship Fund at the Keck School of Medicine of USC:keck.usc.edu/DonHarperMills.