Not long after it was founded, the Judicial Process Commission found itself lacking an editor for Justicia, its newsletter.

The JPC's Ginny Mackey asked Clare Regan, ‘Would you take it one for two or three weeks?'" recalls Gordon Webster, a minister at Rochester's Downtown United Presbyterian Church.

Regan, who died last week, edited the journal for three decades.

"I would love it if someone else were to take over, but there isn't anyone else," she told this newspaper in a 2002 profile.

That's the kind of anecdote that Regan's friends and colleagues tell about her, the kind that points up both her intense energy in service to many causes and her ability to adapt in order to accomplish what she needed to.

And over the years, there were plenty of accomplishments. She helped found Catholics Against Nuclear Arms. She managed the first campaign for County Legislature for a then-novice politician, Louise Slaughter. In particular, she made a name for herself as an advocate for a better, more proactive justice system, including alternatives to incarceration and an end to the death penalty.

"When the Attica riots happened, that really started her interest in the criminal-justice system," says Bob Regan, the youngest of her six children.

What set Regan apart from other passionate activists was the extent and specificity of knowledge she brought to her work. Perhaps that had something to do with the discipline she honed as a graduate student in chemistry. Regan had a master's degree in the field and was pursuing a PhD when she stopped to raise a family. Instead, she turned her scientifically-trained mind toward the cause of justice.

"She inspired many of us around her with the detailed knowledge she had of many cases," says Webster.

Regan also took up the challenge of imparting that knowledge to others.

"I could always count on a line forming outside my office when she taught," says John Klofas, head of RIT's criminal-justice department, where Regan taught. Klofas's students include future cops, and Regan challenged many of them with her liberal ideas. At first, they complained to him, says Klofas. But by the end of a semester with her, even though they may not have agreed with her, most students found her classes valuable.

"It was great to have a balance," he says.

Even while providing balance to RIT students, Regan was able to find it in her own life, devoting herself to her children as fully as to her work.

"I'd meet people and they'd be like, ‘Oh, you're Clare Regan's kid?'" recalls Bob Regan. "It was always a shock to them that she raised six kids" on top of everything else she did. But for Bob and his siblings, it was just the opposite: They barely realized they had such a prolific activist for a mother because of the time and attention she lavished on them.

The way Regan lived her life may have sprung from her own religious faith ("She really understood the theological basis for justice," says Webster), but it grew to encompass a truly catholic --- that is, universal --- vision of justice.

"We're all very, very grateful for her witness and for her friendship," says Webster.