Law Commons^™

Tribute To R. Kent Greenawalt: A Common-Law Thinker In A Text Driven Age, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Kent Greenawalt was my colleague and friend for half a century. Over those years, we shared responsibility both for students at the beginning of their legal studies and for candidates for the doctoral degree. The course in Legal Methods, while we each taught it, was an intensive three-week, thirty-nine class hour introduction to legal studies that divided its attention between common law case analysis and statutory interpretation; Kent’s nuanced understanding of both profoundly shaped my approach to each. In the doctoral program, he offered a graduate seminar on jurisprudence; my responsibility was for a seminar on legal education. Sharing these …

Tributes To Family Law Scholars Who Helped Us Find Our Path, Ann Laquer Estin, Melissa Murray, June Carbone, Barbara A. Atwood, Paul M. Kurtz, J. Thomas Oldham, Bruce M. Smyth, Brian H. Bix, Elizabeth S. Scott, R.A. Lenhardt, Jessica Dixon Weaver, Solangel Maldonado, Sacha M. Coupet

Faculty Scholarship

At some point after the virus struck, I had the idea that it would be appropriate and interesting to ask a number of experienced family law teachers to write a tribute about a more senior family law scholar whose work inspired them when they were beginning their careers. I mentioned this idea to some other long-term members of the professoriate, and they agreed that this could be a good project.

So I reached out to some colleagues and asked them to participate. Many agreed to join the team. Some suggested other potential contributors, and some of these suggested faculty members …

Asil Hudson Medal Conversation "Songs My Mother Taught Me: A Very Personal Account": Remarks By Lori Fisler Damrosch, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

First, I am deeply appreciative of this honor, especially in the presence of so many who encouraged me along the way. I would like to acknowledge previous Hudson honorees who are present, including Charlie Brower, Edie Brown Weiss, and Bernie Oxman. Thanks to Catherine, Patrick, and the Allen & Overy law firm for sponsoring this event.

I also want to acknowledge my debts to other Hudson medalists who reached out to me early in my career — when I was, say, a twenty-five-year-old lawyer just getting started in the State Department, and that person was, say, a deputy legal adviser …

Getting Comfortable With Discomfort, Diversity & Repair, Luz E. Herrera

Faculty Scholarship

The topic of this year's conference, diversity, pluralism, and repair, gives us so much to talk about, that for me, it was hard to know where we were to begin. Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig focused on judicial appointments and the importance of a diverse bench for the legal profession, and in our society. She also discussed becoming comfortable with discomfort and I wanted to pick up on that thread. When I think about discomfort, I think about my own journey in the legal profession.

Keep Passing The Baton: Reflections On The Legacy Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

For those who care about justice, particularly for marginalized communities, September 18, 2020 brought immense heartbreak.² On that day, which happened to be Rosh Hashanah, Justice Ginsburg, who had previously written about how her religious background shaped her career as a lawyer, ³ passed away.

When Justice Ginsburg passed, many highlighted that a person who dies on Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year, is a "Tzadik," which is a title given to people of great righteousness. ⁴ For example, Nina Totenberg, a reporter for National Public Radio, explained, "A Jewish teaching says those who died just …

Charles Reich And The Legal History Of Privacy, Sarah Seo

Faculty Scholarship

Historians’ interest in Reich offers a case study of the relationship between historical and legal studies. What can legal scholars learn from historians, and what can historians learn from legal scholarship? This Essay will explore these two questions by focusing on Igo’s The Known Citizen since she encountered Reich not with the dual citizenship of a legal historian but as an intellectual historian. I will first highlight what legal scholars can learn from historians by summarizing the main arguments in The Known Citizen. Then, I will provide an alternative legal account to Igo’s history of privacy, which may clear …

Deep Tracks: Album Cuts That Help Define The Essential Scalia, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

Jeff Sutton and Ed Whelan have collected some of Justice Scalia’s “greatest hits” in a volume entitled The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law. The book is an excellent introduction to the jurisprudential thought and literary style of one of the most influential legal thinkers—and legal writers—in modern times. As with any “greatest hits” compilation, however, there are inevitably going to be key “album cuts” for which there will not be space. This essay seeks to supplement Sutton and Whelan’s invaluable efforts by surveying three of those “deep tracks” that shed particular light on …

In Memoriam: Emmanuel Gaillard, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

It is difficult to add meaningfully to all that has been said and written about the extraordinary Emmanuel Gaillard who left us far too soon. But I shall try.

Emmanuel has been described lately as a “titan” and a “giant.” Though he was those things, they fail to capture the humility and humanity that marked Emmanuel for the length of his career. Notwithstanding the monumental achievements he made, and the recognition he so richly deserved, Emmanuel remained throughout a modest, loyal and supportive member of the international arbitration community.

Tribute To Dave Markell, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

I first met Dave Markell around 1988, when he moved to New York to direct the Division of Environmental Enforcement of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). This was an era when the federal Superfund and its state equivalents were rapidly growing in importance; the laws passed in the wake of the Love Canal disaster of the late 1970s were finally growing teeth. Dave led New York's efforts to drive the cleanup of contaminated sites by using both civil and criminal remedies. He established DEC's criminal enforcement unit and doubled the number of criminal cases developed and …

The Empty Chair: Reflections On An Absent Justice, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines a January 1888 letter to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison Waite from Associate Justice Stanley Matthews. Justice Matthews requested time away from the notoriously overworked Court’s session in order to attend the funeral of Dr. Peter Parker, renowned medical missionary and diplomat. The piece presents biographical sketches of Justice Matthews and Dr. Parker, and considers the historical context of the potential absence on the late nineteenth-century Court’s operations.

Empty Chairs, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Memoriam: Justice John Paul Stevens, John G. Roberts Jr., David Barron, Alison J. Nathan, Christopher L. Eisgruber, Olatunde C.A. Johnson, Eduardo M. Peñalver

Faculty Scholarship

When Justice John Paul Stevens passed away on July 16, 2019, I was flooded with personal memories of my year clerking for him. The standard words of comfort when someone dies are that they will live on through the individuals that knew and loved them. Justice Stevens sat on the Supreme Court for more than three decades; his loss would be felt beyond those who knew him personally. I wondered how history would remember him.

Review Of Joel Richard Paul, Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall And His Times, Pat Newcombe

Faculty Scholarship

This Article reviews Joel Richard Paul's book, Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times. The Author found this scholarly work to be very readable. Paul relies on ample and deep primary sources, yet manages to present John Marshall in a very human and accessible way. This narrative would be an excellent selection for any academic or public library, especially those that collect in the American history area, and it is highly recommended.

Beyond The Annals Of Murder: The Life And Works Of Thomas M. Mcdade, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

Thomas M. McDade is best known (if not well-known enough) for his seminal 1961 reference bibliography, The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900. Beyond that singular text on early American murder trial accounts, though, lies more than 70 additional publications on American legal history, law enforcement, and literature, gathered together for the first time in an annotated bibliography of McDade’s lesser-known writings. The article also examines McDade’s fascinating life and varied career as an early FBI agent, World War II veteran, corporate executive, and true crime chronicler.

Tribute To Richard N. Gardner, Lori F. Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

Richard Gardner was my valued mentor and colleague at Columbia University, beginning before I began teaching in 1984 and continuing well beyond his retirement in 2012. In the fall semesters from 1984 through 1989, we co-taught the survey course in International Law, using the Columbia textbook originally developed by Wolfgang Friedmann with other Columbia co-editors (which has remained the “Columbia book” over the years). Our first semester of teaching together coincided with the semester that Dick’s daughter, Nina, took the International Law class as a 2L at Columbia Law School (as his son, Tony, would also do, a few years …

Richard N. Gardner: Memories, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Richard Gardner and I were colleagues for almost sixty years. The law faculty elevated us to its tenured ranks at the same meeting in 1959. We helped restore order after Columbia’s 1968 turmoil, he as a member of a disciplinary tribunal, I as chairman of the Executive Committee of the Faculty. We served under eight deans together; he
actually served under a ninth: me.

One Of The Good Guys: The Making Of A Justice – Reflections On My First 94 Years, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

John Paul Stevens’s first published judicial opinion was a Dissent. He joined the Seventh Circuit a few days after the court issued its opinion in Groppi v. Leslie, and dissented soon afterward when the court upheld that decision on rehearing. Wilbur Pell, who until Stevens joined was the only Republican among the Seventh Circuit’s seven active judges, wrote both Groppi opinions. Yet Stevens, brand new to the court, dissented from Pell’s opinion on rehearing.

There was no reason to think Father Groppi, who was arrested for leading a demonstration that interrupted the Wisconsin Assembly’s work, was innocent of legislative …

Richard N. Gardner (1927–2019), Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

Richard Gardner occupies a unique place in the history of United States diplomacy, in the teaching and practice of international law, in scholarship across a wide range of fields of interest to our discipline, and in the life of this Society. He was my valued colleague and mentor at Columbia University for many years, not just at the Law School, but also at the School of International and Public Affairs, where he nurtured and inspired generations of diplomats and policy experts to follow the call of public service. Having ascended the academic ladder to ever more dazzling heights — from …

Robert Ferguson: A Man For All Seasons, Brett Dignam

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Robert Ferguson enriched all of our lives. The man lived by and luxuriated in words. They are important to all of us, but they had a particularly magical significance to Robert. He chose them carefully, crafted their construction, and gloried in their rhythm. He encouraged all of us – his colleagues, students, friends, and (most recently) correspondents from prison – to articulate our thoughts. He listened to and scrutinized the words of others with impeccable care.

Mother. Orator. Woman Suffrage Leader: The Feminist Legacy Of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paula A. Monopoli

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Challenge To Bleached Out Professional Identity: How Jewish Was Justice Louis Brandeis?, Russell G. Pearce, Adam B. Winer, Emily Jenab

Faculty Scholarship

As an exemplar, Justice Louis D. Brandeis challenges the currently dominant conception that requires lawyers to, in Sanford Levinson's term, "bleach out" their personal identity from their professional identity. Under the dominant neutral partisan vision of the lawyer, clients will only receive the equal representation necessary to provide equal justice if lawyers exclude all personal and group identifications from their role. Brandeis, in contrast, asserted that his Jewish identity constructed his understanding of himself as a jurist. His distinguished career thereby provides a counter-narrative to bleaching-out that can serve as a model for all lawyers, whatever their personal and group …

Jack Greenberg: Living Greatly In The Law, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In 1886, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., then a Professor at Harvard Law School, gave a talk to the students of Harvard College, which included a much-quoted line: “I say – and I say no longer with any doubt – that a man may live greatly in the law…. [H]e may wreak himself upon life, may drink the bitter cup of heroism, may wear his heart out after the unattainable.”

Holmes set a high standard for greatness. It was not enough for him that a lawyer succeed in “the greedy watch for clients and practice of shopkeepers’ arts,” but rather he …

For Judith S. Kaye, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam – Marvin A. Chirelstein, Barbara Aronstein Black, Stephen B. Cohen, Michael J. Graetz, Roberta Romano, Carol Sanger, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Marvin Chirelstein was my good friend long before he was my colleague, and Ellen is one of my closest friends-it's a friendship that's lasted through oh! so many ups and downs for all of us for oh! so many years. As a sign of how good a friend I considered Marvin, I will report that he is the only person I have ever permitted to call me Babs!

The Age Of Scalia, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

During periods of apparent social dissolution the traditionalists, the true believers, the defenders of the status quo, turn to the past with an interest quite as obsessive as that of the radicals, the reformers, and the revolutionaries. What the true believers look for, and find, is proof that, once upon a time, things were as we should like them to be: the laws of economics worked; the streams of legal doctrine ran sweet and pure; order, tranquility, and harmony governed our society. Their message is: turn back and all will be well.

Harvey Goldschmid: The Scholar As Realistic Reformer, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Harvey Goldschmid was a Renaissance Man – extraordinary teacher, farsighted public servant, skillful negotiator, and corporate statesman. But sometimes, less attention is given to his career as a legal scholar. Here too, however, his work has had impact and will last.

The Lutheran Lawyer: Some Reflections On The Ethics Contributions Of Susan Martyn, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

Recently, Professor Susan Martyn, who is honored in this tribute issue, contributed to a forthcoming volume on Lutheran theological views of secular law of which I am co-editor. Ever the professional, Professor Martyn expressed initial uncertainty about her ability to make a contribution to this volume without more theological expertise. Not to worry, Professor Martyn's prodigious work ethic and creative lawyering produced an insightful chapter entitled, "Can Luther Help Modem Lawyers Understand Fiduciary Duty?" As it turns out, she argued, Martin Luther can help modem lawyers because he understood the ancient roots of fiduciary law that lie at the foundation …

Contract Law And Fundamental Legal Conceptions: An Application Of Hohfeldian Terminology To Contract Doctrine, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam: Daniel J. Meltzer, David F. Levi, David J. Barron, Donald B. Verrilli, Elana Kagan, Martha Minow, Richard H. Fallon, Robert S. Taylor, Vicki C. Jackson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tributes To Kent Greenawalt, Barbara Aronstein Black, Vincent A. Blasi, Elizabeth F. Emens, H. Jefferson Powell, Susan P. Sturm, William F. Young

Faculty Scholarship

There are some tasks that present themselves as, at the same time, an opportunity and a challenge. Crafting a brief tribute to Kent Greenawalt is just such a task. It is first – and I should say foremost – an opportunity to express in a public forum one’s high regard for an esteemed colleague and valued friend, and, then, it is a challenge to do justice to his extraordinary accomplishments, to the man, and to his work.

In dedicating this issue to Kent, the Columbia Law Review honors one of its own, whose association with Columbia Law School and the …