Legal Biography Commons^™

Remarks At Memorial Service For Professor Kellis E. Parker, Kendall Thomas

Faculty Scholarship

Seventeen years ago, I came to New York and Columbia University to begin a career in the legal academy. Seventeen years ago, I met Kellis Parker. The two moments run together in my mind, quite simply because my life in New York and at Columbia are inseparable from my relationship with Kellis Parker. If I had the time, I'd stand here and testify. I'd testify about the man who was my colleague, my mentor, my model, and my big-brother-in-the-law. I'd testify about the Kellis Parker who was my careful and generous critic. If I had time, I'd testify about Kellis, …

A Legal Giant Is Dead, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Herbert Wechsler died at his home on April 26, 2000. Two days later, the New York Times obituary's headline announced the passing of a "legal giant," a richly merited appellation. Herbert Wechsler was, I believe, the greatest academic figure in the history of Columbia Law School. At the height of his career, Herb stood at the top of three academic fields: criminal law, constitutional law, and federal jurisdiction. His achievements were, moreover, not confined to Columbia, the faculty of which he joined in 1933 after having served as law clerk to Justice Harlan Fiske Stone. From 1944 to 1946, Herb …

Milton Handler: Teacher, Lance Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

I did not know Milton Handler until he was eighty-eight years old.Of course I knew of him. I had lived near the world of Philip Areeda and Steve Breyer, antitrust experts who knew very well that Milton had begun the study of competition law; had been in that founding generation of activist law scholars who implemented the realist vision by expanding the canon of common law courses – contracts, torts, property – to statutory and regulatory fields such as taxation, regulated industries, labor law, and corporations.

The Election Of Thomas Buergenthal To The International Court Of Justice, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

For the first time since 1981, a new judge of United States nationality has taken office at the International Court of Justice. As the method for selection of this important judicial post is little known even within the international law profession, a brief note on how that process unfolded in 1999-2000 should be of interest to the Court's constituency.

William J. Brennan, Jr., Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

When I was privileged to be Justice Brennan's law clerk, he had not yet earned even from his own law school the affection and respect that have prompted the editors of this law review, and doubtless many others, to offer an issue in dedication to him. In the three decades following, he made his claim to both unmistakably clear. His extraordinary tenure on the Court produced 1360 opinions, spread over the last 146 of the Court's first 497 volumes. Nearly a decade after his retirement, it is probably still the case that more opinions in constitutional law teaching materials carry …

In Honor Of Stefan A. Riesenfeld, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

In this issue dedicated to Professor Riesenfeld, his achievements as a scholar and teacher will appropriately receive central attention. As a contributor who also worked with him in his Washington days, I would like first to recall a few anecdotes from that time (which I hope he remembers as fondly as I do) and then turn to an assessment of his contributions to the literature on the interface between the constitutional and international law of treaties.

William J. Brennan, Jr., American – In Memoriam, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

At Justice Brennan's funeral, President Clinton spoke of the justice's enormous impact on our country's law-thirty-four years on the Supreme Court, over 1300 opinions authored, many of them landmarks: Baker v. Carr, opening the way to one person, one vote; Craig v. Boren, wielding the Equal Protection Clause to strike down discrimination on the basis of sex; Goldberg v. Kelly, insisting on the right of the poorest citizens of the administrative state to be heard in the face of an arbitrary bureaucracy; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, articulating the modem rationale for a free press; …

Walter Gellhorn, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Walter Gellhorn had been a primary figure in administrative law and at Columbia for thirty-five years when I arrived here twenty-five years ago, hoping to establish a scholarly career. Yet it is impossible to recall any expectations I might have had about my relationship with him at the time. He was the unseen father of a camp and college friend whose warmth and wit I had cherished, more than he was a dominant member of Columbia's remarkable faculty. He quickly became my mentor and guide. I seem to have spent all the time since that day learning at his feet …

Barbara Jordan: Constitutional Conscience, Philip C. Bobbitt

Faculty Scholarship

Many of us learned for the first time in the press accounts following Barbara Jordan's death that she carried with her a small pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution. From some apparently early point, and then throughout her life, this small paper pamphlet was always with her. What was unreported was the fact that within this copy of the Constitution, there was folded a slip of paper on which was written a quotation from Albert Einstein. I do not believe this quotation is written in Barbara Jordan's hand; but it has clearly lain within her copy of the Constitution for …

Foreword To Tributes, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Seldom does an institution experience the jolt of four revered and beloved members of the faculty choosing to retire at the same time. When it does occur, as it has this year at the University of Virginia, the sense of loss can be overwhelming. John Hetheringon, John McCoid, Dan Meador and Cal Woodard have been members of this Law Faculty for a combined period of 123 years.T hey embody a collective source of talent, energy, wisdom, and skill as teachers and scholars that is, quite literally, irreplaceable.

A Tribute To Justice Byron R. White, Lewis F. Powell Jr., Rhesa H. Barksdale, David M. Ebel, Lance Liebman, Charles Fried

Faculty Scholarship

Of 107 Justices in 205 years, only twelve have served longer than thirty years, and every long-serving Justice has made a substantial contribution to the institution - offering a steady and dedicated response to the judicial challenges of an era, asserting leadership at a time of national crisis, or articulating a large constitutional vision. The personal qualities and life experiences that a new Justice brings to the Court contain the seeds of the individual's judicial service. Justice White, a skeptical but unflinching democrat, was no exception.

Getting It Right, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Writing a tribute for any beloved colleague who is retiring is a difficult experience. Writing about Tom Bergin, who is retiring after twenty-nine years at the Law School, is an even greater challenge. The challenge stems from Tom's legacy to his students and to his colleagues at the Law School; both the challenge and the legacy require some explanation.

Justice Brennan, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

The editors of the St. John's Law Review have given me the boon of a few pages in which to celebrate Justice Brennan with you. The problem for a former law clerk, for anyone who has known this man, is to know where to begin, and how to keep the appreciation within manageable compass.

Faculty Resolution, Professor Alfred Hill, Harold L. Korn, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Alfred Hill is everything a law professor should be. He has mastered the two areas which are most important for a law teacher's success. These are classroom performance and legal scholarship. Few of us excel in either one of these areas. The fact that Al Hill excels in both makes him truly remarkable. We of the Columbia Law School Faculty are singularly blessed to have had him in our midst for more than twenty years.

Al Hill's excellence as a teacher is best demonstrated by the enthusiastic comments of his students. He has taught many courses; his current assignments being …

Wade H. Mccree, Jr., Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Wade McCree was a member of the Michigan Law School faculty for six years. He came to us not as a young and inexperienced person but as a distinguished jurist and public official. He was the Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law. He taught courses on constitutional litigation, the legal profession, and constitutional law.

Now these are the biographical details of Wade McCree's time with the Law School. But what images remain and will remain upon our parting? What is the spirit that Professor McCree added to our institution, to us as students and as colleagues?

Albert J. Rosenthal In Grateful Appreciation, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

What a joy it is to work with Al Rosenthal! And how fortunate we are that our remarkable colleague will continue to grace the faculty to which he is devoted.

It is customary upon assuming a deanship to say nice things about your predecessor, and Al Rosenthal was no exception five years ago. But I mean far more than to return a compliment when I note how splendidly my successor as Dean, with a gently guiding hand, has enhanced the intellectual life of our law school, strengthening both faculty and student body and augmenting the support for their work. He …

Monrad G. Paulsen, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Nothing made Monrad happier than bringing together two people he loved whose lives had not previously intersected and seeing a new friendship blossom. I owe some of the most satisfying relationships of my life to that wonderful taste. And I see its fruits all over this room today. Monrad would be overjoyed if he could see us all together.

In Fond Appreciation, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

I write in a representative capacity – not for all the presidents of Columbia University, nor even for all the past deans of our great Law School; I presume rather to offer a few words of fond appreciation on behalf of the thousands of middle-aged lawyers who once sat at Willis Reese's feet. My class began the 1952-53 academic year and our legal education with Dean Young Berryman Smith as our Torts professor. A few years later, classes would begin to be sectioned, but in those primeval days, we were one big, happy group. Two hundred and forty strong (not …

To Herbert Wechsler With Grateful Appreciation, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Though the invitation to join this symposium came to me in my official capacity, I prefer to write in personal terms. I make that choice for two reasons. First, I cannot improve on the Faculty's own affectionate resolution of appreciation, and so I am happy to embrace it as the School's official position. (I alone on the Faculty could not vote for it: only a tie gives me the franchise and, try as I might, I could not suborn any contrary votes.) Second, my feelings for Herb Wechsler owe far more to my days as his student and my years …

The Homer Of The Pacific: Melville's Art And The Ambiguities Of Judging Evil, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

It should not be surprising that Herman. Melville has an important message for students of the legal system, when one reflects for a moment on his biography and the subject matter of his writings. Melville had an intimate exposure to various legal systems ranging from the very crude to the more sophisticated, due in part at least to close personal ties with people who. were themselves connected with the law in one way or another. When Melville was thirteen years old his father declared himself bankrupt, then went mad and died. Melville's cousin had presided over a widely publicized and …

Monrad Paulsen: An Affectionate Appreciation, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

I have been an admirer of Monrad Paulsen since my first days as his junior colleague at the University of Minnesota Law School back in 1955. In retrospect, I recognize that my view of what makes a great law professor was profoundly influenced by the qualities I saw, and respected, in Monrad. For me, they began with collegiality – a personal interest in and a professional commitment to the welfare of the new boy. That first year at Minnesota was an enormously happy and productive apprenticeship for me, and Monrad helped make it so.

Walter Gellhorn, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Walter Gellhorn is irreplaceable. To be sure, in every generation there will be a few scholars who are his peer. In a strong teaching faculty like Columbia's, there will always be some who teach as well as he. The republic is occasionally blessed with public servants who give themselves with the sort of selfless devotion that Walter Gellhorn brings to every task. Each of us can count on a handful of good friends like him for moral support, good advice and uncritical love. But I know of no one who has served an institution so loyally and so effectively with …

Mr. Justice Douglas, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

The American people are always interested in record-breakers, whether it be in the field of sports, politics, economics or any other phase of American life. In sports, it might be a Babe Ruth or a Hank Aaron; in politics, a Lincoln or a Roosevelt; in economics, a Rockefeller or a Ford.

And so it is in the judiciary, whether it be a Marshall, Hughes, Holmes or Brandeis. Most of their records in some respects are related to longevity, but the thrust of our admiration stems not from that fact but from some great contribution to the affairs of their day. …

Julius Goebel, Jr.: In Fond Recollection, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Memorable teachers, like great delicacies, are not to everybody's taste. Most of us endured nineteen years of formal education, encountering perhaps 100 teachers along the way. Many were journeymen, imparting whatever information their particular slice of the curriculum warranted. A few, a very few, truly moved our minds. And, not uncommonly, the genius who made me see left others in the dark, while my friend's cicerone left me hopelessly lost. The teacher who dares to inspire will not inspire many, but if in every class a few are enabled to think in a way they could not think before, that …

Professor Milton Handler, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Milton Handler taught his first class at Columbia four years before I was born. Because of my parents' tardiness, he was beginning his twenty-sixth year on the Faculty by the time I was old enough to register for his course in Trade Regulation in the fall of 1953. I have been an admirer of Milton Handler ever since.

It has been my good fortune to know him in many ways. As a teacher, he was truly extraordinary – a penetrating analyst, a builder of grand syntheses, a master of the Socratic method. Though his courses were usually electives, most of …

Professor Paul R. Hays, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

When I learned that the Editors of the Columbia Law Review were planning to dedicate this issue to Paul Hays, I took an extraordinary step. I volunteered. It seemed to me that the occasion should not pass without a formal expression of thanks from the Dean of the School of Law and an informal acknowledgment of the personal debt I owe to Paul Hays.

The formal thanks, richly deserved, can be simply stated. A valued colleague, a brilliant scholar, an inspiring teacher – Paul Hays is all of these and the School he served for more than three decades is …

Chief Judge Stanley H. Fuld, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

There were Whiz Kids before McNamara, and never more than during the tenure of the late Thomas E. Dewey as District Attorney of New York County. Only thirty-three years old when he became special prosecutor for the investigation of organized crime in New York and thirty-five when he took office as District Attorney in 1937, Dewey surrounded himself with a remarkably talented group of young lawyers. Frank Hogan, for example, was thirty-five in 1937, Charles Breitel all of twenty-eight. Stanley Howells Fuld, who had graduated from the Columbia Law School one year after the District Attorney, was thirty-four. Nine years …

Dean William C. Warren, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

It would be virtually impossible, even if I were to preempt this entire issue of the Columbia Law Review for the purpose, to document fully the monumental contributions William C. Warren made to the Law School during the seventeen years of his deanship. I can hope only to touch lightly upon them, leaving the reader to admire the foresight, the energy, the generosity of spirit, and the long hours of dedicated effort which enabled him to accomplish so much.