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Derek Bok became the Dean of the Law School. We never got along all that well. One day he called me into his office with a smile on his face and told me that I was a very expensive professor. Since salaries are fairly standard at Harvard

and because I was teaching criminal law. I had a lot of freedom since no one really cared about criminal law at Harvard. Our students were unlikely to become criminal lawyers in those days. In fact

the law student is going to have to know his ‘law’ as his preliminary basis for the experience to cope with existing institutions and do a lawyer’s job. One cannot deny the credentials of Professor Dershowitz’s genius

” he explains. “In many instances there are no answers

” but to teach his students how “to ask the right questions and bring to bear the right information for the right purpose.” In short

[who] got his appointment at age 24.” It quotes me as making the heretical statement that: “there’s no such thing as The Law….Law is one of our many processes for ordering society. You can’t view this process as a neatly compartmentalized e...

the would-be lawyers read pages by Margaret Mead. Where one would expect a capsule treatment of criminal procedure

a subject in which he had a PhD. He would always begin his statements by saying

” the abbreviation for assistant professor. Naturally

I tended to spend an enormous number of hours preparing for each class. I stayed up the night before planning my questions and strategies and got to the law school at 7:00 am before each class. Naturally I parked in the first available slot...

only “visible minorities” are eligible for affirmative action. A student asked me whether Jews were a visible minority. I responded

particularly the Socratic exchange with my students. But I noticed that even though several of my students were older than me (William Bennett was among them)

I encountered 160 eager faces. The men were dressed in shirts and ties; the handful of women wore skirts. The teaching style of the day was Socratic

the two “best” teachers were reputed to be Clark Byse and Ben Kaplan. I wanted to learn from the best

and a lot more experienced. I was called the “Boy Professor.” 20 It was intimidating and scary.

first in Brookline and a year later in Cambridge.

which continue to influence me to this day. There could be no better preparation for my life as a professor at Harvard Law School.

perhaps even a Justice. I never had any interest in wearing a robe since judging requires the kind of passivity that is not suitable to my temperament. I was surprised that Justice Goldberg was so insistent since he himself had left the ben...

Justice Goldberg decided to run for governor. He asked his former law clerks

but the new information didn’t diminish my respect for the two giants of the law. It did confirm my belief that there are no heroes without clay feet. It also confirmed my belief that J. Edgar Hoover was among the most powerful and dangerou...