By: Joseph D. Kearney

Joseph D. Kearney — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:24:05 +0000

This is a terrific post, Jack. I spoke with Jim, earlier this evening, at the conclusion of the Centennial Symposium series which Gordon Hylton ably put together this semester. Today’s topic was the Law School in the modern era, the focus being from 1985 forward. Gordon asked me to say a few words at the end, as it was the last of the series; the opportunity was unscripted, but I was pleased to take it: For the comment that I primarily wished to make was how fortunate we are at the Law School to be heirs to the tradition that our forbears such as Jim Ghiardi helped to establish. To be sure, we like to think that we have improved the Law School, and that is no doubt true in a number of respects (although it is surely untrue in some other respects, most of which elude us at the moment, else we would seek to improve in them). But the primary reason that this is so — i.e., that we have been able to make advances — is, in my estimation, that the full-time faculty is so much larger than during Jim’s years on the faculty; as you know, we have to four to five times the number of full-time faculty as, say, 50 years ago. One would wonder indeed if such a law school, not comparably larger in student body (and we are larger in student body, but not comparably so), did not have faculty who had more time to devote to, say, important matters such as legal scholarship. But it would be mistaken — and it was mistaken in my early days on the faculty here, I am prepared to say with hindsight — for there to be a generally prevailing view within the Law School that minimized the extent of the Law School’s past contributions in that realm (or at least in the realm of national policy debates in a number of spheres). Jim alone ensured that a substantial percentage of the Law School’s faculty could be great in both teaching and studying the law. In short, I, too, would have regarded it as high praise to be compared to Jim Ghiardi. — JDK

Comments on: Appreciating Our Professors: James D. Ghiardi

By: Joseph D. Kearney