Because most law professors do not attend graduate school in law, new law professors have to rely on their own memories of law school for models of how to teach. As a graduate student at Harvard in the late 1970’s I actually enrolled in an LLM course entitled Preparing for Law Teaching, which was taught by Al Sachs, then the dean of Harvard Law School. Every week a different distinguished Harvard Law Professor addressed the class on his -– there were very few “hers” at HLS in 1979 and none spoke to our class -– views on legal education and how one ought to teach as a law professor.

However, when I began law teaching eight years later, I found myself relying not so much on this class, but on my own law student experience at the University of Virginia in the mid-1970’s. I did not particularly enjoy law school except for the classes in legal history, but I did find two professors particularly engaging. The two were Tom Bergin, from whom I had a year-long first year course in Property, and Charles Whitebread (pictured above), whom I had for upper-level courses in Trusts & Estates and Criminal Procedure.

Both were energetic instructors who infused their classes with a great deal of humor and commentary on the human condition. I think some of my classmates found Bergin to be a little too laconic and a tad vague -– Bergin was more interested in the sources of property rights than he was in the black letter rules of real property, and he did spend the first two weeks of the semester on Pierson v. Post, which was a case not included in our casebook -– but I and many other found his presentations exhilerating and looked forward to every class. Charles Whitebread was a consummate showman who was beloved by all of his students, and through his work with BAR/BRI became a nationally famous lecturer. His death this fall -– ironically just before a visit to Marquette –- was mourned by the entire world of legal education.

Although I have ended up teaching Property and Trusts and Estates most years, I am confident that I would have modelled my teaching on Bergin and Whitebread regardless of what I ended up teaching. As it turned out, they provided me with a treasure trove of property and T&E jokes, obscure legal references, and faux harangues that I have been able to draw upon in my own classes for more than twenty years.

Thomas Bergin. This is actually the grandfather of the Tom Bergin I had for Property. Both men had strong ties to Yale, and I am sure that Prof. Bergin would approve of this substitution.

Yale Law Professor Dan Freed has undoubtedly been the biggest influence on my own career as a law professor. I had him for a year-long sentencing course during my third year — a course that was a descendant of the legendary Yale Sentencing Workshop that Dan helped to organize in the 1970’s. The Yale workshop brought together lawyers, judges, policymakers, law professors, and law students for intensive discussions about the sentencing process. A proposal emerging from the workshop caught the attention of Senator Ted Kennedy, who used it as the framework for a major sentencing reform bill. Eventually enacted (with several important modifications) as the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, the Kennedy bill created the United States Sentencing Commission and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

By the mid-1990’s, when I had him as a teacher, Dan had become an outspoken critic of the Commission and the Guidelines. However, his course still reflected his faith in the value of bringing together people with diverse perspectives to talk to one another in a rational, mutually respectful manner about sentencing law and policy. Thus, we had a parade of fascinating guests in the course: judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, probation officers, law professors, a sociologist, a Senate Judiciary Committee staffer, and others. Taught seminar style, the course included many lively, memorable conversations with our distinguished guests. The experience sparked what has become a long-term interest of mine in sentencing — a subject that I now teach and write about regularly. In fact, the paper I wrote for Dan’s course became my very first law review article. I’ve stayed in touch with Dan (now retired) since then, and have benefitted from his counsel at many turns.

Dan has been a model for me in several respects.

So, I have been thinking about a lot of my favorite “law” professor. Rick and David‘s wonderful posts on their favorite law professors were, of course, inspirational. I am, however, much more indecisive than Rick and David, so I may try to sneak in a little more variety than just “one” law professor (the all powerful Michael may police me for straying a bit from the post of the month!). I actually am picking five (!) because I think about the lessons they taught me everyday:

James Cox, Duke University School of Law: Professor Cox, bar none, was the best teacher I had in law school. I remember being engaged and excited by Business Associations and White Collar Crime, like no other classes. As a student, when you are engaged by agency and partnership law, then you know the teaching is good. Why was I engaged? First, Professor Cox made business law seem relevant by bringing passion and commitment to his subject. Second, he encouraged us to talk and debate in class. Sometimes, in law school, everyone gets really quiet and it gets boring. He never countenanced that. So, class was a bit of an intellectual scrum, and thus, a little messy, and ultimately, quite good. And such classes prepared me for all those things in practice, because what is law school and its ultimate practice, but an intellectual scrum?