Harold G. Maier: a world class fellow indeed.

• Author: Kurtz, Paul M.
• Position: Testimonial

Hal Maier has played many roles in my life: he has been my teacher, my boss, my advisor, my colleague, and most and best of all, my friend. In all those roles, he has exhibited enthusiasm, patience, tact, and brilliance. Not at all a bad combination, I would say.

Come with me back to his classroom, circa 1970-1971. The subject is Conflict of Laws (which was required back then) or Law of the European Economic Community (which one with no interest in international law only took because of the masterful teacher). Clad in white shirt and oh-so-narrow tie which he constantly seemed to be adjusting, Professor Maier was one of those teachers who wandered around the front of the classroom, seeming to come toward the student he was engaging in conversation. Always a conversation, not a performance. Careful question after careful question. No yelling or screaming, but a brilliant demonstration of complete control of the subject. What the hell does "renvoi" mean anyway? The flat-topped fellow pacing the front of the room in his comfortable shoes kept prodding and poking until we all understood. One always left his classroom feeling that some progress had been made in the grand mission of trying to figure out this law stuff.

On the occasion of Hal's retirement, one of my classmates offered the following recollection. (1) In a third-year seminar in which the topic was whether legislators should vote their conscience or reflect the will of their constituents, "to focus the discussion Professor Maier posited a situation, which he said might even occur some day ... when everyone could dial their phone into some central spot to indicate their vote on some measure." Was that the way government ought to operate or did we want informed legislators who used their knowledge and values to make decisions? "As the internet has developed and we now have instant voting on American Idol, I think back to [Professor Maier's] wildly creative ... hypothetical (which made the point in terms that seemed beyond any current reality)," wrote my classmate. This hypothetical is often in my classmate's mind as he drafts contracts today, confident that problems, "however wild they might seem" today, might arise. He concludes that Hal Maier "was doing exactly what good law professors are supposed to do: teach their charges how to think like lawyers--meaning both incisive analysis of the present and deep reflection about the future implications of legal choices--and not focus unduly...