A teacher's teacher.

• Author: Brown, Lonnie T., Jr.
• Position: Vanderbilt Law School professors Harold G. Maier - Testimonial

On the day of my graduation in May 1989, Professors Harold G. Maier and Donald J. Hall, my two favorite professors, congratulated me jointly and paid me the ultimate compliment. They expressed to me their impression that I would make a good teacher and strongly suggested that I contemplate a career in legal academia. For me, this was akin to Richard Pryor telling an aspiring comedian that he or she was funny. I considered, and still consider, Professors Maier and Hall to epitomize everything that a great teacher, as well as a great person, should be. Their brief words of encouragement on the final day of my law school career set me on a path that would eventually lead to my return to the classroom, but this time as the nervous teacher up front, rather than the nervous student in the back.

Two of the principal courses that I teach are Civil Procedure and Conflict of Laws (Conflicts). I took Conflicts in the spring of my third year from Professor Maier, and it was, without question, the most amazing class that I have ever taken. I found the subject matter to be interesting, primarily because it helped me to understand better some of the fundamental concepts of Civil Procedure, such as personal jurisdiction. That alone, however, would not have been sufficient incentive to get me out of bed at what I recall to have been a cruelly early hour. Professor Maier was the real motivation.

He possessed the unique ability to make very difficult material accessible, without merely spoon-feeding students. He recognized that true knowledge and understanding cannot be bestowed; they must be acquired. His approach, therefore, was to guide, rather than to tell, and he did so by masterfully weaving cases together in a story-like fashion that created an almost insatiable desire to figure out what would come next. That may sound profoundly overstated, not to mention hopelessly geekish, but it really is the truth. For me, attending one of Professor Maier's classes was like reading a great book, and that truly made me look forward to each and every session.

In the classroom, he demonstrated astounding intellect, unbridled enthusiasm, good humor, sage wisdom, and perhaps most importantly, deep compassion and respect for others. The fact that all of these remarkable qualities were packaged beneath a somewhat quirky, quintessentially professorial exterior made Professor Maier all the more dear to me and my fellow classmates. I am definitely not even close to being in...