A time-honored model for the profession and the academy.

• Author: Fitts, Michael
• Position: Testimonial

Many years ago, an eager young law student sat in the back row of an oversized classroom at Yale Law School seeking to master the nuances of civil procedure. He found it to be an immensely complicated subject. Like many of his classmates, his most immediate concern was that he not be called on by his distinguished--and famously demanding--civil procedure professor. The teacher had a serious and penetrating style that deeply challenged the class and brought the subject matter to life through a sustained focus on the esoteric issues of doctrine and practice. Of equal interest to the student, however, was how this approach--both stylistically and intellectually--contrasted with the manner of several other faculty members. The seventies were a time of rapid transformation in political attitudes and academic approaches to law and legal education. Law schools were at the beginning of a revolution in interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching. And the student was (unabashedly) fascinated by and attracted to these developments. Yet, with all these changes, the legal novice could not help but appreciate in a deep and fundamental way the timeless approach of his civil procedure professor. The class explored the essential issues in civil procedure without overt reference to fashionable doctrines in economics, philosophy, or political science. The discussion nonetheless seemed to end in much the same place as courses that overtly embraced a more abstract and political world.

Over the years, the student's formal relationship with his teacher evolved. The former student chaired the appointments committee that oversaw his professor's move to Penn Law School in the early nineties. He served as a colleague (and occupied the office next door) of his former teacher. And finally he became the dean of Penn Law School, where the legend continued to serve as a faculty member. With all these changes, his formal association with the teacher evolved--but he was always in some sense his student, learning from his former teacher's timeless approach and attitude toward the profession and the academy. He also marveled at the profound impact his professor continued to have on the profession as academic styles evolved. Over the years, the student who resisted the approach of his former instructor came to appreciate many of its fundamental precepts.

As should be obvious to the reader, I was that young student, and Geoff Hazard was my professor--as he has been in some sense...