A tribute to Joseph Goldstein.

• Author: Dershowitz, Alan M.
• Position: Yale Law School professor

Yale Law School Professor Joseph Goldstein, who recently passed away, was a personification of the teacher as moral provocateur. Though extremely proud of the thousands of students who came under his tutelage during his distinguished academic career, Professor Goldstein was never satisfied with what his students accomplished. He always wanted more, especially from those from whom more was possible. He was my mentor during my three years at Yale in the early 1960s, and I know that he was proud of the work I did under him. Yet he always pressed me: "Sharpen it." "Make it smarter." "Take it further." Until the final year of his life, he never told me that he was completely satisfied with anything I had written. Imagine how I felt when he finally praised one of my books without reservation. Somehow, I think he knew it would be the last of my works he would have an opportunity to appraise. It was my final grade for the lifelong course I took with him in law, social sciences, and life.

Though Joseph Goldstein is not a household name in the general world of law, he was among the most influential lawyers in the last half of the twentieth century. His writings on the interface of law and the social sciences have had an enormous impact on other law teachers, on mental health professionals, on courts, and on legislatures. He has influenced both theory and practice. But his most enduring contribution has come through the thousands of lawyers whom he taught over the years. No student could fail to be influenced by Goldstein, whether they realized it or not at the time they were in his class. His influence was as subtle as his mind and sometimes as quiet as his voice, but it stayed with you. I know that over the years I have asked myself countless times, "What would Joe think about this issue?" or "How would Joe have approached this problem?" Sometimes I'd call and ask him. More often, I would just work it through in my own mind, employing the tools that Joe had given me.

There was nothing that Joe did not challenge. He believed in no orthodoxy. He was a member of no intellectual club. He reflected no group perspective. He was just Joe Goldstein, as unique and individual a thinker as I have ever encountered. He was neither liberal nor conservative. Labels of that kind simply had no meaning to a mind far too complex for such pigeonholing. He thought for himself and he arrived at conclusions that challenged every discipline he confronted. He changed the...