Vol. 34, No. 5, 50. Ethically Speaking.

• Author: by John M. Burman Carl M. Williams Professor of Law and Ethics University of Wyoming College of Law

Wyoming Bar Journal

2011.

Vol. 34, No. 5, 50.

Ethically Speaking

Wyoming LawyerIssue: October, 2011Ethically Speakingby John M. Burman Carl M. Williams Professor of Law and Ethics University of Wyoming College of Law9/12

For most Americans and many other I persons around the world, September 11,2001, was a day that will never be forgotten. Those of us who were alive and sentient on that day will never be able to forget the incredible news from New York City, Washington, D. C, and Pennsylvania. The news was just too terrible, too unbelievable. None of us will ever forget where we were or how we first heard the news. The news was so horrible that time seemed to have stopped as we tried to comprehend the enormity and impossibility of the news. I, for one, saw the television images of the second airplane smashing into the Twin Towers so often that day, I had to stop watching. To this day, I cannot look at those images (I remember going to watch Michael Moore's movie prepared to avert my eyes when the airplane crashing into the towers was shown. And then the movie didn't show the footage. Rather than watching the horrible scene again, one sat in a darkened theater listening to the event, an even more horrifying experience than watching the video).

But somehow, time inevitably and inexorably resumed and continued its unceasing march. Somehow, life returned to "normal." Somehow, life continued, but it, and we, were different. The events of 9/11 had changed us forever.

As I think of that day, however, I find myself also thinking about the following day-the day teaching. The greatest job in the world, in my view, also changed. On that particular day, I dreaded going to class-the most difficult and, ultimately, the most rewarding class in my now nearly quarter century of teaching. It is that class that I find myself remembering, and it is that class about which I want and need to write.

Not surprisingly, neither the University nor the College of Law held classes on 9/11, which was a Tuesday. Classes were to resume, however, the following day (as the Torts I class I still teach meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we had not missed any classes). As fate would have it, I had class at 8:00 a.m. on September 12th; it would be, I knew, the first class for the first-year students of the post-9/11 era. It would also be the first class for me.

My habit is to arrive at the college about an hour before class so I have time to think about and prepare for class. In this respect, the twelfth was no difierent; I arrived at my desk about 7:00 a.m.. But then things changed.

I could not think about Torts. I could not get the images out of mind, and talking about intentional torts (the scheduled topic for the day) was out of the question. I just sat and stared, seeing and feeling nothing. Soon the time had past, and I was totally unprepared to teach Torts. I...