Gary was my clinical supervisor. While I was aware of the importance
of Gary's work, to me he was first and foremost my teacher. Gary's
inspiration was that he made you feel like you could do anything you put
your mind to. More, he helped me gel my incoherent ideas into coherent
ones, without ever making me feel that they were anything but great
ideas. He was the quitessential example of integrity in action.
Every act he took, every decision he made, every idea he explored was based
on an integrity so deeply ingrained he made you feel that there was no
other way of being. He had a deep and abiding respect for his
students - he had a way of making me feel like I was his equal, when of
course he and I both knew I was not. He always appeared to be completely
interested in what I had to say on a topic that, in retrospect, he must
have thought about for about two dozen years or so before I even knew about
the topic. He conveyed excitement all the time - excitement in ideas,
in practicing law, in helping people, in building bridges and in
taking on new challenges. Excitement in teaching. Exictement
in learning.
After I graduated, I became a private practitioner helping
plaintiffs in Title VII cases, then a legal services lawyer, then a
clinical law professor. Gary allowed me to believe that these were
all aspects of the same work - that arbitrary divisions were useless.
He taught me that one could be completely open-minded and completely
idealistic and yet have very strong ideas about how the world ought
to work, and what justice ought to mean. He taught me that I could
learn from my students and that all of their questions and concerns should
be treated with respect, because they are the future of our work.
Gary
taught me that if you truly admire someone, the best thing you can
do is give them honest, constructive critique. He taught me
to consider it my obligation and my privilege to try to help others in
whatever community I worked and lived in. He also taught me that
a person can be passionately devoted to work and passtionately devoted
to family at the same time. He admired Jeanne more than anyone else,
and was always telling me about her work with pride and excitement.
He bragged about his children. I was truly lucky to have such a teacher,
and every day I try to remember these lessons and live a bit of his legacy
in my life and pass on a portion of Gary's legacy to my students.
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