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Virginia property and real estate law, and he never made
me feel like I was the junior member of our collaborative
partnership. From my close friend Wade I learned the
value of maintaining relationships with former students as
they make their way through the complex challenges and
rewards of law practice. In this way, the former student,
who is constantly in touch with the real-world implications
of legal doctrines, often becomes the old profʼs teacher,
which is certainly a win-win result.
“I learned the value of
maintaining relationships
with former students
as they make their way
through the complex
challenges and
rewards of law practice.”
to this day. From Mort, I learned that by choosing to be a
teacher-scholar in a law school, one need not sacrifice oneʼs
empathy or intellectual curiosity, or feel confined within
unbreachable disciplinary walls.
When I began my career as a law teacher at Oklahoma
City University, I encountered Marjorie Downing, a
tenured colleague to whom I still refer as “my property
teacher.” (Several years later at a law professorsʼ meeting,
I introduced myself to my actual property instructor, who
had apparently been assigned to that first-year course by
an administrator who failed then to recognize the new
professorʼs very strong talents in other legal disciplines.
Upon learning that I had been in the class, my former
professor apologized to me.) Marge was patient with my
questions about future interests and the peculiarities of
Oklahoma property law, and I was impressed by the deep
respect that this independent thinker garnered from faculty,
alumni and the community.
KINDRED SPIRIT
I was doubly blessed when, upon taking my next
teaching position, at the University of Richmond, I again
found a kindred and supportive spirit in property professor
Wade Berryhill. Wade was, and still is, the master of
When I joined the Levin College of Law faculty in
2003, I did so as a chaired professor with more than
two decades of experience. At this stage of my career,
I faced the new and important task of being a valuable
resource for my colleagues who were less, how should I
say it, seasoned. Being an untenured law professor can
be as exhilarating as it is challenging, given the need
to impress several important constituencies—students,
senior colleagues, administrators and law review editors
at other schools.
As those familiar with the Levin College of Law know
very well, we have a highly talented group of teacher-scholars
who are at the early stages of what promises to be very
impressive careers. As a member of the faculty appointments
committee, I have the pleasure of getting to know some of
these faculty members even before they make their way to
Gainesville, and I can assure my readers that our law faculty
takes its recruitment obligations very seriously.
Tenured professors are also encouraged to serve
as mentors, and I can only hope that, when my younger
colleagues look back on the formative years of their careers,
they will be able to recall members of Levinʼs excellent
“senior corps” with the same fondness that I have expressed
in this essay for those who taught me by example. Certainly
that is a valuable goal worthy of serious pursuit. ■
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