Osler's Razor

On Friday, I spoke at the Portrait unveiling for Judge Jan E. Dubois of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It was intimidating, given the formality of the setting, and the fact that I was following Sen. Arlen Specter on the agenda (surprisingly, Sen. Specter showed up, despite all the hub-bub in DC). Below are the words I offered.

May it please the court, members of the family, and all those drawn here to honor Judge Dubois.

Judge Dubois was and is my mentor in law. I want to use my few minutes with you to describe just how important that has been. Mentorship is becoming a lost art. At one time, apprenticeship was the only way to become an attorney, but slowly that bond between young attorney and veteran practitioner has faded from our world. Even in large firms, the commercial demands of modern practice too often prevent real mentoring relationships from developing. The last bastion of true mentorship may be this very place, the courthouse. Those of us chosen to serve as clerks to Judge Jan DuBois had the rare, rich, and enlivening opportunity to be mentored by a man who cared deeply about the law and about us. For each of us, it framed the lawyer we would become, and Judge Dubois’s values and passion are now multiplied through this city and the nation.

My first experiences with Judge DuBois, I am guessing, were typical of those others who clerked in his chambers. In that first week, I was assigned to work on an issue related to a civil case. I researched the issue, came to a conclusion, and wrote it up for the Judge. An hour later, he came into the clerks’ room where Hope and I sat. He looked at the memo, baffled, and said, “Mark, you can’t possibly mean…” and then restated precisely and correctly what I had meant. I defended my position, and he went back to his office to consult some cases. For the rest of the day we went back and forth, trading arguments.

Towards the end of that day, I remember sitting across the desk from him, each of us waving a precedent, and seeing, just a little, his smile start to emerge. It was in that moment, that exact moment, that I had an epiphany—that he LIKED this. Far from resenting that intellectual debate, he loved it.

Over time, I learned exactly why it was that he loved it. He loved that debate because it was about ideas that mattered, about what is right and what is wrong, and because it is important. He may never have told me those things in so many words, but he showed them to me—showed me that law mattered, that it was something to be loved and nurtured and argued over with passion and respect. Like the other clerks here, I still regard the law that way—that is part of the gift that he has given each of us. In preparing for this presentation, I have gotten to know something about the other clerks, the big-firm partners and the prosecutors and the businessmen and even the professors—that we all seem to have an ambition that reflects the importance of law in our nation and to our people, and that is something that many of us learned from one man, Judge Dubois.

I do love this portrait. It captures two aspects of the Judge that we clerks well remember. One is his warmth, his personal warmth, which includes his caring for what we did with our lives, and about our families. The second is his confidence, which he carries easily and properly. By confidence, I don’t mean egoism or self-centeredness, but rather the confidence to engage the difficult tasks a District Judge confronts, a confidence which is necessary for success within these walls. In Judge Dubois, that confidence has been well earned.

Though we have spread ourselves out across the country, many of the former clerks and interns are here today. If, like me, you were one of those lucky enough to learn a passion for the law from Judge DuBois as a clerk or intern, I would like you to stand.

Judge DuBois, we thank you for giving us something very rare, and stand ready to carry on your legacy, your passion, and your love for the law.