Osler's Razor

Yesterday was a great day-- my first day of teaching at St. Thomas. Even though I was a little rusty, it felt wonderful to be in front of a class again teaching sentencing. I'm very excited about the group I will be teaching, too-- they have a variety of backgrounds and opinions on criminal law, and all seem engaged in what I get to talk about.

I started by telling them that they were my first students here. There is something important about that, I think-- being the first. I remember well very well my first class at Baylor, and ten years later I am still in touch with three people in that small group-- David Moore, Emanuela Prister, and Jim Dedman.

The picture above is from last year, obviously, since I can't stand to lecture in my current condition-- instead I used the one stool at St. Thomas, which now has unfortunately been dubbed the "Osler Stool." I don't think that hurt, though; I was still able to put some passion into it even though I couldn't move very much.

Some of you have been in my classes, and know that I try to make first and last days special, to frame the rest. I tried something different this time, and hope that it worked. I spent a long time talking about my own story, and then bringing out some of the compelling stories of those in the class-- why they came to law school, why they are interested in criminal law, whether they are more inclined to the defense or prosecution. As so often happens, what they had to say did a very good job of establishing some of my themes for the class.

I think this is going to work.