Thursday, September 23, 2021
Motown/Philly back again...
Yesterday I was back in Philly for the retirement of the judge I clerked for, Hon. Jan E. DuBois (ED Pa.). In the photo above we are recreating a scene from my clerkship, in which he reviews the sad state of my writing at the time.
He was one of my key mentors, and I had the opportunity to talk about that yesterday. By his actions, he taught me two key things: That law is important, and that it takes hard work to keep a society governed by laws together.
The first of those may seem obvious, but clearly there are many people in our society who do not think law is important-- that politics or economics subsumes the law in reality. But I disagree; the law does shape norms and behavior.
As for the hard work, I know that quite well.
I remember once going into the attic of an old house in New England, which was built in the late 1700's or early 1800's-- a time with the framers of the Constitution were alive. The owner of the house pointed out something amazing: That the timbers in the framing of the house were still fresh, even after centuries. That was true because of hard work-- maintaining the house to keep the timbers dry and the rot out.
And so it is with the integrity of the law. And it was Judge DuBois who convinced me of that.
