Sunday, May 24, 2026
Sunday Reflection: Loss of a mentor
I graduated from law school in May of 1990, full of ambition and lots of questionable ideas. My first job out of school-- and one of my best-- was clerking for District Judge Jan E. DuBois of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It was a year that shaped my life, and Judge DuBois, who died last week at age 95, was a huge influence on me. The picture above (taken years later) doesn't exactly capture the joy and intellectual badinage we shared.
His son Marc wrote a fantastic obituary for him, which you can read here. It reflects the fact that Judge DuBois was hard working and remarkably talented. That impacted different people in different ways.
With the clerkship, I came in hot. On my first day, he came into the office I shared with Hope Freiwald, waving around something I had written, disagreeing with my take. I looked at his comments, and marched right into his office and made my case. Our conversation was edgy, fast, and deep. I worried I was offending him by pushing back but soon realized I was wrong-- he loved that kind of exchange. Those were some of the best discussions of my life.
Like many of my mentors and collaborators, Judge DuBois was Jewish, and that identity was important. I wonder sometimes about that; the truth is that as much as I identify (genuinely) as Christian, many more of my close fellow travelers in the law and on justice issues are Jewish than Christian. Judge DuBois, among so much else, gave me some insight into why that might be... but I will save that for another day. For now, it is enough to remember and honor someone who was better to me than I often deserved.
