ON HIS FIRST TIME TEACHING

I started teaching in a night school and these were people who were already working – insurance agents, factory workers, a variety of people . . . I was 23 years old. I walked into the room. I looked around. I was clearly the youngest one in the room. So I took a deep breath, and I said to myself, “I know more law than they do.” So I went ahead, and that was the last problem because they didn’t care as long as I taught them. They wanted to hear the law, and as long as I did that, I could have been in diapers.

ON LEGAL EDUCATION TODAY

In the first place, students are much better prepared. Their undergraduate education is better. In terms of law schools like this law school, I think we have more people who have been out of school for two, three, ten years, and they come back with some knowledge of what the world is about. . . .We get cycles in which the students are much more interested in pro bono work, public interest work, intellectual subjects, and so on. Then we get cycles in which they are very occupation-oriented — getting a job, getting a good job, getting a job on Wall Street. . . . Students at the present time are sort of halfway in between vocational focus and public interest focus, so we’re in the middle of swing, probably swinging the wrong way because jobs are becoming more scarce.

ON HIS BELIEF THAT LABOR LAW IS
“THE STUDY OF A SOCIAL INSTITUTION”

The union is a political and social organization. They’re dealing with employers. They’re dealing with social problems: How are the workers going to live? Plus they provide a social setting, social membership for the workers. For lots of union members, the union is at least equivalent to their church. . . . [Unions] are concerned about the rights of the workers, the living conditions of the workers, the working conditions, and so the unions are dealing with these interests, basic social concerns, and to think of them as just economic institutions misses the point. . . . It is an article of faith: that members feel they belong to this group is very important. The institution does very important things for them.