Those Lovable, Quirky Professors

–Law School Story from Tony Arseneault, Université Laval’s Faculty of Law (Quebec, Canada), Date of event: 2011

In 2011, I was at my first session at Université Laval’s Faculty of Law, when I had the pleasure to meet the teacher that changed my perception of constitutional law forever: Patrick Taillon.

I come from the province of Quebec, Canada. As you may or may not know, Quebec is a civil law (French law) province when it comes to private law, and common law (English law) when it comes to public law. Essentially, all subjects like Contracts, Civil Liability or Property Law are in the realm of civil law, with everything that entails.

Since these classes are based around the mastery of the Civil Code, there is really no place for the Socratic method. Classes are taught for the most part with long lectures and minimal student intervention. This way of teaching law, common in purely civilist countries, bleeds over to the teaching of common law subjects. That means there is also no Socratic method in our common law classes, like Constitutional Law.

Thus, since teachers can’t entertain themselves at our expense through Socratic dialogues, and since teaching law in the civilist manner is, frankly, pretty boring, some of them choose to go the other way around: they entertain us.

Mr. Taillon has a pretty … unique way to do that for such a learned legal scholar. He laced his classes with sexual references to drive home points in a memorable way.

Two examples:

—Trying to teach us about the separation of powers (which is much less defined in Canada than it is in the United States) and checks and balances, his explanation went like this: “Essentially, the three branches are brothers and sisters and they have an incestuous triangle going on. They screw each other all the time.”

—Teaching us about article 56.1 of the Canada Elections Act, a disposition that removes the power from the Governor General to choose the date of the elections while saying that nothing in the article removes power from the GG: “This is like a rapist yelling ‘THIS IS NOT A RAPE’ while he’s doing it.”

All the while, he kept telling us what a “crappy country” we live in, because a huge part of the Constitution is unwritten and how our constitutional system is “done very badly” and “makes no sense.”

To this day, I only have to remember the sexual innuendo of the class to access everything he taught in class, filed neatly in a mental drawer. His enthusiasm for the subject is contagious. He always gave us a ton of laughs in a subject that really isn’t straightforward. He made me decide to focus more on Constitutional Law in the future.

–From Ross C. Hart, Law school: University of Virginia School of Law, Date of event: 1974

In 1974, I was a first year student at the University of Virginia School of Law. I was taking Family Law (now more politically correctly called “Domestic Relations”) with Prof. Walter Wadlington. Class was the first class of the day at 9:00 am.

One Monday morning, at about 9:05, we were discussing the requirements for a valid marriage. The professor said “Consummation of a marriage is actually not part of the requirements for a valid marriage. Frankly, and I hate to say this so early on a Monday morning, ‘consummation of marriage’ is not a legal term, it is a, well, lay term ….”

–From Edward M. ‘Ted’ McClure, Campbell University School of Law, Date of event: Spring 1980

It was half-way through our second semester, and Professor (later Dean) Pat Hetrick was running us through some truly obtuse Property II issue. He is a wonderfully entertaining teacher, but it was after lunch and after mid-terms and we were all brain-dead.

He fires off a question and looks for a volunteer to answer. Nothing. Silence. A hundred blank expressions. He asks again, with no better result. After a moment, he dashes out from behind the podium, sits in an empty seat in the first row, and starts jumping up and down yelling “I know, teacher! I know, Professor Hetrick!”. After about 20 seconds of this, he dashes back to the podium, looks over at the (now empty) seat, and says, “I think I’ll call on that smart kid in the first row.” Then he dashes back to the seat, sits down, stands up, and starts “reciting” the answer, while we laugh madly.

–From James Un, University of Kansas School of Law, Date of event: 2006

I attend the University of Kansas School of Law. Second-year Constitutional Law was taught by a professor known for asking endless series of hypothetical questions about cases. One day, he was doing lectures on obscenity. He apparently enjoyed doing these lectures because it gave him an opportunity to say certain four-letter words.

The unfortunate victim of his “rolling boulder” method of questioning on this particular day was a person who everyone except the professor knew was devoutly religious.

On a screen, the prof had projected a link to 2LiveCrew lyrics, as well as a list of songs from one of their albums.

So he asked the deeply religious student, “So what do you think about this song title? Is this obscenity given the test in Miller?” And the student replied, “Well, that depends. In my opinion, yes.”

The professor continued, “I’m going to read some lyrics from the song.” And he began to spout out, much to the student’s chagrin and embarrassment, lyrics laced with sexual references and more four-letter words. That was amusing in of itself, seeing a balding white guy in a black turtleneck reciting 2LiveCrew lyrics.

Let’s just say that the student was not enjoying this line of questioning, especially when it continued in this vein for about ten minutes.

The class was cracking up and laughing and the professor was not exactly sure why. Why was it so funny? I guess you could say that it was a little bit of everything. A white professor rapping offensive lyrics to a prim and proper student who was wishing it was all over.

–From Troy Pickard, University of San Diego School of Law, Date of event: Fall 2004

In our first semester Criminal Law course, we were discussing Regina v. Dudley, the infamous case where three men adrift on a lifeboat cannibalized a 17-year-old cabin boy. My classmates and I still talk about a very simple, yet incredibly profound statement made by our Criminal Law professor, Kevin Cole, that forever cleared up the meaning for us of the term “prima facie”:

“Prima facie,” Professor Cole said, “it’s bad to eat a person while they’re still alive.”

With such pithy insight, it’s no wonder Professor Cole is now USD’s law school dean.

–From Steve Cumbie, Southern Methodist University School of Law, Date of event: Fall 2003

As those who are familiar with his casebook on bankruptcy law already know, Professor David Epstein is always good for a few laughs. Two years ago in my first-year Property class, we were discussing the dreaded Rule Against Perpetuities.

Professor Epstein asked for a volunteer to determine whether a particular conveyance was valid. “Anyone? Anyone?” he asked a room full of people desperately trying to avoid eye contact.

After several seconds of very awkward silence in which it became quite obvious that no one had a clue, someone’s cell phone rang. Without missing a beat, Professor Epstein quipped, “Didn’t realize this was a call-in show. Maybe they know the answer. Put it on speaker.”

–From Jody R. Nathan, University of Oklahoma College of Law, Date of event: 1982.

I started law school at the University of Oklahoma in 1982. One of the crusty old law professors was George Frazier; nicknamed “the Tiger.” He taught civil procedure (and was instrumental in getting Oklahoma’s new pleading code drafted along the lines of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) and Remedies. He was a great guy with a deep gravelly voice. In Remedies one day, the subject of loss of consortium came up. One of my classmates asked him “How do you figure loss of consortium damages? Is it the cost of comparable services?” He laughed and said, “Well, (pause) yes, (pause) I guess that’s one way you could figure it.” (McClurg note: Traditionally, a primary component of loss of consortium damages was loss of a spouse’s sexual “services.”)

In the first week of Civil Procedure, demurrers were being discussed. I asked a question and mispronounced demurrer as demure. He responded, “Well, (pause) Ms. Nathan (pause) demure is, (pause) well, what young ladies OUGHT to be.” Needless to say, I never mispronounced the word again.

My Torts professor, Peter Kutner, also had a sly sense of humor. One day, he was explaining the idea that the law does not provide remedies for slights — and gave us a Latin phrase de minimus non curat lex. To help us remember it, he also provided a limerick:

There once was a man named Rex

Who had a very small sex

He kept his composure

During indecent exposure

De minimus non curat lex.

I have remembered both the term and the limerick ever since.

–From Andy Martinez, University of Wisconsin Law School, Date of event: Fall 2003

During a lecture in my first year Civil Procedure class at the University of Wisconsin, my professor, who had a reputation for being slightly wacky, received a call on her cell phone. She stopped mid-sentence, looked through her purse, pulled out her cell phone, and answered the call and then hung up. She apologized, saying she didn’t know how to turn the phone from ring to vibrate.

Later in the semester, she was giving another lecture, and the cell phone goes off again. She took it out, and looked at it. She said she had to take the call, and everyone in the lecture hall looked at each other, thinking “Is she serious?” So the professor goes out of the room and starts talking.

What she apparently forgot, or didn’t care about, is that she was wearing a wireless microphone so that she could be heard in the lecture hall. So everyone in the class is listening in on her side of the conversation. It turns out that the phone call that was so important she had to take it during class wasn’t about some important case or anything like that, but about her dog’s visit to a vet! She came back, and the class sat, stunned.

–From Name withheld upon request, Michigan State University College of Law, Date of events: Fall 2002

Here are two stories about our Contracts professor. The first situation was in Fall 2002, and the professor was talking about offer and acceptance. He used the example of college house painters who knock on your door and ask if they can paint your house. The professor gave several examples of what your response would be if it were your house and what that response constitutes.

For example, if the house painters say they’ll paint your house for $200, and you say, “OK, paint the house,” that constitutes an offer and acceptance. If the house painters say they’ll paint your house for $200, and you say “How about $150?”, that constitutes a offer and counteroffer.

He was using this quiz method on a girl in my class and when he got to the third example, the professor said, “The house painters come to your house and say they’ll paint it for $200. You say ‘Screw you!’ What does this constitute?” The girl said, “counteroffer”, and the class broke into laughter. The professor just stopped until the laughing subsided and while he laughed a little himself. He said that he wasn’t going to call on her for the rest of the semester. I’m not sure he followed through with that offer, though.

The second situation was in the same class with the same professor. Throughout the year, the professor liked to use a “panel” where three or so students would be called on for the entire class. There were a few students who he later put onto “permanent panel” if they weren’t prepared.

On this day, he was explaining how the system would work, and a kid walked in late to our lecture hall. The way the hall is designed is there are two doors that separate the middle of the room with a walkway –it’s stadium seating. The kid walked in late through one of the doors, and the professor said, “Well, it looks like you’ll be on the panel today.” The kid just shook his head and walked right through the other door.

The class started applauding, and the professor asked what his name was. No one told him. The professor just shook his head and continued with class.

–From John Schrier, University of Maryland School of Law, Date of event: 1982

I’m not sure if its in the realm of “you had to be there,” but here’s a story from Advanced Constitutional Law, taught by “Wild” Bill Reynolds, author of a Nutshell book. This was my third course with him, in my last year and last day of law school back in 1982. Wild Bill had long been known to sketch a picture of a rabbit in a hat whenever a student brought an argument from out of left field.

I’d often reminded him that I hadn’t yet pulled a rabbit out of my hat. Unbeknownst to Wild Bill, I’d been working my way through college and law school as a magician. So on the last day of school, I made sure to bring a point from left field. He laughed, sketched the hat and rabbit, and pointed out that I’d really pulled a rabbit out of that one.

I smiled, removed my cap, and produced therefrom “Buck-Buck,” the baby white rabbit I’d been using in some magic shows.