Sunday, September 9, 2007

Death of Emeritus Professor Mermin Saddens School

The University of Wisconsi Law School reported on the death of Samuel Mermin.
A memorial service for Professor Mermin will be held at Yale Law School on Sunday, September 9, 2007, at 11 a.m.

(He was a Yale graduate.) He lead the orientation program when I started law school. We used his book, Law and the Legal System (1973).

I've heard it said that sometimes young schoolkids start learning about ethics using dilemmas, rather than examples of heroic virtues ala The Lives of the Saints. Law student orientation spent a lot of time on interpretation, most memorably summarized as how sometimes "may" can mean "shall" and "shall" can mean "may". If there are lawyers exemplifying heroic virtue, they weren't cited in "orienting" us.

No comments:

Post a Comment