The Joy of Teaching Law Students and Young Lawyers

I recently judged a law school national trial advocacy competition at Chicago Kent Law School. I was a Clinical Professor at the school from 1979 to 1999 . I worked with students in a criminal defense clinic. I also taught one of the regular Evidence classes. 

This is a picture with Ana and John Montelongo. John was one of my clinic students in 1991. He is still a practicing attorney. Ana, his daughter is a Cook County Public Defender. She is also the Associate Director of Trial Advocacy at Chicago-Kent. 

The experience also permitted me to reflect on my career as a lawyer. When I graduated law school in 1968, I wanted to help create the “ best of all possible worlds.” I wanted to help litigate injustice out of existence and to use the law as an instrument for fundamental social change. Now, given the direction our society is heading, my aims are more modest. I want to help create the “ Best of all worlds POSSIBLE.” Like Voltaire’s character, Candice, whose aims changed throughout the book, I also want to tend my own garden. But my garden consists of my family, working with young lawyers on pro bono matters, and keeping in touch with former students like John, and meeting his daughter who is still fighting the good fight as a public defender.