Best professor you've ever had and why

Hanna
Mon, 07 Aug 2017 20:38:40 +0000

I’ll grab any chance to honor the late William Stuntz of Harvard Law School. We lost him way too soon.

Just last week, my husband, a non-lawyer, saw the news about Bob Mueller and asked me what a grand jury is. My mind went straight back to a fall 2000 class and Prof. Stuntz explaining why we have grand juries and why their work is secret. I could remember him saying that back in the middle ages, a grand jury was basically the men in a small town getting together privately and asking, “Anyone seen Joe’s horse?” It’s a holdover from a time when everyone knew each other. You would never design a justice system this way for the world we live in now, but it makes sense when you understand where it came from.

That’s a great teacher. I haven’t needed this information in 15 years, but the minute it came up, I could hear Prof. Stuntz and his lesson.