A REAL LIBERTARIAN MOMENT: HAPPY 75th BIRTHDAY TO UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW PROFESSOR RICHARD A. EPSTEIN*:
I am not the only person I know who affectionately refers to Richard as “the smartest person in the world,” and … well … we’re really not joking. There may be more lively minds out there somewhere. But I haven’t found them.
My alma mater, the University of Chicago Law School, will be celebrating Richard and his many accomplishments this weekend, and I hope to be on hand to help. I wrote this little recollection for the book the Law School is preparing for him:
It was late September, 1978—my first day of law school. Sure, I was a little scared. But mostly I was feeling confident … maybe even a little full of myself. I was a law student at the University of Chicago for goodness sake. What could be better?
I was going to defend the Constitution …
I was going to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream …
And I had a gorgeous leather briefcase to prove it.
The only problem on that sunny Hyde Park morning was that I hadn’t really worked out the details on all that justice stuff. But I would. I knew I would. The combination of the University of Chicago and that briefcase really seemed unbeatable.
Then came Richard Epstein, speaking rapidly and in perfectly formed paragraphs. His subject was the grand old case of Pierson v. Post. He took great delight in showing that I couldn’t even settle on the just solution to a dispute over a dead fox (with or without my wonderful briefcase). As for defending the Constitution, that would need to be put on hold … maybe even indefinitely.
That morning was the last time I remember feeling confident about anything.
Incidentally, I still have the briefcase. It’s the only remnant of my pre-Epstein self.
*Yes, I know that Richard’s primary affiliation these days is with New York University. But as a University of Chicago alumna I refuse to acknowledge it.