A Dean of my acquaintance is fond of saying that every law school course should be a course in jurisprudence. No one ever put this precept into practice more fully than Frank Coker. Somehow, as our mutual colleague Leon Lipson once observed, Frank\u27s jurisprudence rode unusually close to the surface. Between his most specific statement and the most general philosophic premises underlying the statement there was a minimum of intermediate steps. And the few connecting links required were made to seem simple, even apparent. Frank\u27s mind was elegant, in the sense that a great mathematical proof is elegant