Boldt, Richard C.

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And then there is the admissions function, which cominues to be run by a real professional in me person of Associate Dean for Admissions and Registration Jim Forsyth. T he competition for the best and brightest law students has reached new levels, and Gifford finds nothing so frustrating as seeing a bright and talemed Maryland resident leave the state, pay more money at a private institution and get a lesser education. "VelY few adminstrators in legal education," claims G ifford, "perform the dual role that Jim Forsyth has, both as me lead person in the admissions process and a leading administrator of our academic program in areas such as registration , the exam process and course scheduling." That is why, this year, the Dean brought Gary Wimbish on board to serve as Direcror of Admiss ions Programs. W imbish, formerly with the fin ancial aid offi ce at the Georgerown U niversiry Law School , will search for out-standing studems and help them fi nd the way ro the U niversiry of M aryland School of Law. The faculry plays an important role in the leader-ship of me Universiry of Maryland School of Law as well. Throughout me las t couple of decades, faculry committees have been chaired JD MAGAZINE SPRI NG 1999 20 by a wonderfully talemed and dedicated group of leaders wim familiar names like Quim, T omiinson, Reynolds and Bogen. Their wisdom and their dedication to the law school remain critical compo-nents of the school's success. Increasingly, however, facul ry committees are chaired by those who have joined me law school faculry more recently: H ellman, H offmann, Ifill, Singer and others. G ifford points especially to Professo r D eborah H ellman, who chairs the Facul ry Appointments Committee this year. "I put Deborah in that position because 1 knew that she per-sonally undersrood the values we were looking for in new fac ulry members- a commit-ment ro quali ry teaching and to quali ry scholarship ." Gifford continues, "I now realize that she is an adept and effective administrator as well ." T here is much that is new and different about this leadership team. It is younger, more racially diverse and a more gender-balanced group than ever before. But listen carefully ro what they say about quali ry education and caring fo r students, and you hear the echoes of former Dean Roger Howell. T heir aspirations for academic and intellectual excellence mirror me lessons of M ike Kelly. T he more things change, the more they stay the same. REMEMBERING ... Professor Marc Feldman BY PROFESSOR RICHARD BOLDT Professor Marc Feldman died last September, after more than a year-long battle wi m cancer. With his death at the age of 49, the Universiry of Maryland School of Law communiry, the world of legal education, and me legal services bar lost a unique lawyer/ teacher whose singular vision and enormous talents enriched all who knew him . Marc was my teaching partner at the law school. H e was also my dear friend. For a number of years, we jointly taught a first-year course entitled Legal Theory and Practice: Torts. For several consecutive summers, we took a house rogether at the Delaware shore, where we would repair ro work on our respective scholarly projects. The evenings were spent shar-ing what we had produced during me day, and, over good food and wine, we offered one anomer encouragement and honest criticism. 1 anl proud of me work that emerged from our collaborations. I "met" Marc in 1985-me year I began my law teach-ing career at a small law school in the Midwest. I remember me event clearly. 1 was at my desk working on a lesson plan, when rwo col-leagues rushed inro my office waving a copy of the Georgetown Law Journal They just read a remarkable essay entitled "Pedagogy and Politics," authored by Professors Marc Feldman and Jay Feinman, of me Rutgers School of Law in Camden, N .]. They insisted mat I put aside what I was working on to look at this most rare of all objects, a genuinely useful law review article. I rook "Pedagogy and Politics" home wim me mat evening and discovered in it the key elements that charac-terize all of Marc's work. At me very leas t, me article was a description of an experimental course that Professors Feldman and Feinman had taught at Rutgers. But, it was really much more. Importantly, it was a clarion call for a vision of teaching that I had not seen discussed by legal educators or attempted in law school classrooms. As Jay Feinman said in his remarks at Marc's memorial service at Westminster Hall on Oct. 7 , "Marc believed that students could learn, really learn, intensely and in a way that wo uld alter their lives. H e believed that students could excel, not just a few students, but many students, most stLldems. He believed mat we had the capaciry to teach mem or, better, to help them learn. T came to believe this, too, not just because the educational literature said so, but because I saw him over and over make a crucial difference in students' lives." Equally important, this article was an utterly uncom-promising analysis of what was wrong with standard legal education and what was required for effective learning. This refusal to compromise was apparent in the critique that Marc and Jay offered, as well as in the course they had constructed in response. For a junior faculty member without tenure to have staked out such a principled, and confronta-tional, position on central questions of legal education was an eye opener for me, and, I subsequently learned over the following months, for many other young law teachers throughout legal education. The third element appar-ent in Marc and Jay's article, which appeared again and again in Marc's work, was a deep belief in the transforma-tive potential of law practice. Marc knew that laws function more often than not against the interests of people in poverty, but he believed deeply that law could be a tool for achieving social justice, for helping people in need. The force of this conviction was palpable in Marc's early work, and it remained a guiding principle throughout his pro-fessionallife. Upon leaving Rutgers, Marc took his insights about teaching and law practice to California, where he served as managing attorney for a large legal services program. When the School of Law's then Dean Michael Kelly, Professor Michael Millemann and others at Maryland began casting about for national leaders to design and implement their new Legal Theory and Practice (L TP) curriculum in the late 1980s, it was only natural that Marc Feldman be among those they first sought. Marc accepted their offer and, along with Professors Barbara Bezdek and Alan Hornstein, was responsible for conceptualizing and nurturing the LTP enter-prise that helped move Maryland into the forefront of American law schools. During the next decade, Marc worked with scores of L TP students, and taught numerous others in the torts and criminal law coutses he offered. Speaking at his memorial service, Elizabeth Harris, one of Marc's last students, captured the feelings of many of those with whom he had worked when she said that Marc's teaching carried "lessons of self-reflection that never leave his students. It's that part of him that stays with us. He's right here with us making us ask those hard questions about ourselves, the decisions about how to use one's time and one's talents for others." For Marc, being a teacher was not a job, it was not a role that he assumed in the classroom and then shed when he left work at the end of the day. In everything that he undertook, his legal advo-cacy, his community work, his relationships with others, Marc was a teacher. As Dan Friedman, another of Marc's students who spoke at the memorial, put it: "Marc did not share with the legal academy its cramped definition of the job description of 'teacher. ' To Marc, each of the relationships he had with me- supervisor, mentor, co-author, friend, colleague-were just component parts of Marc's being a teacher. He was first, last and always a teacher. " Marc was also a scholar. Several years after arriving at Maryland, he published a groundbreaking article on the delivery of legal services to the poor. In this piece, he reviewed the history of federally funded legal services programs to identifY the roots of an institu-tional culture that he believed limited the potential of con-temporaty practice. Marc worked to develop courses and a practice focused on state constitutional law, which he viewed as an area of great untapped potential for public service lawyers. But perhaps most characteristical-ly, Marc devoted the majority of his time and attention in the last years of his life to the topic of public education. Indeed, in the year before he became ill, Marc spent his sabbatical leave teaching at fWO public high schools in poor neighborhoods in New York City. He also worked closely with a neighborhood school board, and created a library in one of the schools in which he taught. Marc's friends , colleagues, and students will never forget him. To ensure that future generations of law students at the University of Maryland will know of his work, the School of Law has established a memorial fund in his nanle. The Marc Feldman Memorial Fund will be devoted to encouraging students and recent graduates in their pur-suit of careers that provide legal services ro poor clients. Marc's effortS are already woven inro the essential fabric of our law school community. Those of us who were fortu-nate enough to spend time with him will always teach and learn and practice law dif-ferently as a consequence of his example and leadership. The establishment of a memo-rial fund in Marc's memory will serve to institutionalize this legacy and guarantee that Marc's work continues. Please contact the Development Office at 410-706-2070 if you would like to make a gift to this fund. 21 JD MAGAZINE SPRlNG 1999 

Remembering Professor Marc Feldman

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