The first day of law school is always intimidating. It doesn’t matter how old you are – and I was one of the oldest in my class – the first day of school is always one of the toughest. You don’t know what to expect. Sure, most of us rented “The Paper Chase,” but nobody is ever sure of whether all the stories about the Socratic method and hard-nosed professors will be true, or if they’re just stories designed to haze the noobs.
On my first day, I remember we had Lawyering Skills – basically your intro to being a lawyer class – and Civil Procedure. CivPro is one of those classes that many 1Ls dread, because unlike things like Contracts, Property, Con Law, Torts and the like, nobody but a practicing attorney really has any contact with civil procedure. It’s the legal equivalent of a foreign language.
That’s the day I first met Steve Goldman. When he walked in the classroom, he looked like a lawyer. He didn’t look like the image of the law school professor I had imagined. He came in, introduced himself, pointed to a stack of syllabi and told us the syllabus was on the internet. After squinting at us for a few seconds (I later learned he had a history of eye trouble over the years), he told us he had two rules: no eating in class and no cell phones.
And then he taught a class. First day. No waiting, no going over the syllabus, no wasting time talking about how he graded or letting us out early. He expected us to be lawyers. I took three pages of single spaced notes that day.
Steve was the quintessential lawyer turned law school professor. He was blunt, but cheerful. He was no nonsense, but not cruel. He was never afraid of telling somebody they were wrong, and the worse the answer, the shorter the response from him would be. I recall within the first few months of class he asked the class a question, and I raised my hand to answer it.
I gave what I thought was a thoughtful, cogent response to his question. He didn’t even wait a beat.
“No.”
And then he went to someone else.
And you know what? We respected the hell out of him for it. Here was a professor who treated us like peers, expected the most from us, and he generally got it. And he wasn’t just some academic – he’d clerked for John Paul Stevens, he’d been a businessman, and he’d spent an entire career litigating tough insurance case against some of the toughest opponents – like Lloyds of London – out there. He was an expert on litigation and on professional ethics. He had more war stories about lawyering, both in court and out, than anybody I knew. I could have listened for hours as he told us anecdotes – all within the confines of Rule 1.6, of course.
He and I got a long well – we were both sports fans, and he loved giving me a hard time about the Redskins, especially after Mike Shanahan got hired as head coach. As a former Denver resident (and long time Steelers fan, as Reid Brooks reminded me recently) he wasted no time telling me how horrible Shanahan was going to be without John Elway. He was right, as usual.
I ended up taking three more classes with Steve, including a very tough-to-get-into advanced pre-trial litigation class, over the next four years (night school gets an extra year), and he and I became friends. He was my de facto faculty adviser over my law school career. He was the only professor whose office hours I attended, mainly to get career advice. When I considered transferring after my first year, he talked me out of it. He was right, as usual, a fact he reminded me of on more than one occasion before I graduated.
I still can remember slaving away while editing a handful of pages of one of his articles while I was one of a handful of night students on Law Review. The article, on the “anti-false testimony principle and ethical preparation of witnesses in depositions,” was the bane of my existence for a few months in 2010, and Steve loved giving me a hard time about it.
When a few colleagues and I had a problem with one of our other professors, he was who we went to talk to. When I had tough legal questions, especially ethical ones, he was the first person I turned to. Steve was somebody everybody at Catholic knew and respected, even if his classes kicked our butts. We knew we would learn, and that learning would help us pass the bar and actually be able to do the job we were training for.
After graduation, he was one of the few professors I stayed in touch with. That last time we chatted over email, I was telling him about my travails in local politics in Fairfax. I suggested we get lunch, and after teasing me about my Republican politics, he wrote this:
“But let’s by all means get together for lunch. I’d love to talk about politics and law and stuff with you.
ATB,
Steve”
Time got away from us and we never did get that lunch.
I learned last night that he passed away from a heart attack. He was 67.
He leaves behind a wife, a storied career, the respect of his colleagues, and an entire generation of lawyers who went through Catholic University and learned civil procedure, ethics, how to depose a witness, conflicts of laws and a host of other subjects from him. I know today that I’m a better person, and a better lawyer, for having known him. He guided me through one of the toughest time periods of my life, from starting law school, getting married, having a kid, graduating, running for office and passing the bar. I owe him more than I could have ever repaid. I wish I had more time to try.
Rest in peace, Professor.
