It doesn’t take much to get a lawyer talking about his law school professors.  During that three-year law school experience, the law professors were bigger than life.  I have heard so many times a lawyer tell me, “I don’ think anybody can match the cast of characters I had as law professors.”  After hearing that often enough, I decided that maybe my situation wasn’t unique.  But, then I thought, they didn’t have Rosie the Goose or the Gray Fox.

Professor Anderson was referred to as Rosie the Goose.  It may have had to do with the way his head moved up and down when he talked – or perhaps the high pitched squawks that came out while he explained a point.  He taught Remedies and I never figured out what he was getting at.  One day while we were waiting for him to arrive, a third year student stepped to the front of the classroom and put a large egg in the professor’s seat.  I suspected it was a goose egg, but don’t know that I had ever seen one.  It was clearly too large to be a chicken egg.  The student ducked into the back of the room and in came Rosie.

He stopped as he got to his seat.  I guess examining the seat before sitting comes from years of teaching experience.  He starred at the egg.  There were snickers running around the room.  Not me.  I was holding my breath and hoping nothing bad would happen to me as a member of the irreverent class.  Rosie picked up the egg and examined it.  He then exclaimed in his high pitched voice, “I presume this was laid by the last professor.”  The class roared and that seemed to please Rosie.  When the class finally settled down, we returned to the study of law.

Professor William H. Pittman was the Gray Fox.  He was very distinguished looking with gray to white hair and mustache.  By the time I was a student, we probably should have called him the White Fox.  But, in fact, he was universally known just as the Fox.

The Fox taught first year Contracts.  It was a six hour course – three hours the first semester and three hours the second semester.  The problem was there was only one exam and it came at the end of the year.  So you would go the entire year without knowing how you were doing (Torts was the same).  It made for a long anxious year.

The Fox, like most professors of that time, used the Socratic method of teaching.  He would call on a student to recite on a particular case and then pose questions to the student until the student was unable to construct a thought.  When he called on me I was clueless.  The issue was what constitutes the acceptance to an offer.  I had done my homework.  I knew the facts.  I knew the court’s rationale.  And, further, I knew that the present day law was consistent with the court’s opinion.  But, the Fox kept showing me that the court’s opinion didn’t make sense.  I would agree with him.  Then, he would ask me what the present day law was and we would start the cycle over again.  Finally, he called on someone else.  I felt foolish, but relieved.

The Fox also could lean way back in his chair and while looking at the chalk board upside down, write clearly.  It didn’t help.  Contracts just didn’t make any sense.  We were told by upperclassmen that we would wake up on Easter morning and it would all become clear.  Easter came and went.  Nothing was clear.  How far could I get with “a contract consists of an offer, an acceptance and consideration?”

I went to see Professor Pittman.  I think I told him that while I was preparing everyday, it just wasn’t coming together for me.  He was very pleasant and we talked for about twenty minutes (he talking – me listening).  I think what he was telling me was that he considered his role in the classroom not to teach me Contracts, but to teach me how to think.  The problem was the the final exam would expect me to know Contracts.  I went out and bought a Contracts hornbook.

Sometime toward the end of the second semester, I was shocked when I heard a student tell the Fox, “Professor, that doesn’t make any sense.”  I never heard the Fox raise his voice.  He just quietly said, “What do you mean?”  The student said, “If the facts are one way and you get the results of this case, then if you change all the facts to the other way, you will get the opposite result.”  The Fox said, “Can you give me an example?”  The student paused, then said, “If you have a force moving in one direction and you get one result, then, if the force moves in exactly the opposite direction, you will get exactly the opposite result.”  The Fox smiled and said, “Try that on the door when you leave.”  The door only opened in one direction.

As I said earlier, I never heard the Fox raise his voice.  Plus, he would write on the board without leaving his chair.  His lay back approach to teaching law was noted when, in my second year, the students put on a “light opera” spoofing the faculty.  Here is what we sang about the Fox.  “Conserving strength for the days ahead, teaching all his law, like he’s tucked in bed.”

I graduated with very close to a “B” average.  But I never fooled the Fox.  He gave me all “C’s.”