Joel K. Goldstein, the Newly Named Vincent C. Immel Professor of Law, Expresses His Gratitude for the Professorship, and Shares His Remembrances in a Moving Speech Dedicated to the Man Whose Inspiration Touched an Entire Legal Community

Learning from a Legend

I was hired by Saint Louis University School of Law in 1994 because Professor Vince Immel was going to visit the following year at Roger Williams, and the law school needed someone to teach his Contracts course. For the last 11 years I have been a law professor. As a law professor, I confess that I enjoy working on my scholarship as much as the next person. Research and writing helps my teaching because it is a way I learn new things. And faculty scholarship helps to enhance the national reputation of the University and law school consistent with the aspirations Father Biondi and Dean Lewis have set for us.

But ultimately I am a teacher. That’s where I must earn my paycheck; that’s how my students do and should measure me. One of the strengths of our law school is the emphasis it places on teaching. Our great dean teaches two heavy courses, on top of everything else that he does — probably more than any other dean in the country. And the fact that the Atrium, a scholarship, and now this professorship, are named for our greatest teacher provides tangible evidence of the weight the institution places on teaching.

Teaching law allows me to affirm some of my most basic faiths — a belief in the legal system, a belief that it can be improved and a belief that law and lawyers can make a difference in perfecting the world in which we live. Teaching law is an exercise in optimism, grounded in the belief that law is worth conveying, premised in the faith that each new generation can improve upon what it has received.

If anyone here doubts the difference a teacher can make, simply scan this room to see all of the students of Vince Immel who have returned today to honor him. For 46 years Vince taught at our School. Many years he taught both sections of Contracts, and he taught a 3L Remedies course. Vince taught virtually all graduates of this law school from 1958 to 2004. He taught a large percentage of those who practice in this town. I recall vividly one of my Contracts students telling me that he was going to take Vince’s Remedies course his last semester, even though doing so meant he’d have to wait by the phone until noon on hooding day to see if he would graduate. He told me he felt cheated that he hadn’t had Vince for Contracts. The impact that Vince has had as a teacher on the way law is practiced in this town is simply extraordinary. I suspect no other law teacher has so influenced legal practice in any major city anywhere in the United States. If Yankee Stadium is the house that Ruth built, the St. Louis legal community is in large part the bar that Immel trained and taught.

I am told that in the late 1980s, early in the first semester of Contracts, Vince called on a student to answer a question in class. The student had spent some years in the military before coming to law school. The question, as Vince’s questions did, called for rigorous analysis, not simply a yes or no answer. But it was early in the first semester and the student replied, simply, “yes.” “Yes what?” Vince probed. “Yes sir,” the student replied.

That was not the response Vince wanted or expected, and Vince dissolved in laughter as he has each time I have retold that story in his presence over the past decade.
Yet it was a right answer. The student didn’t know much about Contracts or legal problem solving, but he had already figured out that Vince was special — Vince was “sir,” because he was going to teach that student to be a lawyer.

When I left law practice to begin teaching, my wife, Maxine, bought me a coffee mug with a message she thought would help me adjust to my new line of work. It featured a drawing of a disheveled looking guy, struggling out of bed as the sun rises outside his window. He is reading a large sign nailed to his wall which says: “First the pants. Then your shoes.”

I have found this advice to be helpful, and most mornings I remember to follow it. The pants first, then shoes strategy helps get me to class on time in some semblance of order, but it does little or nothing to ensure success in the classroom. A surer road to success as a teacher is to find a master teacher and try to pick up some of the tricks of the trade from him or her. My former Constitutional Law professor, John Hart Ely, dedicated his great book, Democracy and Distrust, as follows to the person for whom he clerked: “To Earl Warren — You don’t need many heroes if you choose carefully.” So it is with teaching models — you don’t need many if you choose wisely. For me the choice is easy — Vince Immel.

I don’t mean to suggest that I do, or should, or could imitate Vince’s inimitable style. In fact, Vince would be the first, and was the first, to advise me to teach in the way that was most comfortable for me. He made that point to me shortly after I was hired. After accepting the job here, I thought I should meet this legendary Professor Immel and see what he had to say about teaching Contracts. So I called Vince and he suggested we have lunch at Humphrey’s. That first meeting was typical of dealing with Vince over the past 11 years. He listened more than he spoke, offered help and advice only when it was sought, and then deferentially, and made it clear to me that I should teach the course however I thought best, not how he thought best.

None of us will ever approach the impact Vince has had on graduates of this law school. But we can make ourselves better teachers by following some lessons implicit in his approach, and I want to say a few words today regarding some lessons I have learned from Vince’s example.

First, Vince had a vision of his course. He was most famous for teaching Contracts, but I don’t think Vince ever thought he was teaching primarily the rules and principles of Contracts. Rather, Vince used Contracts to teach students how to solve legal problems, how to think like lawyers. Second, Vince had a vision of the role of the teacher. He was not an answer-giver, a spoonfeeder or a curriculum coverer. Instead, he believed the role of the teacher was to prepare students to function on their own when the teacher was not there, to make students independent, not dependent. Of course, it’s tempting and it’s easier to give the answers or simply cover the syllabus than it is to follow the course Vince set. It’s also counter-productive. Vince often cites to Dean Prosser’s wonderful article, “Light House No Good.” Dean Prosser wrote of the man who watched the fog roll in on the Oregon coast. The man berated the lighthouse because although it blew its whistle and flashed its light and generally raised all hell, the fog came in just the same. Vince understood that the role of the law professor was not to dissipate every fog, but to help students develop the tools that would help them navigate through the fog that is the inherent nature of law.

Third, Vince set high standards. He set the bar high to challenge students to reach their potential. Vince did not praise mediocrity, nor did he let students escape with answers that shouldn’t fly in court. My colleague, Tonie FitzGibbon, wrote of her own experience in Vince’s Contracts class. As she watched Vince puncture the “perfectly reasonable responses” of some of her classmates, she got “that ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore’ feeling.” As some of you may recall, Vince demanded those high standards on exams as well as in class. I was reminded of that fact a decade ago when, after a weekend makeup session for my Contracts students, I encountered a man in the lobby outside the library. Seeing my Contracts book, he told me he had graduated from our law school some years earlier and asked who now taught Contracts. I ran through the list, closing with “Professor Immel.” “Oh, Immel’s still teaching Contracts,” he said. “I never worked so hard in my life for two Ds.”

Fourth, Vince cared about his students. I wish I had a $1 for every time I have had the following conversation upon meeting a member of the bar. “What do you do?” they ask. “I teach at Saint Louis University School of Law.” “Oh, I went there. Is Professor Immel still teaching?” Or “How is Professor Immel?” Or “Dean Immel.” When I would next see Vince I would tell him who I had seen and what he or she had said. Although there was only one of him and thousands of you, Vince always remembered something about the person whose name I mentioned. On one occasion I reported back to Vince that I had met someone in one of his early classes from the late 1950s or early 1960s. “Wasn’t he the pharmacist?” Vince asked. He was.

Or take the testimony of Henry Lay from a tribute he wrote to Vince several years ago. I can’t improve on Mr. Lay’s words, so here they are:

"Sometime around the third semester of my law school days, Dean Immel sought me out and inquired about my financial prospects for the upcoming semester. (Tuition in those days was about $450 per semester — not credit hour). Not surprisingly, I was short. He explained that he had access to a “fund” (ambiguity by Dean Immel for a purpose) designed to help in cases like this. From then on, through my matriculation, at the beginning of each semester, I would tell him what I needed and the money would be delivered to me in cash — no promissory notes, no loan applications, just the portion of the tuition dollars I wasn’t able to provide.

Dean Immel and I in those student days were not friends. He was a somewhat remote and awesome teacher better viewed from a safe distance. I was so young and callow that it took a few semesters for me to realize that the “fund” was Dean Immel’s personal financial assets. That anonymous and almost bashful generosity of spirit is a wonderful cornerstone to use in building a successful life.”

Fifth, Vince was dedicated to teaching. I have often heard professionals say that they love their work so much they would do it for free. I have only met one person who practiced that sentiment. Vince retired in 1990, but continued to teach, for free, for another 14 years. His dedication was put to the test one day a few years ago. Upon leaving morning mass, Vince found that his car would not start. But he had an 8 a.m. class to teach and time was getting short. Vince charged across the street, stopped a car going the way he needed to go, and persuaded the somewhat surprised woman at the wheel to take him to 3700 Lindell. Vince arrived seconds before class was to start. There was no time to get his book, but Vince had taught the cases before so he went directly to class. Class over, he returned to get his car.

I certainly don’t mean to suggest that by following these five lessons anyone can become a Vince Immel. We tend sometimes to simplify in description the work of the masters. It’s one thing to know how Vince did it, it’s an entirely different thing to be able to do it. It reminds me of a comment Stan Musial made years ago when he, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were honored as the only then living members of the 3000 hit club. Musial was the last speaker that night and when it came his turn, he said, “You know, people have said lots of things tonight about what it takes to get 3000 hits. They’ve said you have to stay healthy and play a long time. That’s true. They’ve said you have to have some good hitters around you so they can’t pitch around you. That’s true. They’ve said you have to be lucky. That’s true. But there’s one other thing it takes to get 3000 hits. You’ve got to be awfully good.” Like Stan the Man, Vince was awfully good.

Vince elected to make his contribution by teaching students, not writing articles. Having read Vince’s work I hope he will now spend some time writing about the law. His articles were clear and direct and accessible and helpful to lawyers and scholars alike. His essay, “Use of the Contracts Courses as a Vehicle for Teaching Problem Solving,” is a masterful guide to teaching a first year course, one of the best contributions to our law journal’s “Teaching Contracts” issue. And he wrote with some flair. Vince closed his tribute to Dean McDonough as follows:

"On June 27, 1993, the Saint Louis University School of Law lost one of its founding fathers and I lost one of my dearest friends. I look forward to the day when we meet again on some distant cloud. By then I am certain Mac will be comfortably settled in his new home, which is certain to be located in the smoking section of our heavenly abode.”

Finally, I could not ask for a more kind or considerate or helpful colleague than Vince has been to me. My secretary, Mary Dougherty, who does so much and is so important to me, came in after retyping my remarks. She said, “Professor Immel comes in every day to say hello to the secretaries. He’s just a warm, fuzzy teddy bear!”

In conclusion, I have been awfully fortunate in my life. My parents, Milton and Merle Goldstein, gave me the love and example and parental time and opportunities and guidance that few people receive. My sister, Deborah, and brothers, Ken and Alan, have been kind and generous and forgiving and wonderful companions and friends. When I married Maxine Lipeles 25 years ago, I married way above me — one of the really wonderful people on the planet. Our two children, Rachel and Josh, teach me more than they learn from me. Maxine and I have wonderful family and friends, some of whom are here today. It’s a special pleasure for me that two of our close friends, Tim Greaney and Alan Weinberger, work a few doors down the hall. I have had wonderful models in the law — my father who loved and understood the law in all of its dimensions and conveyed that sense to us; my wife, who has created a pioneering Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic which teaches students while addressing problems that threaten all of us; Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr., for whom I clerked, a man who became the most controversial man in Boston because he understood the Constitution to require that African-American students have a right to equal schools; my former law partners Elmer Price and Gary T. Sacks, who showed me how to practice law and who practiced law with the greatest skill, professionalism and ethics; friends like John Feerick and Harold Hongju Koh, who set the highest standards in their leadership, their scholarship and professional contributions; Senator Thomas Eagleton, my partner in our seminar on the Presidency and the Constitution, a profile in courage who put fidelity to the Constitution over partisan loyalty in opposing the War Powers Resolution; and, of course, Vince. The great law professor, Paul A. Freund, once said:

"[I]f you are at all like me, when you have difficult decisions to make you see the head of one of your professors over your shoulder, and you listen to his advice and his counsel. I think that no greater tribute can be paid to a former teacher than to see him as a head everlastingly over your shoulder.”

I suspect many of you have occasions when you see Vince there “everlastingly over your shoulder.” I was never in Vince’s class, but I trust it is implicit in what I have said that he has been and is my teacher, too. No one deserves to be the Vincent C. Immel Professor of Law, certainly not me, but I will hasten to accept this great privilege before you reconsider. I will wear the medallion with great pride and I will draw inspiration from the great honor of having my name associated with his.