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Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Dan Meltzer's Fed Courts
Thanks to Marty for the lovely – and spot
on – recollection of Harvard Law Professor Dan Meltzer, in the face of the terribly
sad news of his death. It was my great
privilege to have met Dan Meltzer first as my teacher some years back, in his brilliant
course on Federal Courts. The course was
for me the most challenging of law school, a first introduction to fundamental
questions of the power of the federal courts, the role of habeas corpus, the nature
of state sovereignty. It was an
intellectual feast, a treat apparent at the time. What I could not appreciate
then was how invaluable Dan’s teaching would be in every professional
experience I’ve had since – as a clerk reviewing habeas petitions,
as a practicing attorney representing a client in litigation against the state,
as a human rights lawyer assessing the scope of Congress’ ability to restrict
the scope of judicial review in terrorism cases post-9/11, most recently as a
law professor introducing my own students to first principles of federal
power. How many times since law school have I found myself asking, what has Dan Meltzer said about this? It is only a small measure of his impact. But having him as a teacher was an extraordinary gift, so insightful he was at marrying his work at the height
of theory with the reality of law as lived. What a set of contributions he
made. What a loss for us all.