BurtLaw on Law and Love

BurtLaw on Law and Love
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Announcement. We've finally gotten around to launching our new webzine/blawg: BurtLaw's The Daily Judge:

It is not an online newspaper and is not affiliated with or intended to be mistaken for any existing or previously-existing newspaper or journal. Rather, it is a so-called "blawg," a law-related personal "web log" or "blog," one with a subjective, idiosyncratic, and eccentric sociological and social-psychological slant that focuses not on the latest judicial decisions of supposed great importance but on a) the institution of judge in the United States and in other countries throughout the world, b) the judicial office and role, c) judicial personalities, d) the great common law tradition of judging as practiced here and throughout the world, e) judges as judges, f) judges as ordinary people with the usual mix of virtues and flaws, etc. We link to newspapers and other sources in order to alert the reader to ideas, articles, stories, speeches, law books, literary works and other things about "judges" that have interested us and that may interest the reader.

We don't promote our blawgs, but readers of this blog and of our affiliated political opinion blog, BurtonHanson.Com, may be interested in it. We don't think there is another blawg quite like it.

Psychology's laws of love. "The meeting between lover and beloved is heart to heart...an exchange of imaginations. When we fall in love we begin to imagine romantically, fiercely, wildly, madly...And when we imagine strongly, we begin to fall in love with the images conjured before the heart's eye...." James Hillman, The Soul's Code 147 (1996).

Some good novels and a novella about law students and lawyers in love.

--Love Story, by Erich Segal (1970) (Oliver Barrett IV, blue-blooded, brainy jock, Harvard '64, Harvard Law '67, BRH's class, meets beautiful, feisty Jennifer Cavilleri, "an American of Italian descent," Radcliffe '64, they fall in love, get married despite his parents' disapproval, he gets high-paying $11,800-a-year job with big NYC law firm, she gets leukemia, dies).

--The Paper Chase, by John Jay Osborn, Jr. (1971) (Circa 1970, a first year Harvard Law School student from Minnesota named Hart falls in love with the more mature but wordly, cynical and mysterious Susan, who turns out to be the daughter of the brilliant but icy Professor Kingsfield, pre-eminent expert on contracts law).

--A Year in Mid-Air, by John Casey (1972), published in Redbook's Famous Fiction 56 (1977) (Harriet, a sweet, shy, pretty girl with "soft features...high, smooth forehead and...pale, fine hair," makes the law review, then asks her study-mate, stuttering Harry, to marry her and live happily ever after).

--The Associates, by John Jay Osborn, Jr. (1979) (Young male Harvard Law grad joins prestigious NYC law firm as associate, meets and falls in love with "serious, small, blond and snappy" associate, Camilla Newman; the path of true love they take, of course. does not run smooth but eventually, of course, leads to bliss as partners in their own firm and on their presumably firm mattress).

--The Man Who Owned New York, by John Jay Osborn, Jr. (1981) (36-year-old Robert Fox, Harvard Law grad, of course, and partner in prestigious Wall Street law firm, finds himself disillusioned with his profession and in love with a beautiful woman who is reluctant to marry him, 40-year-old Kimberly Ashland Hartman, artist and art appraiser, tall, thin, blonde with perfect mouth and the right "look...bones, gestures, and manner of talking," the woman whose love, if he could ever win it, would make him "feel like I own New York").

Love before law (Recited at the marriage of Oliver Barrett IV and Jenny Cavilleri in Love Story).

"...I give you my hand!

I give you my love more precious than money,

I give you myself before preaching or law;

Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?

Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"

Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

Wannabe lawmaker has the interests of all women in mind, all 58 (?) of them. There's a nice old fella in Bihar, India, a would-be lawmaker named Bagun Sumbrai, who has married a large number of different women, by one report 22, by another an unbelievable 58. The first wife was his dad's choice, but the rest were his. He says he gets married every time he runs for office and he runs whenever he can. He also says he always has their interests in mind. Hey, don't criticize a guy if you haven't walked in his shoes (or slept in his bed). Stated differently, let the guy have his fun. Go Bagun!

What happens when two female lawyers fall in love with each other. "She was small, about 5'2", with a good figure and good taste in clothing...It was not good to be thinking like that...Sexual relationships in the office were not good for the career." From "Lawyers in Love," by A. Van Peebles, copyright 1995. A Google search will find it for you.

When Judge Cass Timberlane of Grand Republic, Minnesota falls in love with a trial witness with fine ankles. "I would fall for a girl merely because she has fine ankles and a clear voice, I who have maintained that the most wretched error in all romances is this invariable belief that because a girl has a good nose and a smooth skin, therefore she will be agreeable to live with and -- well, make love to. The insanity that causes even superior men (meaning judges) to run passionately after magpies with sterile hearts. This, after the revelations of female deception I've seen in divorce proceedings. I am corrupted by sentimentality." Trial Court Judge Timberlane thinking about an attractive female witness in Sinclair Lewis, Cass Timberlane 5 (1945).

America's greatest lawyer-poet falls in love. "I tell myself there is only one true thing in our world, to satisfy one's heart, to feel and go to the bottom of all one's feelings, to desire and go to the bottom of all one's desires; finally to live one's own life, one's sincere life, outside of all lies and all conventions...." Wallace Stevens, quoted in Joan Richardson, Wallace Stevens - The Early Years 257 (1986).

"We must say there has been a little winter in us....You must return to the Elsie I knew and I must become the old Wallace. It must be spring for us as well as for the fields." Id. at 260.

"[O]ur summers [will] be more and more what they ought to be: a thousand summers in one." Id. at 262.

The law and broken engagements. Does she get to keep the ring? [more]

Do you hear the "strangled cries" of "lawyers in love"? Jackson Browne sings about "Lawyers in Love." [more]

From Alice in Wonderland. "In my youth I took to the law,/ And argued each case with my wife;/ And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw/ Has lasted the rest of my life."

Restatement of the Law of Love.

--"Parties in 'love' are those parties to a relationship who consider themselves engaged in the highest level of emotional intimacy attainable and who generally presume that such state will continue indefinitely." Restatement, First, Love Section 1.4 (Tentative Draft), Gretchen Rubin and Jamie Heller, 104 Yale L. J. 707, 710 (1994). Back issues of the Yale Law Journal may be read at any good law library, of which there are few (the Minnesota State Law Library, located in the Minnesota Judicial Center in St. Paul, is my favorite; its head librarian, Marvin Roger Anderson, is the most dynamic and democratic law librarian in the country and the most underpaid department head in Minnesota state government).

--"A moving party [seeking breakup of a relationship] may put forward a meritorious reason for the breakup, upon which the opposing party may demand notice to cure, to say, in effect, 'Give me a chance, and I'll change my ways.' Because either party may terminate a relationship at will, however, notice-to-cure is a privilege, not a right." Id., 4.3, Comment c.

What does the "reasonable man" do on a date? What does the "reasonable man" celebrated by the common law do to complete a perfect date? He drives her to her doorstep, "regardless of the peril that it may entail." Comment, The Reasonable Man, 1992 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 479, 487 (1992), citing Tullgern v. Amoskeag Mfg. Co., 133 A. 4 (N.H. 1926). Back issues of the Brigham Young Law Review may be read at any good law library.

Jokes about lawyers in love. "The lawyer replied [to the woman at the opera] that his wife couldn't make it. The woman asked if he didn't have relatives or friends who could have used the extra seat. He replied, 'Oh, they're all at the funeral.'"

Bargaining for love. Brian Bix, Bargaining in the Shadow of Love: The Enforcement of Premarital Agreements and How We Think About Marriage, Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 145 (1998). Back issues of the William & Mary Law Review may be read at any good law library.

Emily Dickinson's Poem #26, given to a lawyer by a beautiful woman in a love story.

"It's all I have to bring today --

This, and my heart beside --

This, and my heart, and all the fields --

And all the meadows wide --

Be sure you count -- should I forget

Some one the sum could tell --

This, and my heart, and all the Bees

Which in the Clover dwell."

Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems

A former Harvard Law student's idea of "True Love" was lyrically & musically expressed in the movie "High Society." Can you name him? [more]

In what way is "Law Like Love"? A famous dead poet replies. [more]

Proposed laws on love and marriage. "(i)No marriage [is] to take place without a special license unless there [is] evidence that there ha[s] been a formal engagement registered at least three months beforehand. (ii) The engagement would be registered with the minister...He would have an interview with both applicants and satisfy himself that the parties had gone into the matter thoroughly...[A] questionnaire would be filled in by both parties...[It] would disclose whether they have been introduced to each other's family; the amount of their respective incomes; where they are going to live; and whether they can buy furniture...." Statute proposed by solicitor testifying before U.K. Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce, Report 1951-1955, Cmd. No. 9678 (1956), quoted in Foote, Levy, Sander, Cases and Materials on Family Law 236-7 (1966).

Once upon a time even ragged old judges (believe it or not) were young and in love.

--"'We like John,' said her father. 'But I've seen better cowboys.'" Future Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's father's first impression of his future son in law, John Jay O'Connor III, quoted in Susan Gordon, Wedding Days 12.20 (1998). [more]

--"It didn't take Marty long to realize that Ruth did many things well...but cooking wasn't one of them." Referring to Martin Ginsburg's discovery that he would be doing the cooking for his new wife, Ruth Bader, then a future Supreme Court Justice. Id. 6.23.

--"Oh, Nellie, I believe you can be happy with me." Future Chief Justice William Howard Taft to Helen Herron, his future wife. Id. 6.19.

--"Her escort [to the dance] lost track of Josephine after Hugo got her attention, and they spent most of the evening 'hiding' behind a potted palm." Describing future Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black's courting of Josephine Foster, whom he had seen earlier walking up a very steep hill "in a close-fitting, eye-appealing dress." Id. 2.23.

The only real law of love.

"Love is:

patient & kind...

does not insist on its own ways...

bears, believes, hopes, endures all things...

never ends...."

I Corinthians 13

Click on "kiss" (left) for a collection of Valentine poems.

Click here and here for picks of the most romantic movies of all time, a few of which have lawyers and judges, those poor, unromantic souls, as characters.

Click here for part two of BurtLaw on Law and Love.

Click here for BurtLaw on Law and Kissing.

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