Each year, we collect some information about the faculty so that our incoming class can read a little about their professors and get to know them a bit before entering their classrooms. Here’s what they said:
Charles Cohen
What is your favorite book? Atonement by Ian McEwan
What is your favorite movie? Reds
What is your favorite local restaurant? G. Michael’s Bistro
What is your fondest memory of being a 1L? Riding my bicycle over the Golden Gate Bridge on study breaks.
What is your scariest 1L memory? Waiting in line to receive my first grades. They were handed to you on paper.
Dan Kobil
What is your favorite book? V.S. Pritchett, Penelope Lively, J.R.R. Tolkien, Marilynne Robinson, Henry David Thoreau, and Kingsley Amis
What is your favorite movie? The Wizard of Oz, Love and Death, The Meaning of Life, Bladerunner, The Princess Bride, Juno
What is your favorite local restaurant? The Flatiron
Lisa Eschleman
What is your favorite book? A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
What is your favorite movie? Shawshank Redemption
What is your favorite local restaurant? Moretti’s
What is your fondest memory of being a 1L? Getting through my first year
What is your scariest 1L memory? Being called on by Professor Turack
Bradley Smith
What is your favorite book? Anarchy, State & Utopia, by Robert Nozick
What is your favorite movie? Casablanca, Local Hero
What is your favorite local restaurant? Lindey’s; for a restaurant more attuned to a student budget, Ringside Tavern; local in terms of my home out in Granville – the Pub at the Granville Inn
What is your fondest memory of being a 1L? Sitting in the student commons with friends over lunch, and on through the afternoon, discussing law, politics, movies, sports, philosophy, careers, and whatever else, but I guess mainly law and politics and philosophy – we would meet there every Monday and often not split up until 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening.
What is your scariest 1L memory? Opening first semester grades – that moment when tearing the envelope open, before you can see the results.
Other advice: Law is a wonderful profession. It is intellectually interesting; you will have more control over your work than most people; for most lawyers it provides a good financial living, even for those who choose careers in non-profits or the public sector; and your job, not just as “attorney” but as “counselor,” is to help people solve their problems, using your judgment, wisdom, and ability.
Michael Lehv
What is your favorite book? I rarely get a chance to read fiction. Most of my elective reading is to familiarize myself with something new in one of the sciences.
What is your favorite movie? That’s an easy one for me – “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It was my introduction to computers and set the stage for lifetime of semi-professional interest in the field.
What is your favorite local restaurant? Guiseppe’s in Bexley is hard to beat for Italian food and is a once-a-week favorite. Bon Vie in Easton is another that we visit almost as frequently.
What is your fondest memory of being a 1L? As a night-schooler working full-time, I’m not sure “fondest” is a term I’d use to describe anything during my first year. However, I actually enjoy technical writing so Legal Writing was a natural fit for me.
What is your scariest 1L memory? Witnessing Professor Sullivan eject “unruly” students from his criminal law class was easily my scariest experience.
Lance Tibbles
What is your favorite book?
Thomas Buergenthal, A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz As a Young Boy (2009). Professor/Judge Buergenthal was the youngest survivor of Auschwitz; he was 11 years old when the camp was liberated.
Robert M.Veatch, Patient, Heal Thyself: How the New Medicine Puts the Patient in Charge (2009). Ethicist Veatch argues that values underlie almost all medical procedures & physicians can claim no expertise on making those value judgments.
Steve T. Wax, Kafka Comes to America: Fighting For Justice in the War on Terror/A Public Defender’s Inside Account (2008). One of Wax’s clients was a small town lawyer whose home & office were entered without warrant, he was arrested on a mistaken fingerprint from Spain, and his confidential client files read by the FBI. Wax was told “our government can make you disappear.”
What is your favorite movie? “The Reader”
What is your favorite local restaurant? People’s Court in the Student Commons
What is you scariest 1L memory? In Common Law Procedure class, the Dean would reduce students to tears when they could not explain the difference between “general assumpsit” and “special assumpsit.” Most of us could handle “quare clausum fregit.” But if a student could not grasp the difference between “trespass on the case,” he (all law students were he in those days) just disappeared never to be seen or heard from again.
Regina Burch
What is your favorite book? Anything by Mark Twain
What is your favorite movie? Dr. Strangelove
What is your favorite local restaurant? Indian Oven
What is your fondest memory of being a 1L? Finishing my last exam and beginning a summer externship.
What is you scariest 1L memory? Volunteering to recite Pennoyer v Neff in Civ Pro
William Fischbein
What is your favorite book? Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
What is your favorite movie? Lonesome Dove
What is your favorite local restaurant? Villa Nova
What is your fondest memory of being a 1L? Skipping the last day of class to play golf with classmates
What is you scariest 1L memory? The exams that started thereafter
David Mayer
What is your favorite book? Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
What is your favorite movie? Harold & Maude (Favorite law-related movie: Twelve Angry Men, the original 1957 film, starring Henry Fonda)
What is your favorite local restaurant? Bob Evans (especially for breakfast)
What is your fondest memory of being a 1L? Taking time out from my studies the first week of classes to paint a picture (a landscape, either a sunrise or a sunset, depending on my mood).
What is you scariest 1L memory? Getting called on twice as much as anyone else in Contracts, because the professor mispronounced my classmate Mr. Meyer’s name as “Mayer,” so I responded whenever he called on either one of us! And it wasn’t until the end of the semester that I figured out why!
Thomas Brown
What is your favorite book? I have so many favorite books it is impossible to pick just one. Last year I loved Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.
What is your favorite movie? It’s a Wonderful Life
What is your favorite local restaurant? Lindey’s in German Village
What is your fondest memory of being a 1L? My classmates, some of whom I remain in contact with, are my fondest memory as a 1L. (We supported each other with encouragement and friendship.)
What is you scariest 1L memory? The scariest was being the first one called on in Torts to argue the plaintiff’s side of a case I barely understood.
Jeff Snapp
What is your favorite book? A Prayer for Owen Meany
What is your favorite movie? The Shawshank Redemption
What is your favorite local restaurant? Aladdin’s