Free Mr. Justice by Scott Douglas Gerber

her only patient. Nominees to powerful government posts always got special treatment. Dr. Tanenbaum had made that point clear beyond cavil at the beginning of her shift.
    Peter McDonald had never wanted special treatment, though. All he had ever wanted was to be a teacher and scholar.
    McDonald loved being a law professor. He loved almost everything about it. Sure, he disliked the infighting among many of his colleagues over petty issues such as who got which office or who stood before whom in the commencement processional, but the joy he felt working with bright young students and writing about legal issues that affected almost every facet of American society more than offset the bullshit that was faculty politics.
    McDonald was often asked which he enjoyed more, teaching or writing. He always answered, “It’s impossible to say. I love the give-and-take with my students in the classroom, but I also love to bury myself in the library to research and write.” He would usually smile and add, “It’s like being asked to choose between chocolate cake and apple pie. They’re both delicious.”
    McDonald could still remember his first day in the classroom. He had always been a relatively shy person—that was one of the qualities that had endeared him to his wife—and he had spent the morning alternating between putting the finishing touches on his lecture notes in his office and kneeling over the toilet in the faculty bathroom. He didn’t throw up, but he came close on more than a couple of his mad dashes down the hallway.
    There wasn’t a sound when he entered the classroom. Students with a new teacher were like the family dog with a new pet—suspicious and apprehensive but full of hope and wonder. There was plenty of poking and prodding in both scenarios.
    “Good morning,” McDonald could remember saying. At least he hadn’t lost the use of his voice. “This is Constitutional Law. I’m Peter McDonald.” He had his eyes glued to his notes for even that perfunctory introduction. “I’d like to begin this morning with Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Marbury v. Madison .” He lifted his eyes from his notes to discover a roomful of students staring at him from behind their casebooks and coffee cups. His knees buckled a bit. He suddenly realized that he wasn’t much older than most of his students. He suddenly remembered that he had graduated from law school himself only two years earlier. But given the fact that he had spent those intervening two years in prestigious clerkships—the first year with a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the second with the chief justice of the United States—the appointments committee at the University of Virginia School of Law had deemed him qualified for the position. At the moment, McDonald couldn’t have disagreed more with the committee’s decision. It was almost as if the PGA Tour had declared him eligible to play in the Masters because he had once played a round of golf at Augusta National.
    “Can anyone tell me the facts in Marbury ?”
    Dead silence.
    McDonald could hear the proverbial pin drop.
    A hand raised slowly from the back of the room.
    It was like the sight of a pool of water to a man stranded alone in the desert.
    McDonald— Professor McDonald—glanced down at his seating chart and called on the student by name.

CHAPTER 27
     
     
    Peter McDonald survived that memorable first day in the classroom. In fact, he eventually became one of the most innovative and popular teachers on the UVA law faculty. It had taken a while, but he had gotten there. Writing had come quickly to him, however.
    Most law professors were lawyers, not scholars. In other words, they didn’t have advanced training in traditional academic fields such as history, political science, or economics, but they knew how to argue. And boy, did they like to argue. Most of them didn’t care that they didn’t know as much about a subject as they needed to know