The first case I stud­ied in law school was George­town Col­lege v. Jones. This is what hap­pened in that case.

In 1963, a twen­ty-five year old moth­er of an infant child suf­fered a rup­tured ulcer. Her hus­band, Jesse Jones, took her to a hos­pi­tal in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., oper­at­ed by George­town Col­lege. The doc­tors said Mrs. Jones would die unless they admin­is­tered blood trans­fu­sions. Jesse refused con­sent. He and his wife were devout Jehovah’s Wit­ness­es. Cer­tain vers­es in the Bible pro­hib­it the drink­ing of blood, which the Jone­ses inter­pret­ed to mean that blood can­not be used for human con­sump­tion by any means. They believed that a blood trans­fu­sion was tan­ta­mount to drink­ing blood.

The hos­pi­tal felt respon­si­ble for Mrs. Jones’s life. It hired lawyers to seek an emer­gency court order grant­i­ng the doc­tors per­mis­sion to per­form the trans­fu­sions with­out the Jones’s con­sent. The lawyers met with U. S. Dis­trict Court Judge Edward A. Tamm. He denied the request on the grounds that a court order would vio­late the First Amendment’s pro­tec­tion of the Jones’s reli­gious beliefs.

The hospital’s lawyers rushed to Judge J. Skel­ly Wright of the Dis­trict of Colum­bia Cir­cuit Court of Appeals for a review of Judge Tamm’s decision.

Appel­late court judges almost always make their deci­sions based on the writ­ten record in the court below. Judge Wright broke from that con­ven­tion. He tele­phoned the doc­tors at the hos­pi­tal and ver­i­fied that Mrs. Jones would die with­out the trans­fu­sion. He went to the hos­pi­tal and tried to con­vince Jesse to grant con­sent. Jesse refused. The judge spoke with Mrs. Jones. She was so far gone that the only words he could make out were “against my will.”

Father Bunn, Georgetown’s Pres­i­dent, made a fer­vent the­o­log­i­cal argu­ment to Jesse that a trans­fu­sion was not “drink­ing blood” with­in the mean­ing of the Bible vers­es. Jesse stood firm and refused consent.

When Mrs. Jones’s rup­tured ulcer brought her to death’s doorstep, Judge Wright made his deci­sion. He signed an order giv­ing the doc­tors per­mis­sion to per­form the trans­fu­sions; the doc­tors took imme­di­ate action; and Mrs. Jones survived.

In his writ­ten opin­ion, Judge Wright doesn’t cite a case direct­ly on point or oth­er author­i­ty. The clos­ing words of his writ­ten opin­ion explain the basis for his deci­sion. “There was no time for research and reflec­tion.… I deter­mined to act on the side of life.”

On the first day of law school, we dis­cussed this case for an hour. The pro­fes­sor then asked how many of us agreed with Judge Wright’s deci­sion. It seemed clear to most of us. All but one raised our hands in agree­ment with Judge Wright.

At the end of the year on the last day of that same class, the pro­fes­sor went over George­town Col­lege v. Jones with us again and asked the same ques­tion: “How many of you agree with Judge Wright’s deci­sion?” No one raised a hand.

“What hap­pened to you peo­ple?” he said, smil­ing. But he knew. We all knew. Our first year in law school had for­ev­er changed us. We had learned to think like lawyers.

What does learn­ing to think like a lawyer mean? To the gen­er­al pub­lic, it seems to mean becom­ing a heart­less scum bag, as in: Why do sur­geons pre­fer to oper­ate on lawyers above all oth­er patients? Answer: They have no heart and their butts and heads are inter­change­able. And along the same line, what’s the dif­fer­ence between a vac­u­um clean­er and a lawyer rid­ing a motor­cy­cle? Answer: The vac­u­um clean­er has the dirt bag on the inside. (This is a stu­pid joke, by the way. I’ve nev­er seen a lawyer on a motorcycle.)

Jokes aside, think­ing like a lawyer has got­ten a bum rap. To me, it mere­ly means apply­ing the law to a set of facts with rea­son and log­ic and with­out regard to emo­tions, pre­con­ceived notions, or prej­u­dices. Some­times that works a result that appears heart­less but it is actu­al­ly sen­si­ble in the long run.

In Jones, Judge Wright’s order saved Mrs. Jones’s life only by over­rid­ing her reli­gious beliefs. At first blush, it appears to be the right deci­sion emo­tion­al­ly, but a time-hon­ored say­ing among lawyers is that hard cas­es make bad law. Judge Wright’s deci­sion in these sym­pa­thet­ic cir­cum­stances may be cit­ed as author­i­ty in the next case for the gov­ern­ment to take away a citizen’s right to wor­ship, or not, as they choose. His deci­sion in this hard case could make bad law in the next.

It might not even be the right deci­sion emo­tion­al­ly. Mrs. Jones believed that blood trans­fu­sions would defile her body. Sup­pose she lived out her life believ­ing she was unclean and would burn in hell for eter­ni­ty because she “drank blood.” Per­haps this was a fate worse than death in her eyes. Bet­ter to set the emo­tions aside and make a rea­soned deci­sion on the law.

So I raised my hand against Judge Wright’s deci­sion after I’d been taught to think like a lawyer.

But the world turns. Thir­ty years after law school, I held a posi­tion as a com­pa­ny exec­u­tive. One morn­ing, a man I’d nev­er met showed up in my office in tears. He told me he thought we planned to elim­i­nate his job, so he found anoth­er job and resigned. Under our health­care plan, he could have cho­sen to pay the pre­mi­um for our cov­er­age and we would have kept it in place until his new employer’s insur­ance picked him up. He decid­ed not to pay and the cov­er­age lapsed.

His new employ­er changed its mind and decid­ed not to hire him. Short­ly after that, he was diag­nosed with can­cer. With­out treat­ment, he would die with­in a few months. With treat­ment, he would have a fight­ing chance. He didn’t have the mon­ey to pay for the treat­ment, so he begged us to rein­state his health­care cov­er­age. We were self-insured so we didn’t have to con­sult with an insur­ance com­pa­ny. The deci­sion was ours alone. Our ben­e­fits depart­ment had turned him down. He begged me to over­rule them.

He wait­ed out­side my office while I spoke with the Ben­e­fits Direc­tor. In tears her­self, she said, “We can’t do it. The Plan’s lan­guage is clear. He missed the win­dow to extend by a mile. If we give him cov­er­age, the prece­dent may expose us to friv­o­lous claims.”

I’d heard this sto­ry before. Hard cas­es make bad law.

I combed through the plan’s lan­guage. I point­ed to a phrase in the small print. “What about this?”

“It doesn’t work,” she said. “It doesn’t apply.”

She was right, but I read the phrase sev­er­al times, try­ing to find a way to stretch it to reach the man’s sit­u­a­tion. Final­ly I said, “I think it applies,” and I signed the doc­u­ment to extend the coverage.

The great­ly relieved Ben­e­fits Direc­tor took the man down­stairs to fill out the forms he need­ed to get treat­ment, and I nev­er saw him again. I learned the fol­low­ing year that he fought hard but lost his battle.

How do I rec­on­cile my hand-vote in the Jones case with my sig­na­ture on that form? I don’t know. All I can say is you kind of had to be there.

That’s the les­son of the Jones case, too, I sup­pose. Judge Tamm ren­dered his deci­sion from cham­bers, sur­round­ed by legal tomes. Judge Wright went to the hos­pi­tal, talked to Jesse Jones, and watched the light fad­ing from a young mother’s eyes while she lay on her death bed. Look­ing into people’s eyes can screw you up. The statutes, case law, and plan lan­guage tend to fall away. Before you know it, you end up think­ing like a human being, for pity’s sake.

I got sick my first year teach­ing high school. I was tired and weak. Acid turned my stom­ach inside out. I heaved up yel­low stuff. I tried to wait it out, hop­ing I’d get well, but my con­di­tion only grew worse so I final­ly went to a doc­tor and sum­ma­rized my symp­toms. “I’m real­ly sick,” I told him. “I must have can­cer or something.”

“How long have you felt this way?”

“Since the begin­ning of the school year.”

He paused. “Tell me about teaching.”

I told the doc­tor I taught five class­es, three peri­ods of twelfth grade Eng­lish Lit, one of Com­po­si­tion, and one class of kids repeat­ing ninth grade Eng­lish because they failed it last year, thir­ty to forty kids in each class, all of whom wished like hell they were any­where else. To hold their atten­tion, I had to cre­ate three enter­tain­ing tele­vi­sion pro­grams per day, fif­teen per week, and as the star of the show, I had to deliv­er a good per­for­mance. If one of my shows fell flat, I’d lose con­trol of that class and any­thing could, and usu­al­ly did, happen.

I told him this was the first year of full racial inte­gra­tion in Vir­ginia pub­lic schools. Ten­sions ran high. In my class­es, the black kids sat on one side of the room, the whites on the oth­er. It nev­er var­ied. Noth­ing was too insignif­i­cant to pitch the school into tur­moil. Take the elec­tion of the home­com­ing queen. The stu­dent coun­cil made a mis­take in the bal­lot­ing that result­ed in an all-white court. When they dis­cov­ered their mis­take, they decid­ed that plans for the home­com­ing were too far along to fix it. This near­ly caused a riot. Being naive and stu­pid, I had vol­un­teered to be a teacher-spon­sor for the coun­cil. I forced them to fix the mis­take and con­duct a sec­ond elec­tion. A black girl made it into the court on the re-vote, defus­ing the bomb, but the par­ents of the white girl, who got bumped out the sec­ond time around, and some oth­ers, were under­stand­ably angry at me and voiced their com­plaints to the school.

“And there was Fred,” I said. At nine­teen, he was the old­est ninth grad­er in the school. Short and chunky, he combed his hair like Elvis Pres­ley, wore a black leather jack­et, and always sat in the back row. One day I slogged through a chap­ter of Silas Marn­er. The bell final­ly rang, and all the kids filed out of the room except a lit­tle guy named Lanny.

“Mis­ter Oder, didn’t you see?” Lan­ny said, his eyes wide. “Fred had a gun.”

“What?!!!!”

“Fred was play­ing with a gun and smil­ing that weird smile of his the whole class. Didn’t you see?”

“No. I didn’t see.”

I ran to the principal’s office. We sum­moned Fred. He freely admit­ted he had a gun in my class. “I didn’t mean no harm. I just brought it along in case one of em got outa line.”

We sus­pend­ed him for a week. I thought I was get­ting to him before this hap­pened. He paid atten­tion and seemed to be try­ing, but when he returned, he wouldn’t talk to me. A few weeks lat­er, he dropped out of school. I couldn’t shake the feel­ing that I’d failed him.

“And there’s Ruth!” She was a senior in Eng­lish Lit, short, slim, and perky with a cute smile. She slaved over her papers and stud­ied hard.

Then one day her smile went away; she stopped pay­ing atten­tion; and some­times tears came to her eyes. I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t open up.

One morn­ing before class she asked me to sign a doc­u­ment. In Vir­ginia, tru­an­cy was a crim­i­nal mis­de­meanor for chil­dren eigh­teen and under. This doc­u­ment seemed to say she could quit school if her teach­ers excused her absences.

“I don’t under­stand,” I said. “Why do you want to quit? You’ll grad­u­ate in June. If you drop out, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She showed me where two teach­ers had already signed. “Please, Mis­ter Oder.”

“Tell me why you want to quit.”

“I can’t. Please just sign it, Mis­ter Oder. Please!”

I refused to sign unless she told me what was going on.

She burst into tears and ran away. I went after her, but couldn’t find her.

She missed school for a week. I should have called her par­ents, but I allowed my tele­vi­sion shows to take pri­or­i­ty and I let it go. When she returned, she was a dif­fer­ent per­son, somber and list­less, and she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.

A few weeks lat­er, I learned from a teacher close to Ruth’s fam­i­ly that she’d tak­en the time off to have an abor­tion. It took my breath away. Ruth was in the throes of the cri­sis of her life, and I missed it.

I told the doc­tor about the boy who had a seizure right in front of me in the court­yard. “I had no idea what to do.” And about the giant kid in the hall­way out­side my class­room, who threat­ened me when I told him to qui­et down. “If my stu­dents hadn’t stepped in, I don’t know what would have hap­pened.” And on and on.

When I paused to take a breath, the doc­tor broke in. “I’ve got good news. You don’t have can­cer,” he said. “You’re hav­ing a ner­vous breakdown.”

He pre­scribed lit­tle white pills. I took them for five days. I’d nev­er been hap­pi­er in my life. On the sixth day, I flushed the rest of them down the toi­let. I fig­ured I’d nev­er be able to quit if I kept tak­ing them. Five days turned out to be enough. The break from my cycle of stress and depres­sion put me in a much bet­ter place.

I was twen­ty-two years old that first year and too imma­ture to be a good teacher, but I grew into that job. Some­where along the line, I fig­ured out that teach­ing was not about my tele­vi­sion shows. It was about the stu­dents. I did bet­ter from there on.

I didn’t stay with it, though. Teacher’s pay start­ed out low and ramped up very slow­ly. My wife was a teacher, too, but even on dou­ble pay we wor­ried we couldn’t sup­port a fam­i­ly. We talked it through and decid­ed I’d apply to law school.

Short­ly after I mailed out my appli­ca­tions, the prin­ci­pal called me to the audi­to­ri­um over the P.A. sys­tem. I walked in to find my stu­dents assem­bled there. They ush­ered me to the front of the room and one of them read aloud their ded­i­ca­tion of the year­book to me. I’m a lit­tle blur­ry about what I said to them. All I remem­ber is strug­gling to keep it togeth­er. I hope I con­veyed how much it meant to me.

The fol­low­ing spring, I was accept­ed to law school, and with more than a lit­tle reluc­tance, I gave the coun­ty notice of my intent to resign at the end of the school year.

This deci­sion worked out well for us, but I still have my doubts. I taught for three years. Over four hun­dred stu­dents sat in my class­es. They’re in their six­ties now, and I don’t know where they are or how they fared in life. Teach­ing them was the hard­est job I ever had. I made a lot of mis­takes, but I was get­ting the hang of it when I walked away. In rare moments, I broke through and made a dif­fer­ence. Those moments were each a great gift, and because of them, forty-five years lat­er, I some­times still dream about the road not taken.