Document Type

Tribute

Publication Date

1-1990

Abstract

Our first encounter was on one of Kevin's many triumphant days during law school. Kevin, then a second year student, had advanced to the final round of the Campbell Competition, the moot court competition in which students brief and argue a case as if before the United States Supreme Court. I was one of the five "justices" who heard the case. The others were the dean and three distinguished appellate judges. Four students presented oral arguments and all were fine, but, Kevin's, the "Justices" agreed, was simply of a different order. Archibald Cox, when Solicitor General of the United States, was said to have been able to frame issues for the Court in a manner so compelling that the Justices often imposed his formulation on the counsel who followed him. Of course, Kevin, at twenty-nine, was no Archibald Cox, but then I'm not a Justice of the Supreme Court, and I had the disquieting pleasure that day of being led along nearly to the point of accepting a position I was sure I rejected. I also had the pleasure, for the first of many times, of watching this piercing, interesting mind at work. Pursing his lips while thinking, his eyes looking right at you to tell you he was ready for whatever you might want to ask, he responded to questions with directness, wit and a touch of irony. Like Cox, he let us know that he was smarter than we were without offending us in the process.

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