Prof. Lessig --

I would just like to follow-up on my classmate's posting. Before I came here, I had no idea of how important this class would be to my education as a person and as a law student. It's not easy to be a lawyer right now. They get an awfully bad rap. Today at the end of the review session, you reminded me of why I came and what I can accomplish with these skills after I leave. Sometimes all of those lawyer jokes become self-fulfilling, when we stop expecting more of ourselves than others expect of us.

Put simply, you are an amazing teacher. You encouraged and required us to look beyond the facts and even holdings of cases to learn about concepts, justice and our responsibilities to one another. As frustrating as it was sometimes, you didn't allow us to just state an idea without backing it up, and that difficult exercise has meant a great deal.

As your students we are not in a position to know all of your reasons for wanting to leave Harvard and join Yale's faculty. If you remain undecided, however, I hope the deep respect in which your students hold you, and our very real recognition that we still have much to learn from your classroom, and your ideals about law, will pursuade you to stay.

In any event, please expect my thanks, and the thanks, no doubt, of my classmates, for an exceptional learning experience and an introduction to law and ourselves as lawyers that we will not soon forget. I wish you all the best next year, and very much look forward to the privilege of studying with you when you return.

-- Anonymous, December 16, 1998