Jonathan Board lives in West Virginia with his wife and two children.  A graduate of West Virginia University College of Law, he has also attended Harvard Extension School, Fairmont State University, Bob Jones University, and Witherspoon School of Law & Public Policy.

“A literature class?  In law school?  Are you sure you want to spend your time and money on that?”

Thus spoke my perplexed supervising attorney.  Weeks later, as I reviewed the syllabus for Law & Literature, his words haunted me.  The names on the syllabus ranged from Komie to Tolstoy to Melville to Kafka.  Of course, “the list” (as it was to become known) was much longer and full of colorful personalities, but, at least in my mind, most of the readings seemed like odd studies for law school.  Nevertheless, I was in my last semester, and I simply could not look at another case book.  So, on a cold January day, I clambered up icy, ugly, gray-yellow steps, found my classroom and a seat next to my best friend (who had strongly encouraged me to take this course and whose judgment I now questioned), and I began to discuss literature, a thing I thought I knew little about.

The “list,” for me, was daunting.  I’d never taken a graduate literature course, and I was several years removed from my college English courses.  I felt like Abraham’s son, Isaac, about to be slaughtered, except that there was no ram in the thicket and I wasn’t submitting to a father’s trembling hand but to a law professor’s pen and grade sheet.  My fears were abated, to a degree, when the professor walked in.  I’d heard that this man, Michael Blumenthal, had taught at Harvard and published works in many genres.  I was both excited to sit in his classroom and nervous about embarrassing myself in front of him.  I didn’t know it then, but Blumenthal, whose kindness was contagious, would make a lasting impression.  He encouraged me—us—to devour the works on the list and to apply those works to personal experiences with the law. Read the rest of this entry »