University of North Dakota law professor and Record alum Eric Johnson '00 wrote an op-ed for this issue of the Harvard Law Record arguing that Harvard Law School needs to take into account the role of slavery in its history. The Record asked him a few questions about how he got interested in the topic, how writing for the Record affected his career, and how he became a law professor.
Record: How did you get involved with the topic of HLS and slavery?
Eric Johnson: It is something I have been thinking about on and off since I learned about HLS's slavery connection through a presentation given by Professor Daniel Coquillette '71 when I was in school.
How did the Record build skills you could use in your legal career/academia?
Journalistic writing is great training for legal writing. I learned journalism-style writing as an undergrad at Northwestern, both in class and by working on the student newspaper. I think that training has been invaluable to me as a lawyer and as an academic. I enjoyed the opportunity to extend that experience on the Record at HLS.
Do you have advice for aspiring legal scholars, especially those who do not have the "chip" of law review on their resumes?
I did not do law review. While it is helpful, law review is not a pre-requisite. Here's my advice if you want to be an academic:
First, while you are still in school, write at least one publishable paper, and then get it published in an academic law journal. If you can do more than one, that is fantastic. You'll need to publish to be a good candidate for a teaching job. So while you are still in school, you should take advantage of the opportunities you have through seminars and paper courses to start building your portfolio of scholarship.
Second, get good grades. Grades are even more important going into academia than they are going into practice. So keep working hard through 3L senioritis.
Third, get a mentor. Any professor is great, but a relatively junior professor teaching somewhere other than Harvard is probably the ideal. Legal academia has a much different set of expectations than practice - and much of the field's conventional wisdom is unwritten.
Finally, get a good job in practice. The trend in legal education is to hire real attorneys with meaningful practice experience. So get as much as you can out of whatever job you take. Load up on depositions, oral arguments, trial work, handling clients, and negotiating or litigating smaller matters by yourself. No matter how amazing you are as a thinker, the practice of law will make you an even better teacher and scholar.
My wife's father is hessaby as in www.hessaby.com (they stole his cash and put it there) and my mother-in-law family is related by marriage tot the Pakravans., who headed the SAVAKPan Am was nicknamed PanIran as the Shah's family was the largest shareholder. I have extreme amount of details of exactly was going on
from the Iranians wanting him to return their assets to other coup attempts to 6 months before the Shah son pretended he was bankrupt in a public trial, to my wifes relative coming to our house talking about the coup and we did not know they were in Washington DC, to the Iran Contra hearings trial that was going to start Feb 20 th, 1989 to the tipping of the coup to the Iranian govt, ,to something in writing I can prove the coup to the Salamon Rushtie Feb 14th insult to islam to get the people on the street to avoid the coup to the Iranian govt announcement of a coup by 'dissent mullahs' announced at the time to the negiotations between the Bush people involved pretending they were going to make a deal to the 'nice' stories plant in US newspapers at the time (including the Post) as part of the negotation to the fact the bomb had to placed out of London based on the flight path as I worked at USAir at the time creating the flight plans for the 'planes to fly themselves' to overt CIA agents around me at the time to the fact that Bollier, the guy who made the timer for the bomb's wide was IRANIAN and the Libyans told me and said they were not allowed to say... there were 3 witness only.. the main one was trashed.. Bollier and a guy whom said he soldm the Libyan a suitcase in Malta.. hence, one the suitcase guy would be left.. the Libyans did not put up a defence in exchange for evidence to trash the main witness on the stand to what an overt CIA agent told me in the US 4 years later.. etc. etc and the details of several coups to the new World bank (my wie's cousin involved who used to work at the work bank)and US loans starting May 1990 to Iran to the fact that PANAm was shut down 18 months later as they thought it would be targeted again because of the Shah connection (the US airlines go in and out of bankruptcy all the time - this was the one of the first US airlines - an ICON) etc
I also know where the Iranian govt officials have money in the US, Canada and UK; the back door dealing etccall me for details.. Barry Lanza 00 44 1786831554.. My father-in-law was a convicted spy given amnesty