I am very honored to participate in this memorial for David Vernon, my colleague, and more importantly my friend as I know he was a friend of almost all of you in this room. When I joined the faculty all those many years ago, David was no longer Dean but his vision of legal education still permeated the faculty, and I joined a community of legal educators who were thinking about, discussing with each other, and implementing ideas about what legal education should be and could be. It was very exciting for me.

My personal friendship with David grew out of what I guess I would call chats; many, many chats over more than two decades. We were both early risers who came to work before almost anybody usually was in the building and so we would chat before we started work. When I would take a break during the day, I would often go up to Dave's office and we would chat. And when Miss Rhoda, as Dave called his wonderful wife, was out of town visiting his children or other relatives we would often go out to dinner after work and we would chat. What would we chat about? Well, we were both avid readers and so a lot of our chats were about books that we were reading. We talked about big things, and we talked about little things. We talked about personal things, and we talked about things that weren't personal. We even talked about Pooh, my dog, and Brandy, his dog, and sometimes -- usually to his reluctance -- we had some heated discussions about animal rights, something I care passionately about and something that he did not care at all about.

David to me was the quintessential academic, but he did not live in an ivory tower. He was interested in almost everything, and he was engaged in life.

Lastly, as Dean Hines indicated, I was privileged to prepare the materials for his nomination for the University's prestigious Hancher-Finkbine award and I collected nearly 20 letters that were, I hoped, representatives of the individuals whose lives he had been involved with and these letters truly document the scope and the depth of the contributions he made to the law school, to the University, to legal education, and to the legal profession. I reread these letters last night and if I had to pick one word to describe David the word would be teacher: teaching through instruction, teaching through example, teaching inside the classroom, teaching outside the classroom, teaching law students, teaching his fellow law faculty colleagues, teaching the multitude of other individuals with whom he worked in various capacities and last but not least teaching through his publications.

I would like to read you a few brief quotes from some of the letters I mentioned about David as a teacher.

• A faculty colleague wrote: "I am grateful for the gracious mentorship received from David in the area of teaching."

• A faculty colleague wrote: "Professor Vernon was always generous with his time and comments in reading my fledgling scholarship."

• A former colleague and now a law school dean wrote: "Master teacher, innovative scholar, straight talking mentor, and one of a kind friend. David has always been the penultimate role model for me."

• A former student and now law school dean and professor wrote: "Professor Vernon's special understanding of and commitment to quality legal education were manifested in many ways and have continued to have an impact upon me throughout my career as a law school dean and teacher."

• A former student and now a practitioner wrote: "Professor Vernon's encouragement kept me together in school. It was almost magical. If changing one student's life is a criterion for the award, he did achieve this and what he did for me I know he has done for many, many others."