Professor Richard Fallon began every session of his Federal Courts class by writing "Jurisdiction | Rights | Remedies" on the chalkboard. Over the hour and 45 minutes that followed—which never felt that long—he would repeatedly refer to that diagram as a framework for understanding doctrines spanning from habeas corpus to standing. Professor Fallon was a systematic thinker who loved to teach, and we were two of the thousands upon thousands of students he taught over his 43 years on the Harvard Law School faculty. His death last week, at age 73, is a terrible loss to a law school whose best features he embodied.
Professor Fallon’s approach to Federal Courts was decidedly realist. Using his signature chalkboard diagram, he would explain cases through the lens of what he called “doctrinal equilibration”: the process by which judges “seek[] what they regard as an acceptable overall alignment of doctrines involving justiciability, substantive rights, and available remedies,” including by “adjust[ing] or manipulat[ing] the applicable law” as needed to avoid “intolerable” or “sub-optimal” outcomes.[1]
Needless to say, it came as no surprise when Professor Fallon would preface comments in class with, “I’m not an originalist, but . . . .” Yet despite his transparency about his own views—which he offered not as a way to dismiss originalism, but as a gesture of (entirely unwarranted) humility—Professor Fallon had a knack for charitably articulating other perspectives and for prodding students of all stripes to contribute in class. He was especially adept at presenting contested issues without stoking controversy, instead framing them as matters that reasonable people could debate reasonably. That’s not to say he diminished the importance of these issues—quite the opposite—but he recognized that no political or jurisprudential movement has a monopoly on truth.
That belief led him to be a subtle but reliable friend of the Federalist Society. During our respective tenures leading Harvard’s chapter, Professor Fallon participated in numerous FedSoc events (on our campus and beyond), advised scores of our members on their job searches and scholarly pursuits, and provided sound counsel as we navigated student leadership during politically acrimonious times.
He was erudite, yet unpretentious; steady, yet pioneering; and unfailingly generous with his time and insight. In a legal academy sometimes fraught with rancor, he was a model of civil, yet serious, engagement. In that way, he was a gentleman and a scholar—in the best sense of both words. We'll miss him a great deal.
[1] Richard H. Fallon, Jr., The Linkage Between Justiciability and Remedies—and Their Connections to Substantive Rights, 92 Va. L. Rev. 633, 637 (2006).
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