Sherman Cohn was a prince of a man. One of the kindest, and also sagest, people I have ever, ever known. He took me under his wing when I first came to Georgetown Law. He extended many kindnesses to me and my family, for example giving my daughter a lengthy, charming and informative series of interviews for a paper she was writing for school about one of his specialities. We had many family times together at his and our house or out to dinner at Clyde's or elsewhere. He and I shared many rides together (and many stories) in his or my car to faculty retreats. I always came away more informed and more uplifted. I attended some CLE lectures he gave, all of them SUPERB. He was a consummate lawyer, and a wonderfully clear and entertaining lecturer. Sherm, I miss you. We all will for a long, long time. The institution of Georgetown Law is the shining institution it is today in very large measure because of you. Please have a well deserved rest in peace. With much love, —Paul
In Memoriam: Professor Sherman Cohn, F’54, L’57, L’60
August 6, 2024
Professor Emeritus Sherman L. Cohn, F’54, L’57, L’60, the longest-serving member of the Georgetown faculty and a “triple Hoya” with three Georgetown University degrees, died on August 5.
Prof. Sherman Cohn in 2010. Photo by Rhoda Baer
Cohn joined the Georgetown Law faculty in 1965, where in addition to becoming a mainstay of the 1L curriculum team as a professor of Civil Procedure, he taught seminars in other areas of law he found of interest, such as the American legal profession, Jewish law and alternative and complementary medicine.
“Generations of students and faculty and staff remember Sherman and will treasure his memory,” said Dean William M. Treanor. “He was a giant in the history of the Law Center, and I will never forget his warm welcome to me when I became Dean.”
Known to friends and colleagues as “Sherm,” Cohn first came to Georgetown as a summa cum laude undergraduate at the School of Foreign Service, then enrolled at the Law Center, where he was class valedictorian and served as managing editor of The Georgetown Law Journal. In a 2011 article commemorating the Journal’s centennial, Cohn reminisced about his time there, writing, “My law school friends today are largely those I made on the Journal. I suppose that working together at four in the morning is a great bonding mechanism.” He added that his Journal relationships were a large part of why he decided to return as a faculty member – and to serve as faculty advisor for a new generation of Journal editors.
Cohn made his way back to his alma mater after a clerkship with fellow alumnus Judge Charles Fahy, L’1914, on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, followed by seven years at the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice, during which time he completed an LL.M. at Georgetown Law.
Prof. Sherman Cohn in 1965, the year he joined the Georgetown Law faculty
In the seven decades since he first joined Georgetown Law as a student, Cohn was a devoted member of both the alumni and faculty communities. He founded the Law Center’s Continuing Legal Education program and its Appellate Litigation Clinic, and was a longtime leader of the Law Annual Fund, the alumni fund for student financial aid.
Judge Thomas L. Ambro, C’71, L’75, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, said of Cohn, “He was the teacher I had at the Law Center who had the most influence on my career, and indeed my life.” Ambro was one of the early students in Cohn’s Appellate Litigation Clinic, and remembers the skill Cohn had as an appellate attorney. “By the time he was 29, he had argued in every circuit in the country and before the Supreme Court,” Ambro recalled, noting that in one of Cohn’s three Supreme Court appearances – as an amicus curiae in 1961’s Campbell v. Hussey – Cohn was feeling unwell the day of the arguments, but persisted through his presentation and then afterward ended up undergoing surgery for appendicitis. “He could be tough, but in a very beneficial way, such that you didn’t feel like you were a total idiot,” Ambro said. “A great teacher, a great mentor, a great friend.”
Cohn also shared his legal expertise with communities beyond the Georgetown campus, notably in helping launch the American Inns of Court, an organization dedicated to promoting professionalism in the practice of law. In addition to contributing to the initial plan for the entire program and establishing Washington, D.C.’s first Inn of Court in 1983, he was National President of the American Inns of Court Foundation from 1985 to 1996.
Judge Kent Jordan, L’84, who also sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, worked closely with Cohn on the Inns of Court project while he was still a student, and has remained involved in the organization, including serving as its president. “It was easy to love him, because he was so obviously full of the enjoyment of life, and he had a great capacity for projecting warmth and for drawing people to him,” Jordan said, adding that Cohn also had a remarkable talent for taking on a task and getting it done. “When he decided to put his effort behind something – and he decided to put his full effort behind the Inns of Court — he was unstoppable.”
Undated photo of Prof. Sherman Cohn from the Georgetown Law Edward Bennett Williams Library archives
Another of Cohn’s interests was complementary medicine – which he attributed to the herbal remedies his Hungarian immigrant mother learned from her family. He taught a course on alternative medicine and the law not only at the Law Center, but also at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He served as chair of the Accreditation Commission of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and a board member or trustee of the former National Acupuncture Alliance, the Integrative Healthcare Policy Consortium, the National Acupuncture Foundation and the Tai Sophia Institute in Maryland.
Cohn is survived by five children, three of whom are fellow Georgetown alumni: Steven Cohn, F’87, Ronald Cohn, L’84, and Jerald Cohn, L’85. (Two daughters-in-law, Vanessa Cohn, L’86, and Robin Cohn, L’85, are also Law Center alumni.)
Friends and family of Professor Cohn are raising funds to dedicate a space in his name in the new academic building to be constructed on campus. To make a memorial gift in his honor, please Contribute Online or by contacting Melissa Slaughter, Director of Donor Relations.
Funeral services were held Thursday, August 8, at the Garden of Remembrance Memorial Park in Clarksburg, Maryland.
Please share your own memories and tributes at this link. They will be added below.
Sherm was one of the first faculty members I met when I started at the Law Center. He was funny, kind, and always ready to share a story! I will fondly remember him emceeing the 50th reunion luncheons and sharing memories with countless alumni. I thank his family for sharing him with us and will keep them in my thoughts.
A warm and wonderful colleague, Sherman Cohn's kindness, generosity, and humanity set a tone and created an expectation for how we should treat each other in our community. Being seated next to Sherm at a faculty event ensured a wonderful evening. He loved his family; he loved the law, and he loved Georgetown. I will always cherish my conversations and time spent with him. May his memory be for a blessing.
As a very new law librarian, Professor Cohn welcomed me into his legal issues in complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine seminar to provide instruction on research resources. His openness, warmth, and respect made me feel welcome and diminished my new-librarian anxiety. It was a joy to work with him. May his memory be a blessing.
Professor Cohn was a truly unique and compassionate individual. His deep care for the staff in Faculty Support was both heartfelt and deeply valued. One of my most cherished memories of Sherm was when he attended my father's memorial service. He was a one of a kind genuine person. Sherm was not just a good friend but felt like family to me. The more than 25 years I've known him will always hold a special place in my heart.
My wife, Anne, and I wish to offer our sincere condolences to the family of Sherman Cohn at his passing. In 1965, when I was a first-year law student in his Civil Procedure class, he took me under his wing as an intern and it was the beginning of a wonderful two and half years of research, writing and honing the skills toward becoming a confident young attorney from a not too-confident first year student. Through the years we kept in touch and would see each other on occasion and it was a joy to catch up with his latest adventures. He was a brilliant lawyer, a dedicated professor and a warm and wonderful human being. He loved life. He made all the difference in the trajectory of this first year law student and he will be missed. Many Sherm stories come to mind. He was a bundle of energy taking on multiple projects and doing them all well. A great legal mind and a wonderful person.
Professor Cohn made it possible for me, and many other Hispanic women like me, to afford law school. I am honored to have been one of his scholarship recipients from 2015 through 2018. I will always cherish the memories I have of meeting him and his family, and personally thanking him for his support. I will forever be grateful for his generosity and kindness.
Professor Cohn was a fantastic professor, and more importantly, a wonderful person. He taught civil procedure my first year, which he somehow managed to make entertaining, he was very welcoming and his relaxed approach was much appreciated as a first year. My deepest sympathies to his family, may his memory be the source of many blessings.
Professor Cohn taught me Civil Procedure my 1L year (2006). Like most 1Ls, I was nervous, but Professor Cohn had an extremely calming presence, which put me at ease and allowed me to focus on the task at hand. I will always remember him as one of the nicest professors I ever had. He was true legend when I arrived at Georgetown Law, and will always be remembered as one.
I knew Sherm in so many different ways through the years. He was my intimidating and challenging Civil Procedure professor in 1971-72. He was so in demand that he taught two full sections at the same time when a roll back curtain separated Rooms 206 and 207 of McDonough Hall. We reconnected years later when I was at D.C. Bar Counsel and he recruited me to write the ethics column for the Inns of Court magazine. He started a lunch program for all the Georgetown Law Professional Responsibility faculty when I was an adjunct professor. Then, he took me under his wing when I returned to Georgetown as Ethics Counsel. He was a beloved mentor and friend spanning a period of 50 years.
My most cherished memory of Sherm is one I will hold onto for the rest of my life. He came to my office in McDonough Hall just after he had taught his last class. It was a deeply emotional moment, as he loved teaching so much. We embraced and cried in each other's arms. I felt like I was standing in for the literally thousands of students he had inspired and trained.
It is hard to express how much I loved and admired Sherm and what an honor it was to transition from his student to his friend and colleague.
My sincere condolences to all his extended family and the Georgetown family on this huge loss, but deep gratitude for his well lived life and contribution to the school. I became part of the Inns of Court because of him, and cherish the memory of his great encouragement and enthusiasm. It is in no small part that I have litigated for over 30 years, trying to help my clients, because of him and those like him at Georgetown. He was a true Georgetown patriot, a kind, warm, wonderful professor whom we all truly loved.
I was a first-year evening student in 1990 when, as part of his lecture on Civ Pro, Professor Cohn asserted to the crowded classroom that "the law is a seamless web," a concept I found intriguing and was able to explore further a few weeks later when Sherm and I found ourselves at the Union Station metro and sat together a few stops. He shared his observation that laws evolve over centuries in action/reaction to the multitude of injuries and inequities as they arise, their adjudication and resolution a reflection of society's values. His words inspired me then to continue my studies and have lent themselves over the years repeated as a cogent reminder to adversaries and team members alike that our role as lawyers is fundamentally problem-solving. Thank you, Professor Cohn!
I did not have the opportunity to attend Sherm's classes during my JD years there. But he inspired me to join the Chas. Fahy Inn of Court and regularly served as a sounding board for legal issues I encountered over the years. His legacy gives his family much to be proud of.
There is no person who had a deeper connection to Georgetown Law than Sherman Cohn. A proud graduate of the Law Center and later a member of the faculty for more than half a century, Professor Cohn defined what it means to be a Hoya Lawya. In my 3L year, I was lucky enough to have had him as my professor for Jewish Law, a course which he co-taught. In that role, I remember his intelligence, his kindness, and his thoughtfulness. I also remember his engaging conversations across the seminar table and his smile and laugh--two underrated tools in a teacher's toolbox. But my favorite fact about Prof. Cohn was one that I learned directly from him. He loved to share that he was probably the only person who had met the editors in chief of both Volume 1 and Volume 100 of The Georgetown Law Journal--a publication that he cared deeply about because of his time as a Staff Editor as a student and later his role as Faculty Advisor. Prof. Cohn will be missed but he will not be forgotten. May his name be for a blessing and Hoya Saxa.
Thank you for advising of Professor Cohn’s passing. I had the benefit of Professor Cohn’s Civil Procedure class in his first year as a faculty member at the Law Center in 1965. I remember him and his class to this day because he grounded me in the basics and importance of the rules of civil procedure, which became the bedrock of my law practice for more than fifty years. Without his instruction and insight, my success in the practice would have been much different than it was. Thanks, Professor. I have never forgotten what you did for me. RIP.
1969, a Jewish student from California, at a Catholic institution in the first two weeks of school, which coincided with the High Holidays. Professor Cohn asked me to stay after class. He said, where are you spending the High Holidays? Professor Cohn insisted they be spent with his family.
Besides being the beneficiary of Prof. Cohn's brilliant teaching skills, I was the beneficiary of a lifelong friendship and love for Georgetown.
One of Prof Cohn's best lessons was describing the difference between a good lawyer, very good lawyer and a Georgetown lawyer. A good lawyer could tell you what the law was. A very good lawyer would tell you what the law was and then proceed with a dialogue of "on the other hand." A great lawyer would ask you "What do you want the law to be." This advice guided me to be involved in various California legislation in the entertainment industry.
I am sure my experience with Professor Cohn is mirrored throughout the decades.
Sherman Cohn was a dynamic and energetic Professor during my student tenure at Georgetown Law. His dedication to the topic and to the students was nothing less than remarkable. I am most grateful for having experienced his exuberance, dynamism and erudition as a student. He remains a treasured inspiration all these years.
My father, Steve Rothschild, graduated from the Law Center in 1968. Sherm was his mentor at the GULC and Sherm suggested he look into clerking on the Court of Chancery in Delaware, which my father did. From there, Dad made Delaware his home and co-founded, and was the managing partner for 25 years of, Skadden's Delaware office, until he passed in 2004. I too went to the GULC and took Professor Cohn. Needless to say, he was also one of my favorite professors. His intelligence, humor and kindness are unsurpassed and he will be missed.
Above all else, Professor Cohn was a mensch.
Without question, I echo the sentiments of what Professor Cohn has meant to me and others as a caring and wonderful professor that pushed for the best in us all. However, it would be a grave oversight on my part not to mention how he was so instrumental in assisting all would-be-attorneys from other law schools in the DMV, and across the country. His role and vision in creating the BAR Review Institute (BRI) Course Program aided, over many years, thousands. Many, in DC and in a host of other states, owe their Bar License Exam passage to Professor Cohn. He was kind enough to hire me while a student to work with him and assist his chosen Lecturers in this vital post-graduation Program. Those work funds supplemented and enabled my classroom education while they also earned me a second education in real-world legal practice. For this, I remain forever indebted to him.
I was a student at GULC between 1972 and 1975. Professor Cohn taught me Civil Procedure. I served as a intern to him and worked with him on the Bar Review course offered at that time. I had the privilege of becoming his friend and was fortunate enough to be a guest in his home on many occasions. He had the only cat that could sit in my lap without causing an allergic reaction. During my career he was a mentor and an advocate for positions I sought and held. His recommendations notably carried great weight. He was present for my confirmation hearing as Peoples Counsel for DC and for my inauguration as Associate Judge. My debt to him and my love for him are immeasurable. My sympathy goes out to his family.
Professor Cohn was a well respected professor who has impacted positively so many lives. May Professor Cohn’s memory be a blessing.
Excellent teacher AND a kind friend
I encountered Professor Cohn as a master’s degree student in 2011. Prior to that, I had many personal and professional challenges and lacked confidence. But as a lawyer, Professor Cohn emphasized limits and boundaries, including his own, and he challenged those of us studying science to lead a classroom full of lawyers when the topic was biomedical in nature. Always emphasizing the distinction between scientific and legal truth, he simultaneously imparted both humility and confidence in all of us.
It was a great privilege to have studied with Professor Cohn, and as someone who has five degrees spanning a breadth of fields and who has crossed the globe to study, I will always remember his mentorship.
Sherm was my professor, mentor, friend, and co-professor. We launched the class together on Alternative Health and the Law and co-taught it for 20 years. Sherm was also Of Counsel to our law firm. A mensch’s mensch. He was friends with my wife and children and his influence led all three of them to Georgetown undergrad and one on to Georgetown Medical School. He also was so proud of his Jewish faith and the state of Israel. I will miss him very much.
When I was a newly hired law librarian coordinating the international and foreign law collection and services, I received a call from Professor Cohn. Could I provide a library research presentation to his seminar on Jewish Law? I replied yes, I can consider it, and I have some background in religious law and studies, but none in Jewish law beyond the most superficial. "No problem; read this" was his encouraging reply, conveying confidence that I would continue the library's role in his teaching just fine. He sent introductory materials and readings for the class, and so began a wonderful relationship of mutual respect and a lot of learning on my part. But as I discovered over the next several years of making this annual presentation, Sherman's whole way of being, of walking the talk of his inquiries, teaching, and life, was devoted to the deepest respect that he expressed to the process of education and learning. He also expressed warm gratitude to those of us he found willing to engage in it along with him. I return that gratitude, and I am so glad to have worked with him and have had the opportunity to learn from him
Sherm’s love of teaching civil procedure was infectious.
I had Sherm my first year. He was the best! He made Procedure interesting, a very tough task!
Sherm was a pillar of our institution who touched all were fortunate to have crossed paths with him. A passionate teacher, inspiring mentor, and generous friend, he was beloved by all. Rest in peace, Sherm. You will be deeply missed, particularly in Korea, but you will eternally remain close to our hearts.
The best and most inspirational law professor. He made me understand why I should be a lawyer.
As a future corporate lawyer, Civil Procedure was not my favorite class, but Professor Cohn is still one of my favorite (and most memorable) teachers. He was entertaining, engaging, and cared about his students. You didn't learn just civ pro from him, but life lessons -- what to prioritize when you were in law school, and it wasn't your studies! Professor Cohn taught us to value our family and friends, the people who supported us along the way to Georgetown, and advocated for a full life, not one only focused on academic or professional pursuits. I am very thankful to have known him even if for only one semester in a 1L class.
Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) Professor Sherman Cohn was the most amazing teacher I ever met! He was exceedingly brilliant and a wonderful human being! He was totally committed to GULC and fought to continue teaching long after mandatory retirement age at 72. One of his personal passions was to promote the centuries old Chinese acupuncture health treatment, as a member of an American acupuncture board. There's probably a lesson in that for us and what it may have meant to keeping him mentally sharp. Additionally, he had a great passion for many things and embraced life, so although he lived for GULC, he had many life interests! Aside from the incredible way he taught civil procedure shepherding us through the nuances, he was a master litigator. His regard and knowledge of the law was way beyond the most learned in the legal profession. His written briefs were stellar in argument, but written in plain English and always masterful. I felt privileged to have been admitted into his Fahy Inns of Court Litigation and Legal Ethics Clinic with other students, outstanding litigators, and the chief judges at every level of court in Washington, D.C. (Superior Court, Court of Appeals, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the United States Supreme Court, and others). He led law students, judges, and was a court-appointed master in many cases. He taught us that briefs were not only to argue legal points, but to be used to teach the court about the facts and the most novel points of law. He was recruited to be the first to lead an Inn of Court in the United States through a clinic at Georgetown. Imagine being a student in the Fahy Inn and being treated to dinners with all the most prominent judges and then critiquing novel legal issues and acting them out in vignettes in an actual federal court room less than a block from the White House! To top off the conclusion of the first year of the Fahy Inn, Professor Cohn arranged a celebratory dinner at the U.S. Supreme Court with over one hundred legendary legal minds in the country. He was par excellence! One of his faculty colleagues and a special friend was Watergate Special Counsel, Sam Dash, who was also a GULC professor of mine. I regard both Sherman Cohn, and Sam Dash to be two of the greatest lawyers who ever walked the face of this earth! My condolences to his family, the GULC family, and all those who knew and loved him! May he Rest in Peace!
Sherm was and ought to remain the face of Georgetown University. He made all of it better, and all of us who were his students in some way better lawyers. He exuded the deep thinking it takes to do your best for your client(s), so he fostered law students into his realm of professional excellence. Forever a Hoya, Sherm is part of us forever.
I worked for Professor Cohn my third year at Georgetown Law and got an up-close look at the man, the professor, and the leader. He was just starting the work to bring Inns of Court to DC and I admired his thorough preparation and tenacious advocacy.
Sherm Cohn was such a delightful man. Always smiling, always welcoming, always reaching out to the newcomers and the juniors among us. Whenever I encountered him, I knew that my own mood would be elevated just by interacting with him.
At the same time, he was no softie when it came to protecting and advancing the Law Center – he was a key player in the long-ago battles that helped establish the foundations of the modern Georgetown, and we owe him for his fortitude, as well as for his graciousness.
I entered Georgetown Law Center as a first year in 1964. If memory serves me, I believe I had Sherm very early in his over 50 year career and when he was just gaining his teaching chops. Clearly, he evidently did. One thing that is not mentioned in the extensive biography announcing Sherm's death and detailing Sherm's widespread activities benefitting the reputation of the Law Center, was his initiation of one of the first, if not the first, National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) Basic Skills course in Washington, DC, at Georgetown, beginning in the summer of 1978. I along with three others: the late Dan Grove, a former Prettyman Fellow, 1966; Lou Natali, Law Center 1966, who recently retired as a tenured professor of law from Temple Law School; and Hon. Patricia Wynn, retired Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, were invited by Sherm to initiate the NITA Course, though other "Team Leaders" followed including the late Professor Urban Lester of Catholic University Law and the late retired Associate Judge of the Superior Court, along with Dan Grove and I who were team leaders for 25 years, turning the program over to younger people. This year was the program's 45th year. Today, this program is one of NITA's oldest, continuous and largest programs. During that time, the program has provided these basic trial skills to thousands of lawyers. None of this would have occurred without Sherm. He often agreed to lecture in the program on Ethics, one of Sherm's specialties.
Through that NITA association, Sherm and I became good friends. He was always willing to share his advice regarding ethical issues that had arisen in cases I was dealing with and was always correct. Sherm was warm, genuine, thoughtful and generous to a fault. When our class had its 50th reunion in 2017, we asked those faculty who were still alive to attend our dinner and, naturally, Sherm attended. Sadly, he was the last surviving faculty of our class. He brought great credit to the Law Center and I will miss him dearly. Dan Toomey '67
I was Sherm’s appellate practice student in ‘72 and thereafter we would periodically cross paths. A most memorable man, who cared that his students strive to become the best version of themselves. He inspired me to do the same for the law students and young lawyers I taught. Am eternally grateful for his mentorship. May he rest in eternal peace, he used the gifts God gave him to the best of his ability to make this a better world.
"Welcome to your very first class in law school." Those words are indelibly stamped in my memory right next to a handful of other core memories. Professor Cohn taught me civil procedure in the fall of 2002, and, as it happened, his class was indeed the first one in our law school education. Those movies where they ask new students to look around and guess who wouldn't graduate? The utter polar opposite of Professor Cohn, who warmly encouraged and welcomed each one of us. At least one of us exhaled and silently upgraded her expectations. Law school so easily could have been just one more white-knuckle challenge for this imposter to overcome, bathed as I was in a keen awareness of my extraordinarily good fortune to find myself in his classroom that evening. But Professor Cohn set a completely different tone in that first class, and every class after. Aware of but careful not to feed our self-doubt, he drafted us all in the task of dissecting the unfamiliar language and customs of the law, to reveal underneath entirely new ways of understanding and navigating our world. Under Professor Cohn's guidance, Georgetown-- still a challenge, in all dimensions-- became something more: fun, lighthearted and infused with unexpected new horizons. In the years since, the intellectual foundation that he laid, and his focus on kindness and community, accompany me in every aspect of my work and remain qualities that I attempt to emulate. Farewell, Professor Cohn. You made a real difference in my life. I hope we meet again.
A compassionate and knowledgeable scholar.
I was one of Sherman's first students when he became an adjunct professor at WCL in 1969. Sherman inspired me to become and remain a student of the law as well as a practitioner. We stayed in contact with each other and exchanged letters and visits from 1969 until it became too difficult for him to continue that correspondence a few years ago. Not all teachers ever get to know the extent of their influence on their students. Sherman stayed in touch with many of his students and was able to see that his friendship and guidance would live on through his students. I am glad to have known him as a teacher, mentor and friend.
The Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine mourns the passing of Sherman Cohn on August 5, 2024. Professor Cohn played a key role in the formation and structure of the Commission, NCCAOM and the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine. Among his many contributions to the acupuncture profession, he served as the Commission’s chair from its inception in 1982 until 1993; and on the Board of Trustees of Maryland University of Integrative Health, formerly called Tai Sophia Institute.
Professor Cohn completed his undergraduate education and a JD and LL.M in law at Georgetown University, and had served as a Professor in the University’s Law Center since 1965. The University has posted an in memoriam article that addresses the entire span of Professor Cohn’s remarkable life and career.
With great appreciation, the Commission extends its condolences to the Cohn family.
I had the privilege of co-teaching a seminar on legal issues related to Alternative, Complementary and Integrative Medicine with Sherm. The class still continues to this day largely because of the excellent foundation for the course that Sherm laid for it when he began teaching the course in 2001 along with my friend and college classmate Jon Missner L ‘99. It has been an honor and a privilege serving on the adjunct faculty at Georgetown Law Center for nearly 15 years and one of the best parts of it was getting to know and work with Sherm. I only wish that had the opportunity to work with him for longer but am glad for the time that I had. May he rest in peace.
After one semester at GULC, I didn't think I could take it any more. Couldn't stand most of the students; couldn't stand most of the professors. I wanted to be a lawyer but I couldn't put up with being a law student. I went to tell the one professor I could "stand" and told him I wanted to drop out. Sherman replied, "out of the question; you're going to come work for me." That defined the next two and a half years of my life, working between 30-50 hours a week. Among his projects at the time was Preview of US Supreme Court Cases, which involved schlepping boxes of briefs from the Court back to his office to be summarized for the media. During law school we became friends and after returning to California we remained friends by phone and on his occasional trips to the West Coast. He was one of a kind and as one other poster mentioned, a complete mensch.