A few weeks ago, the American legal history community was rocked by the tragic news of Richard Bernstein’s death. Email, chat, and social media discussions became outpourings of remembrances and collective sadness over Richard’s passing away. I’m sure that will continue for a while to come, such was Richard’s esteem and presence.
Richard’s closest friends have spared no accolade in describing him. Since I did not know Richard as well, I fear that my brief thoughts won’t quite capture the essence of the man nearly as well. But I feel compelled to share how kind and generous Richard was to me, and how important that was to me personally and to my life as a legal historian.
Richard was a fixture in the New York University Legal History Colloquium going back—I believe—to the early 1980s. With William Nelson, John Reid and others presiding, the Colloquium became one of the biggest stages in the profession for legal historians in law schools and history departments to test out their new papers and projects. By the 1990s, it had acquired a certain mystique, both for the cool nature of its venue—the Village, of course, being very much back in by then—but also because of the ‘tough’ discussions that unfolded there. Things could get testy, legend had it, when ideas were challenged, or paradigms clashed. Perhaps these were apocryphal tales handed down over the years, though, because if Richard was indeed so involved, it is hard to imagine it. As far as I understand, Richard’s attendance record at the meetings was extraordinary. And his friendship with Bill Nelson was also extraordinarily strong and would only continue to grow.
By the time I was summoned the guts to attend the Colloquium, I had heard a lot of the tough talk about it. As I was a grad student at the University of Chicago, which also had cultivated a—richly deserved, I must admit—reputation for bruising workshop experiences, I was cautiously optimistic I could hold my own. But I nonetheless readied myself for intellectual battle. I read that week’s manuscript so closely and marked it up so much that I was sure that nobody in that room save the author themself would know the material better.
And then I got there and the first person I met was Richard, and I wondered what the hell I’d been doing with my time for the previous week. Richard was very polite and kind when the two of us were the only ones in the room—he asked me my name, he shook my hand, and he told me to sit at the table, not on one of the chairs in the back. He asked me what my work was about—“oh, custom houses!” he exclaimed, no one ever has or ever will, when I told him about my dissertation idea. Had I read Leonard White, or Richard Morris? Had I looked at the strange material at the New York Public Library? The archives at Mystic Seaport? Had I considered getting into the federal courts? “You know, Joseph Story…” This was all within five minutes of meeting the man.
As the room filled in with local legal history luminaries and students that day, I was in a bit of a state. I knew I should keep my guard up and do my Chicago thing of performing the fact that I belonged, but I was also charmed by this Richard Bernstein guy, and wondered whether I had misread entirely the situation. I’m pleased to say that I was right to be charmed by Richard, and right that I had misread the situation.
Richard kept being nice to me. I attended every session of the Colloquium that spring of 2005 and we continued to talk, before and after every session. He convinced someone to include me in the lunch that capped the semester’s proceedings, and our conversation spilled over into the West Village, and then in the little restaurant that was our destination. We emailed, too, since Richard was one of those kind souls who would pass along a reading recommendation as soon as he encountered it. When I was lucky enough to return as a Golieb Fellow to the Colloquium for the 2006-7 academic year, I got to talk with Richard even more.
I learned that we passionately agreed about some things but passionately disagreed about others, especially when it came to normatively judging Federalists and Jeffersonians. We disagreed, too, on the relationship of law and ideology. I think my grumpy cynicism was the big obstacle in these areas because while Richard called it as he saw it, he wasn’t misanthropic. He just loved what he did and sort of assumed that everyone else loved what they did. Why wouldn’t you?, I imagine he’d wonder.
When I started teaching at Rutgers/NJIT in 2009, Richard was delighted, and sent me a wonderful note. He told me I should be proud; that getting a job was a challenge that shouldn’t be underestimated; that there were no clear lines about getting anywhere in this world; and to make sure to remember why it is I was doing this. I kept a printout of this in my office in Cullimore Hall on NJIT’s Newark campus, and was delighted to show it to Richard a few years later when he was gracious enough to deliver a huge lecture to the Honors College there (it eventually became this fine paper). He was also really understanding when there were…let’s call them administrative difficulties getting his stipend for the gig. “We didn’t get into this for the money!” A line that made me laugh then as now.
Since I moved to American University in the fall of 2012, I saw and corresponded with Richard less than I would have liked. But whenever either of us published anything, we were sure to send notes of congratulations to one another or even better, have a long talk at workshops or the American Society for Legal History annual meeting. When my book National Duties (finally) came out, Richard was one of the first people to congratulate me, yes, but also to send me a long handwritten note admiring how much it had changed since my dissertation and the early chapter I had workshopped at the NYU Legal History Colloquium. Out of nothing other than kindness, he had read all of it. And he remembered all of it. It was a moment I’ll never forget.
Thinking back on it now, I was very fortunate that Richard was the first person I ran into that day in that NYU Law School seminar room. How many other people had experiences like I did with Richard? How many lives did he touch so positively? I really have no idea. But the number must be very high because Richard’s boundless energy likely meant he had absolutely on way to limit making friends and being a teacher.
Those that knew Richard Bernstein are going to feel his loss for a long time to come. He was that rare presence in academia—kind, generous, intense, intelligent, and friendly. He’s left us, and in addition to remembering all that he did for me and others, I’m also going to try to focus on being better at the things that Richard did so well—lifting others up, spreading the good word about history itself, and enjoying the discussions I’m fortunate enough to be a part of.