Here Comes The Dean.

Photo:  By Ryan Monahan our IT guy - in our parking lot before Dean Clark hit the road.

She is a stranger who sends me a handwritten letter after having read something about me.  I email her back and invite her to lunch.  She emails back and accepts.  Two months later...

"Hi!"  She says with her warm smile, walking into my room.  "I love this office.  You have great art."

I take her over to chat with Paul Whelan.  Tour her through the maze that is our office.  Down to the old racket ball court now turned into a courtroom.  Out into the cool sunshine.  Down and across the street to the Boat Street Café.  Where we spend a delightful hour over our tasty baguette sandwiches.

Dean Annette E. Clark, M.D., J.D.  graduated from SU law (previously UPS law may it rest in peace) four years after me.  She immediately was hired on as a professor.  And now has been elevated to head the institution.  By all rights she could be stuck up and full of herself.  But she isn't.

Her eyes dance.  She is talking and chewing with me.  She is so cozy to be with that  I have no hesitation admitting a piece of lettuce is stuck in my tooth.  Before I dig it out.

We talk of our children - she has two boys, one who is in law school , the other who is a mechanical engineer.  The hopes for our profession.  Whether I would agree to be an adjunct in trial advocacy at SU Law, now that my long time UW teaching partner Bill Bailey has become a full time professor.  How this blog got started.  Even Facebook.

And honestly the whole time I'm thinking, just how cool she is.