"Take her for all in all, we shall not look upon her like again" -Steve S

Vanessa was ostensibly my colleague, but for me, like many, she was my teacher. In 1992 I was invited to join the Pace Faculty as the first co-director of the Environmental Litigation Clinic. I arrived having most recently been an organized crime prosecutor. That turned out to be an appropriate background, given the internal dramas related to the Environmental Clinic. Vanessa made clear that she was not happy with how the clinic had been run before I arrived. I think I shocked her when I arrived at her office to ask what she would like to see changed. There was a pause.

A good while later I left her office with a long list of recommendations, and an extensive reading list. I read everything she recommended and came back for more. And I sought to implement everything she asked. It was in some ways easy. Everything she gave me to read made me a more informed teacher. Everything she prescribed for me to do was designed to enhance the quality of the student’s experience, while delivering the quality of lawyering our cases required.

I have been teaching law school classes for thirty years. My focus, dedication and effort as a teacher is only a simulacrum of Vanessa’s fierce devotion to teaching, scholarship and justice. Take her for all in all, we shall not look upon her like again.

Steve S