Karl N. Llewellyn

Abstract

My association with Karl Llewellyn goes back many years to early days at Yale. I first knew him when, as student editor of the Yale Law Journal, he carried that publication almost singlehandedly through World War I, while I, as graduate treasurer, tried, not too successfully, to maintain its solvency. We came into close accord in 1919 when I joined the Yale faculty, of which he was already a member. Then and later when he returned from a brief period of practice in New York City and until he left for Columbia in 1925 we were in daily collaboration or friendly rivalry as the most junior members of a lively and ambitious group. Perhaps my sharpest remembrance of that era is of his always forceful and pungent form of expression, both oral and written. I can recall a considerable envy of that facility--indeed one which I always retained. To be fertile in original ideas while at the same time to possess a unique skill in forceful expression is a rare combination. Karl had this in unusual measure.