PHOTOS: (TOP-BOTTOM) NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES (2); DAVID LEIFER (2)

Winter 2006 | Faculty News

Farewell to Flym

John Flym is retiring after more than 30 years on the faculty. While the observation is trite, it also happens to be true: our law school will not be the same without him. To a greater extent than any of his colleagues, John has modeled for our students how theory informs practice and practice informs theory. Both through his example and through pedagogy, John has shown all of us what an engaged lawyer and academic, committed to the public interest, can achieve. He came to us because he believed in our mission and, over the years, it has been John who has repeatedly reminded us what that mission is and what we must do to remain true to it.

John also modeled another virtue, that of compassion. When sickness or loss afflicted a member of our law school community, John was (and is) a most responsive and caring individual. When one of his colleagues required sustained support over a long period of time, characteristically it was John who organized and ensured that rides, meals and whatever else was needed came quickly. His humanity helped make ours as caring a place as a law school is likely to be.

As generations of Northeastern students well remember, John’s criminal law materials were unique. Eschewing the approach of traditional casebooks, John’s materials contained unedited cases intermixed with numerous secondary sources and John’s provocative suggestions as to what might lie underneath the formal structure of the criminal law. He felt it was important for students to understand the process by which lawyers and judges managed to characterize what an opinion stood for, and he believed (and I think still believes) that the best way to do this was by confronting students with the cases in their raw form. While no one would dispute that reading all of John’s criminal law materials was a major undertaking, students who took the plunge reported learning an extraordinary amount about law and the criminal justice system. For years John has also taught Criminal Advocacy, imbuing in students a sense of what excellence in the representation of the criminally accused looks like.

I feel it is somewhat unfair for me to be writing about John and his time at Northeastern since I don’t think there is anyone on the faculty with whom I have argued more often about more topics than John, and now I get the last word in print. Although it undoubtedly does an injustice to some of our more nuanced disputes, in general I was the one advocating pragmatism while John stood for principle. He genuinely believed that this was a unique community with a different way of resolving problems and making decisions. I don’t know that we ever were or are still that institution, but I do know that, to whatever extent the values that led to the creation of the law school still characterize us, John deserves much of the credit.