Martin H. Brinkley
Dean and William Rand Keenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor
University of North Carolina School of Law
Why is teaching leadership in law schools important?
As de Tocqueville said in the 1830s, in America lawyers are the class that exercises restraint on the dangerous potential of a public carried away by populist passion. That role is of immense importance today. What is frustrating to me and I believe to many, is how some lawyers, in order to gain positions of great political influence, have nurtured populism rather than playing their intended role.
If you teach a leadership course, what’s the title and brief description of the course?
We teach a course known as “Transition to the Profession,” which is limited to first year students. I also teach a course in Legal History. Both contain leadership components.
If you or your law school have a leadership program, what’s the title and brief description of the program?
We do not have a formal leadership program. I wish we did, but after investigation it has proved difficult to add to the curriculum.
What’s your favorite leadership book? Why?
The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. I carry a Greek text of both with me at all times (I was once planning a career as a professional classicist). I have read both in the original many times. They are the greatest stories of leadership triumphs and failures in Western culture.
What’s your favorite leadership quote?
“Let it be known to those whose habit it is to admire the disregard of authority, that there may be great men even under bad emperors, and that obedience and submission, when joined with activity and vigor, may attain a glory which most men reach only by a perilous career, utterly useless to the state, and closed by an ostentatious death.” Tacitus, Agricola 42.