Professor Linda Rusch was considered by our class of eager legal learners to be the most feared and revered of professors; perhaps our Professor Kingsfield. She did not seek to demean, embarrass, belittle but instead to challenge, promote and motivate the highest level of excellence. Her depth of knowledge and analytical skill were and are daunting for one learning the craft of law. Likewise, while presenting the oftentimes “dryer” content courses of Commercial Paper and Bankruptcy, she engaged the students in a way that made the mundane meaningful, the challenging inviting and in short, encouraged some, including myself, to not just take the easiest electives available in order to finish school with the highest class rank, but to aspire to attain the most finely tuned skill that we could to best prepare us for the practice to come. Yet, the most memorable of her specific lessons is a seemingly simple but often overlooked practice. When we responded with our interpretation (or recitation of someone else’s interpretation) of the law on a particular point, she would universally reply by asking “Is that what the statute [or opinion as applicable] says?” So frequently was this deceivingly simple concept met with something other than the actual language of the stated law. While interpretation, analysis and advocacy are crucial hallmarks of effective legal practice (and traits that Professor Rusch possesses in rare measure), the discipline of reference to primary authority is a basis that she instilled in her students and from which those other traits must be rooted in order to be consistently effective.
Scott Bergs ’98 (HUSL)