The Gift of Milner Ball

Authors

• Thomas L. Shaffer, University of Notre Dame

Publication Date

2007

Abstract

My friend and teacher Milner Ball speaks of the law as "systemic injustice." I find that a bit harsh and tend instead toward a way of looking at injustice that comes from the equally melancholy reflections of Robert E. Rodes, Jr., also my friend-my colleague, too-and also my teacher (in two senses, including the I-once-paid- tuition sense). Bob Rodes has noticed injustice as much as Milner has, but Bob, who tends to be an Erastian, would say it is not the law that is the source of injustice; it is not even the "system"; it is lawyers who are the source of injustice, especially so in our North American, relatively peaceful, lawyer-driven commonwealth. "We American layers," Bob has said, "live on the flip side of other people's misery and degradation ....The economic, social, political, and cultural structures that . . . provide our graduates with interesting and remunerative jobs are the same ones that imprison our poor people in a world of hamburger flipping, teenage pregnancy, drive-by shootings, and crack, and inveigle many of our rich people into a world of gilded banality."

Recommended Citation

Shaffer, Thomas L. (2007) "The Gift of Milner Ball," Georgia Law Review: Vol. 41: No. 3, Article 12.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol41/iss3/12