I’m thrilled to be able to be part of this celebration of the man I think we should all start calling the Notorious RWG.

I first encountered Bob Gordon—or rather, I first encountered his work—in 1994. I was on a gap year between college and law school, working in the appeals bureau of Robert Morgenthau’s Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and applying to a history Ph.D. program. The office had a law library, complete with all the major law reviews. I decided that during my lunch hours I would read legal history in the law reviews so that I’d be at least a little bit ready for the J.D./Ph.D. program on which I had decided to embark.

* Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Head of Davenport College, Yale University.