Currie Lecture 2016 | Guido Calabresi, Equality in the American Constitution [0:00-5:03]

Good afternoon. I am David Levy, Dean of the Duke Law School. Welcome to the Brainard Curry Memorial Lecture. This lecture series is named in honor of Professor Brainard Curry, who taught contracts, admiralty, and conflicts of laws at Duke from 1946 to 1949, and then again from 1961 to 65. He was a much admired scholar and a beloved teacher here at Duke, as well as at several other schools. He was a leading theorist of his time on the conflict of laws. This lecture series began in 1967, and since that time, it has been given by truly extraordinary scholars of the first rank. And this year, no exception. This year's lecturer is Judge Guido Calabrazi. Judge Calabrazi is a preeminent judge, teacher, and scholar. He has been hugely and deservedly influential through his scholarly writings, his opinions, and his students and law clerks. How fitting and proper, then, that one such former student and law clerk, a very own esteemed colleague, Joseph, Professor Joseph Blocker, will introduce Judge Calabrazi today, Professor Blocker. Thank you, and thank all of you for being here. It is my distinct honor and privilege to introduce today my teacher, mentor, and friend, Guido Calabrazi. Guido is sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale Law School, where he joined the faculty in 1959, served as dean from 1985 until 1994. In 1994, he was confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and he is still very active on the bench and in the classroom. In fact, taught his tort students the learning hand test yesterday morning, before flying down here into the face of the hurricane to join us. Guido is, of course, a towering figure in legal scholarship, one whose influence, I think, actually transcends citation. You are all influenced by his work, even if you don't know it by name. But among his most influential pieces that you may know are what was originally his student note, some thoughts on risk distribution in the law of torts. His article with Doug Melamed, Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability, one view of the cathedral. His books, including the cost of accidents, tragic choices with filibobits, a common law for the age of statutes. And most recently, how'd off the presses, in fact, the future of law and economics, which will be available actually outside after the lecture today. And about that, I'll just say that Guido is one of the handful of people who created the field of law and economics, as we know it. So his thoughts on his future are surely not to be missed. Today, in the next hour, he's going to be exploring the topic of equality in the American Constitution. And I hope that you will join me in giving Guido Calabrese a very warm welcome. I'm going to take this thing off, and oh, great joy to be here. The last time I was supposed to come to do many years ago, there was, it was in April. The member was a blizzard, and everything got canceled. You don't have many blizzards here, but you did. So when I heard about the hurricane, I thought it was going to happen again. But I told my law clerk, who is the one, of course, who does everything for any judge, make sure the hurricane stays out. And Joseph, as you know, is that kind of a person and managed. Having been a dean, I know that dean didn't do it, because deans don't do anything. They always have people like Joseph to do that. Anyway, a great joy to be here. I am a judge now, as a senior judge, two-thirds time. And I'm a teacher, two-thirds time, which means my math is as bad as it ever was. And today, I'll be talking really more as a teacher and as a scholar than as a judge when I'm talking about this. I hope to leave some time for questions. And then I will have to ask you to bear with me, because I'm hard of hearing, and we'll figure out some way