José A. Cabranes, U.S. Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit, Portrait Dedication [90:06-91:52]

Yale law school made possible my return to New Haven a decade after graduation as the University's legal counsel which in turn led me to the federal bench and so I shall always be in her debt. I owed my original appointment at Yale in 1975 to the late Kingman Brewster, one of Yale's great presidents and its greatest modernizer. In a time of transition at the university I was honored to serve three great figures in American higher education to each of whom I record my indebtedness. Kingman Brewster, Hannah Ho-born Gray, who later served as president of the University of Chicago and A. Bartlett-Jomati. Their confidence enabled me to start an office of administration that was entirely new at Yale as it was new elsewhere, an in-house law office overseeing the vast and fascinating legal problems facing a modern university. After the presidential search of 1977 which passed over my great friend Hannah Gray and led to the appointment of Bart-Jomati I expected to move to Washington to serve in government. I liked Jomati very much, I particularly appreciated a sense of humor in private which included an encyclopedia command of ethnic humor and politics but I had no idea what he thought of me and I understood well that a new president might wish to have a new general counsel. One day president designated Jomati invited me to lunch and a long walk. We were on the new Haven Green when Jomati said to me in an apparent aside, I've considered the matter and I want you to be my big chicharone. I had never heard the phrase big chicharone,