Professor Stuntz, In Memoriam: “A Wonderful Boss”

Harvard Law Professor Bill Stuntz died on March 15 of cancer at age 52. As a tribute, we are running personal reflections from those who knew him. An introduction to this series can be found here and the entire series is here. The following reflection is by guest contributor Lauren Chitwood Schauf, Professor Stuntz’s faculty assistant from 2008 until his death. She can be reached at lchitwood@law.harvard.edu.

Bill Stuntz was renowned as a scholar and a teacher. Less well-known is that he was a wonderful — if unconventional — boss.

On several occasions, Bill called me into his office, very serious in both voice and expression. My mind would quickly flash through everything I’d done the past few days and my heart would beat fast, afraid that I’d really messed up. Nope. “I think that I owe you an apology,” Bill told me on all such occasions. He was worried that he had forgotten to apologize for some small thing from a few days before. I smile at his dozens of unnecessary apologies, but they weren’t trivial. They reflected his deep concern and awareness of those around him. As his assistant, it was my job to take care of his needs and concerns. But perhaps Bill took even greater care of mine.

Working for Bill was an honor and a true pleasure. As anyone who knew him will testify, he possessed a brilliant combination of thoughtfulness, honesty, insight, and humor. But what I knew as his assistant was that he never ceased to be impressed with and tremendously grateful for my help with even the most mundane of tasks. How a man who penned more than three dozen scholarly articles was impressed by turning off track changes remains a mystery to me, but Bill didn’t let me do anything without expressing his heartfelt appreciation.

Bill disliked having to take his motorized chair to class, and disliked even more having to ask for my help opening the doors in the law school’s halls, but it provided many opportunities for us to talk. In the two and a half years that I walked with Bill to class, we covered a large array of topics. Sometimes the topics were silly — how do they get the milk in those little coffee creamer cans to stay fresh without refrigeration? Sometimes the topics were serious — he was quitting chemotherapy. To be sure, some of our conversations were painful. But no matter the topic, I treasured our talks and the rich bits of life wisdom that often came with them.

As I write and talk about Bill, I find myself crying. But just as often, I laugh. Bill had one of the best laughs I’ve ever heard, and we shared some really great doubled-over-belly-laughs the past few years (immediately followed, of course, by his signature apology for “taking my time”). Once, about a year ago, Bill managed to walk past my office twice in an hour without me noticing. I remarked that he was surprisingly stealthy for a man with a cane. From that day on, Bill took great pleasure in getting past my office without me noticing, putting his coat and books down and then appearing at my door to declare triumphantly that he was “sneakier than me.”

Despite his immense pain, for Bill life was filled with such joyous moments — whether he was teaching, conversing with colleagues, or sharing a joke with me. Unlike the hundreds of students that he taught, I’m not sure Bill taught me much about law. But he did teach me about life’s gifts, and for those lessons I am eternally grateful.