PROFESSOR MARY COOMBS
CELEBRATION OF SCHOLARSHIP and Service
By Professor Lili Levi
I
write on the occasion of the retirement from a rich and wonderful thirty years at Miami Law of my friend and colleague, Mary Coombs. Let’s begin with the official bio—a quick and incomplete snapshot of Mary’s admirable career “on the books:” a four-degree University of Michigan graduate (J.D. ’78 summa cum laude, M.A. ’70 Library Science, M.A. ’67 Sociology, B.A. ’65 Political Science magna cum laude); one of the first female law clerks to legendary Judge Henry Friendly; a well-loved professor of family law, health law, and torts (inter alia) at Miami Law; a rigorous legal scholar and author of more than 30 articles in fields ranging from law and feminism and outsider legal studies to criminal law, health law, and international law; an effective leader and three-term Chair of the University of Miami Faculty Senate (2003-06); an inductee into UM’s premier Iron Arrow society and ODK Honor Society; and an
elected member of the American Law Institute, the leading independent U.S. law reform organization. The official Mary is obviously impressive. Equally praiseworthy is Mary “off the books.” That Mary is the ideal academic colleague—a lightning-quick mind with intellectually generous impulses, an incisive critic, a demanding reader, and a fabulous editor seeking to improve what she reads on its own terms, without imposing her point of view. Unpretentious, informal, and unimpressed by pomp and circumstance, Mary is quick; she doesn’t suffer fools (or slow-pokes) gladly. A badly-reasoned legal opinion or a thinly-argued claim are like catnip to Mary. Even ideological agreement does not deter her commitment to intellectual rigor. But she is also openminded, fair in argument, and quick to give praise. She is boundlessly curious. She loves nothing better than engaged conversation, in whatever area of law or policy. No profile of Mary would be complete without mentioning her
Faculty
sense of humor. She is clearly among the great gods of punning. She is also the author of the funniest law review article I have ever read: Lowering One’s Cites: A (Sort of) Review of the University of Chicago Manual of Legal Citation, 76 VA. L. REV. 1099 (1990). What could be a better sendup of self-important legal academic writing than the hilarious footnote signals Mary coins in that article— e.g., “pretend to have seen…” or “don’t you wish you had seen…”! Mary’s approach to law and legal scholarship is pragmatic. She is concerned with how law affects real people’s lived experience over time. Therefore, her bent has been inter-disciplinary. Her articles have interrogated grand theory from ground level. From her early attention to transgender rights to her more recent work in health law, Mary’s scholarship has always been modern, in the forefront of identifying and responding to important social issues as they arise. Mary has left a lasting legacy— both in her scholarship and in the many minds and hearts she has touched here. Although she has officially retired from teaching law and left Miami for the Pacific Northwest, I have no doubt that she will continue to inquire and to teach. She will keep resisting facile solutions to hard problems. She will identify new challenges and translate law to those whom it affects. She will push those she meets to test their ideas. She will not retreat. Like the rest of the Miami Law community, I will miss her very much.
IN N OVA TIV E FA CUL TY
PROFESSOR MARY COOMBS
INNOVATIVE
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