Academic

The Cardinal Lawyer: Elegy for Andrew Franklin Young

»  Reprinted from the May 2009 issue of the Louisville Bar Association's Bar Briefs  «

Andrew Franklin Young, a third-year law student at the University of Louisville, died March 19, 2009, mere hours before the vernal equinox and mere weeks before graduation. With grief and respect, the entire Law School community paused to remember him and to reflect. I write now to urge all of us to do the same.

I cannot add to the praise that Andrew's friends, family, and classmates have already given him, in memorial services at the Law School and in his hometown of Princeton. I mean this literally: I cannot add significant details to the portrait of Andrew's life because I scarcely knew him while he was alive. At best I recall him as an eager, inquisitive, friendly face among many others. He served on the University of Louisville Law Review and represented the Law School in university-wide intramural competitions. His energy, his ambition, his physical vigor — his whole life epitomized the promise that lies before every student.

True to his name, Andrew Young embodied the quintessence of youth. In the lyrical language of the prologue to John Dos Passos' trilogy, U.S.A.: "blood tingles with wants; mind is a beehive of hopes buzzing and stinging; muscles ache for the knowledge of jobs . . . ."

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Full post as published by University of Louisville Law Faculty on May 11, 2009 (boomark / email).