By Jathan Janove (Guest Contributor)–
Douglas Baird is the Harry A. Bigelow Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and former dean of its law school. He’s a self-proclaimed dilettante.
After bouncing around in diverse fields such as ancient Greek literature, Baird stumbled into law school, not knowing what else to do. To his great surprise, he discovered that he was good at law; even more surprisingly, he enjoyed it!
He’s since become one of the world’s foremost scholars of bankruptcy and corporate reorganization law, even though, by his own admission, at age 66, he still hasn’t grown up. “When I turned 50, my mom told me she was tired of holding on to boxes of my college stuff. ‘Clear it out,’ she said.”
After stepping down as Law School Dean, Baird took a part-time job as a line cook in a Chicago restaurant. His boss was a Mexican immigrant without a high school education. “I learned an incredible amount from him,” Baird says. “I’m still in awe of his talent. When it comes to cooking, as with everything else, there’s a world of difference between amateurs and professionals.”
Although he could retire now without affecting his standard of living, Baird has no plans to do so. He’s having too much fun. “If you told me when I was 18 that I would be spending most of my adult life pouring over the technical minutiae of corporate reorg law and loving it, I would have said, ‘You’re absolutely out of your mind!’”
Given the choice of anyone, whom would you want as a dinner guest and what would you talk about?
Barack Obama. I had a one-on-one dinner with him many years ago when he was a young lecturer at the Law School. He told me he wanted to run for the state legislature but had to assure Michelle it wouldn’t be financially ruinous. He therefore requested a raise.
I tried to talk him out of his plan. “Springfield is a political cesspool,” I said. “You’re much better off pursuing a tenure-track position at the Law School.”
Barack was undeterred. He was a fantastic teacher and could have had a brilliant career as a law professor, but his passion was elsewhere.
I wrote the Provost and he approved a significant increase in Barack’s pay as well as providing health and other benefits. In my memo, I predicted that Barack might become an important community leader one day.
At our dinner, I would ask him to reflect on his presidency. “What do you feel you accomplished?” “What didn’t you accomplish?” “What was the effect of inheriting an economic catastrophe when you took office on the social reform and world goals you had?”
I think Barack was an excellent president. However, I’m sure he feels there were lost opportunities. I’d love to ask him how he sees things today.
What’s something in your life for which you are grateful?
I’m grateful for being in a relationship with a wonderful woman for two decades. I’m grateful for my health, having wonderful friends and through sheer dumb luck finding a vocation that I really like and am really good at.
What’s a treasured memory?
As a second-year law student at Stanford, I had a professor who was the classic old school “Kingsfield” type. Using the Socratic method, he would ask students a series of questions, drawing them farther and farther out on the ledge. Finally, he’d give them a little nudge, and down they’d go, crashing in front of their fellow students.
At class one day, he called on me. He asked me question after question. Then he pounced. Down I went, or so it seemed to the professor and fellow students. Instead of being embarrassed, however, I became aware at that moment that I had found my vocation. I had seen a complication in his hypothetical. And I also saw from his line of question that he had missed it. I was seeing one move further ahead than him. This was the first time this had happened to me. It made me realize that someday I would be able to teach.
I waited until after class and mentioned the complication to my professor. He quickly saw the point and that I had been right. At the start of the next class, he graciously apologized in front of the other students.
Why didn’t you show him up there and then?
That’s not my style. What would embarrassing him have gained me? And besides, good manners are never a waste of time. The following year, I took a seminar of his. Utterly exhausted from law review work, I fell fast asleep in class. Not seeing my condition, he called on me. I awoke clueless as to what was going on. He saw this and immediately called on someone else. No one else noticed. He gave me a complete pass.
We ended up having a very positive relationship, including when I was his colleague as a visiting professor at Stanford.
What’s an embarrassing moment in your life you’re willing to share?
Attention to detail is not my strong suit.
I received an invitation to a house-warming at one of my former students, Claire Hartfield, who lived in Hyde Park. I put the card in a coat pocket and forgot about it. I subsequently left Chicago for a year-long stint as a visiting professor at Stanford. That jacket didn’t accompany me.
After I returned to Chicago, I put that jacket on one day and later felt the card in the pocket. I looked at it and, lo and behold, Claire’s housewarming was that very day!
I arrived at her house at the appointed time and rang the bell. She came to the door. She invited me in, and her home was neat enough, but not exactly in show condition. We chatted for a few minutes before I asked where the other guests for the housewarming were. “What housewarming? We’ve been living here for two years.”
It turns out I had the month and day correct. I just got the year wrong.
As I said, attention to detail is not my strong suit.
What would you change about the way you were raised?
When I grew up in the 1950s, hugging and kissing children was not in fashion. I had wonderful parents who were devoted to my siblings and me. However, they weren’t warm and cuddly and perhaps I am a different person as a result.
Your house catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash. What would you grab?
I believe that those of us who collect art aren’t just owners, we’re curators. We have a responsibility to preserve the art we possess. Thus, I would grab as many original artworks as I possibly could.
What do you find spiritual in life?
Sunrises. I used to run along Lake Michigan early enough in the morning so that I could watch the sun rise over the eastern horizon.
If you could say something to a deceased friend, relative or colleague, something unsaid during that person’s lifetime, what would it be?
My father died when I was 34 at an age younger than I am today. I would tell him how much I appreciate what he and my mom did in raising four boys while pursuing their own careers as physicians. I think it’s easier sometimes to see flaws in parents as opposed to appreciating what they have done for you.
What’s the moral of your life story?
Luck matters. Try lots of different things. Search diligently for what you’re both good at and enjoy doing. Be flexible and open to the possibility that your life path will bear no resemblance to what you thought it would be growing up. When you find something that combines passion with ability, run with it, even if it’s something you never dreamed of. Lastly, humility also matters.
When I was a student you were “Doug.” Now, you’re “Douglas.” Why the shift?
I grew up as Douglas, but deliberately shifted to Doug when I went to law school. I thought that it would make me seem more gregarious. When I started teaching, I would always answer the phone, “Doug Baird.”
But I didn’t really like Doug as it was not the name I grew up with. When my father was dying, he told me that he was terribly worried that he had called me Douglas my entire life, when it was obvious from what people in Chicago call me that I preferred Doug.
In memory of my late father, when I became Law School Dean, I switched back to Douglas. Some people resented the change and thought I was putting on airs. This bothered me. In hindsight, however, I probably should have explained the whole story. I think it would have put them at ease.
Jathan Janove is Principal of Janove Organization Solutions, http://jathanjanove.com. Through consulting, executive coaching and training, he works with employers to create fully engaged workplace cultures. He also practiced law in Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon.
