In Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, Lucy By the Sea, the central protagonist, Lucy Barton, goes through life with an essential question: what is it like to be you?

Two people make me think about that question.  The first is Joseph Bankman, who is the Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School.  His academic expertise is tax law.  He is the author of widely used casebooks with exciting names like Federal Income Taxation.  But he is not just a tax nerd.  He is a deeply caring and empathetic professor.  He got an additional degree in clinical psychology so that he could be more helpful in counseling anxious law students.   He also hosted a podcast called WellnessCast for Stanford Law School to discuss “wellness and mental health within the legal profession.”  A tax scholar with heart.

The other person I have been thinking about is Barbara Fried.  She is the William W. and Gertrude H. Saunders Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.  Her academic expertise is distributive justice, namely, how are the goods and services in our society distributed, and are they distributed fairly?  She is a three-time winner of an award that recognizes excellence in teaching at Stanford Law.  Barbara Fried is married to Joseph Bankman.