Associate Justice Harry T. Lemmon passed away on Friday, April 18, at the age of 94. He served as Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of Louisiana from 1980-2001. Associate Justice Lemmon's obituary can be found here: https://obituaries.nola.com/obituary/harry-lemmon-1092832878

NOBA Past President Steve Herman gave the following remarks at Justice Lemmon's memorial:

The day I graduated from law school was the smartest I ever was.  I thought I knew everything. But – fortunately – my first job was a real education at the feet of Justice Harry T. Lemmon. Ostensibly, I was there to assist him, but – in truth – he was fulfilling a part of what I think he believed to be a sacred calling to help water the seeds of the future crop. He was a pleasure to work for.  A pleasure to be around, exuding warmth, kindness, generosity.

Every once in a while, he would have us out to Luling to go over the writ reports with him on the back porch, which was a treat for us – but also seemed particularly fitting. Doing justice - not cloistered in the stacks of some Olympian Library – but firmly centered in family (which everyone knows was always first and foremost – with everything else a distant second).

He brought to every case something important that wasn’t in the books or briefs. The lived-in experience of real people. How they worked. How they played. What they cared about. The systems they built. The institutions they created.

He saw through arcane notions and flowery language – focusing, instead, on the practical causes and real-world effects.

“The law is reason!” he said, in the role of Chief Justice E.D. White, in a play staged here at Loyola.[1]  And I suspect he felt largely the same.

“Every judge”  – he said in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court – “Is first and foremost a Human Being, and Not a Detached and Unemotional Law Machine” [2] 

“Logic and Experience” were the cornerstones of his approach to Constitutional questions[3] In one case – as just one example – he recognized that the “Benefit to the public may be a rational basis for discriminatory classification, but the more speculative and remote the benefit, the more arbitrary the discrimination.” [4]Not black and white – but a balancing of interests with always a through-line of common sense. “I strongly believe” he preached, at the same time, “that members of the legal profession must become more involved in community service in order to regain public respect for the profession.”[5]And he was true to his words. Passing things down to the next generation – not only to law clerks like me – but teaching formal classes here at Loyola, participating in other law school activities, spearheading the mentoring program within the Louisiana Judicial College through AJS and elsewhere in the community, such as Halloween parties for homeless children and outreach programs for the victims of domestic violence

“The quality of mercy is not strained”  he took from Shakespeare.

“It is Twice Blest:

“It blesses him that gives”

As well as “him that takes.”[6]

Justice Lemmon was truly blest.  As he blessed everyone around him.

Justice Lemmon was a Field Marshall in Our Campaign for Democratic Equilibrium and Self-Rule. He took up the Swords of Wisdom and Experience, Forged in the Service of Justice. But always in a Warm, and Empathetic Way. Universally Liked – Universally Respected.

The Classroom is Empty, But We Feel the Echoes of His Teachings The Bench Is Silent, But the Ripples from His Sound Judgment Linger On