Washington and Lee University
Last fall, the W&L Law School hosted its 15th annual alumni seminar focusing on topics in law and literature. The program featured Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King’s Men, a work generally regarded as the finest political novel of all time. Warren’s classic portrays the life of a populist governor, Willie Stark, who in the eyes of the narrator, Jack Burden, falls from grace through unscrupulous acquisition and manipulation of political power. Based loosely on the life of Louisiana Gov. Huey Long, All the King’s Men traces the demoralizing effect of this loss of innocence, an effect that eventually leads to a crime of passion. Teaching in the program were W&L Law professors Scott Sundby and David Millon, along with former colleague Dave Caudill and English professor Marc Conner. The weekend program, running from late Friday afternoon through midday Saturday, again earned high praise from participants. The Law School co-sponsors the program each fall with the W&L Alumni College.
In its 16th year, the Law and Literature Seminar will turn to another American classic, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Perhaps the most lyrical and eloquent of all the great American novels, The Great Gatsby focuses on the powerful tension between limitless desire and inherently limited human beings. 
At its heart is the mysterious, charismatic figure of Jay Gatsby, who seems to reach the pinnacle of American success but at a tremendous cost. Fitzgerald’s great novel of the “Jazz Age” delves into the difference between the ethical and the unethical, the legal and the criminal, the accepted social world and the rejected criminal underworld. Ultimately, this deeply moral novel seeks to explore the elements in our nature that lead us to cross the line of what society can allow and what it must curtail—that is, the very essence of law. Fitzgerald asks us to ponder the hazards of misbegotten dreams, the corrupting influence of wealth and social standing pursued at whatever cost, and the tragic inevitability of a collision between illusion and reality.
As a bonus to practicing attorneys, the program will again seek approval for two hours of Continuing Legal Education ethics credit. The program is open to anyone interested in law and literature.