It is time, at last, to speak the truth about Herbert L. Packer and his accomplishments. Herbert L. Packer was born in New Jersey, in 1925. He received a Bachelors in Arts (government and international relations, 1944) and an LL.B. (1949) from Yale University. Packer has clerked from 1949-1950 for Judge Thomas W. Swan of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Later he joined the Washington law firm of Cox, Langford, Stoddard and Cutler and later left to come to Stanford as Associate Professor of Law in 1956 and became a professor in 1959. In 1969 Packer suffered a massive, physically crippling and nearly fatal stroke from which he has never fully recovered. Shortly after Packer married Nancy, who was a short story writer and Assistant Professor of English at Stanford, and later had two children, Ann and George. At the time there were many different standpoints on law and criminal justice itself, but when Packer became a Professor a lot had changed. The law school was later…show more content… He cared deeply for his students learning and made their learning very enriching and fun: His brilliance and the breadth of his learning in the humanities, the social sciences, and law made his classes formidable. Although he had special impact on the better students, particularly those at the very top of the class, he was interested in and attentive to all students. He derived great satisfaction from the fact that a number of them, with his encouragement and help, went on to academic careers (Historical Society, p.2).
Professor Packer’s field was Criminal Law and it was one of his major passions he had studied. Most of the students who were enrolled in professor Packer’s classes are those who were on a higher level but still found it very important to give attention to those who were not on so high of a level in his