This coming Sunday would have been the late BYU law professor Michael Goldsmith‘s 60th birthday. He was born March 6, 1951 in Tel Aviv, Israel, and passed away Nov. 1, 2009 in Albany, New York from ALS. To celebrate, I’ve posted a short historical video of him from April 22, 1994 here, when he was asked to recite Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” at the BYU Law School graduation in the Provo Tabernacle. He prefaces his reading by saying that the dean told him not to be “too interesting, too informative or funny, just be yourself,” after which he explains he learned of the poem from a New York undercover investigator and friend.

The Hunter Law Library also recently posted a student’s biography of Professor Goldsmith as part of our digital archives. See: ‘Alisi K. Langi, “Michael Goldsmith: A Biographical Sketch,” April 2009 legal history paper here.

Happy Birthday Professor Goldsmith!

–Galen L. Fletcher (Class of ’93)