Dr. Alan Stone, my longtime teaching partner at Harvard Law School, has died at 92. He was a great man and a good friend.

Alan Stone, who died this week, was a truly great man.  He was a serious intellectual who cared deeply about many subjects beyond his expertise in psychiatry and law. He loved literature, music, sports (he played on Harvard’s football team along with Bobby Kennedy).  He lived a life of the mind and the soul.  He loved ideas and loved exchanging views with students and colleagues. He wrote about the most diverse array of subjects: law, psychiatry, literature, film – and even diets.

I had the pleasure of teaching with him for nearly half a century.  Some of my earliest classes were in psychiatry and law with Alan, and my last class at the Law School was on Shakespeare and the Law, also with Alan.  He was a wonderful co-teacher, colleagueand friend.

Alan’s impact on the law and on psychiatry has been profound.  Both in his writings and in his role of President of the American Psychiatric Association, he influenced many young psychiatrists and lawyers. He got along with everybody and never personalized his disagreements with others. He had an open mind as well as an open door.  His only enemies were dogmatism, certainty and an unwillingness to listen to others and the sun. (He hated the sun because of his light skin – when he visited us on the Vineyard, he stayed indoors!)

Finally, Alan had influence on the life of the Law School, both in his teaching and in the advice he gave so many colleagues over the half century of his presence here.

I will miss him personally, the Law School will miss him, and his professions will miss him.  He lived a good life and a long life.  May his family be consoled with good memories.