In a pro bono case where I represented a Greek Political Philosophy professor at Catholic University in her tenure battle, under the supervision of Wilmer Cutler partner M. Carolyn Cox, I had the pleasure of meeting and deposing two eminent college professors in age-old political philosophy (talking Socrates, Montesquieu, Lenin, etcetcetcetc: Dr. Thomas Pangle (who at that time was at the University of Toronto, after his famous-infamous tenure battle at Yale) and Harvey Mansfield at Harvard University. In Toronto, I stopped by to see D.T.H. who had just arrived in the West from native communist Vietnam, in order to bring her some $$$ from me as a gift (I left my hotel to ride the bus with her, took her to dinner, and then I emptied all cash from my purse and pressed it to her hand, before I took a taxi to the airport--I remembered one-hundred dollar bills I had taken out of the Bank for the purpose; I told the taxi to take her back to her abode, where she was the housemate of some old woman in Toronto. We weren't even that close in Saigon at TV High School; never spoke to each other as a matter of fact! But she had looked me up and I gave her all of me, as much as I could give for the occasion! Before Toronto somehow she had shown up first in Texas and then in Washington, and stayed at my home; I treated her like my own sister. Whatever she wanted from my apartment, Galveston TX and then Arlington, VA, she named it and she had it.). In Toronto, I might have attended a Vietnamese event or wedding that weekend, where I sang some song, and got to see thay Dao Duc Hoang and his family...My memory is fading now...
At Harvard, I forgot what I was doing...I was in the office of Hale & Dorr in Boston to depose Dr. Mansfield. Boston was...cold, and Hale & Dorr was very classically Bostonian upper-class! I did my job! In the conference room, I still remember how where I sat: I was at the end of the conference table; the court reporter on my left, and Dr. Mansfield was on my far right, in the middle of the conference table. He had a very deep, throaty, and gentle voice. Very mild-mannered.
Both gentlemen were so kind and warm toward the young Vietnamese woman who deposed them (I had my questions all drafted and organized in advance, of course!)
Of course, back then, I took my lawyer job for granted, and I didn't know, consciously, that I had stepped right into the elitist place of America!
On that deposition trip, which highlighted my life as a young lawyer in the Capital City, assigned to controversial cases, I still carried VN faithfully on my shoulders, with my gentility and kindness toward DTH (I held nothing back), and my appearance at the Vietnamese event in Tonronto, the weekend of the Thomas Pangle deposition! (To this day, half a century later, never one word of thanks from this woman from TV HS!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pangle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Mansfield
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