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Interview with Frank Motley

Recent Teaching History
Librarianship, creative writing, autobiographical writing, reading the law, legal research
All Over the Place: Storeies in a Multicentered Society; Fall 1999
Thinking Law Fall 1995-Winter 1996

Although librarian Frank Motley became interested in the law only by accident, he is so interested in the law that he encouraged his son to get a law degree from the University of Chicago so they'd have something they both loved to talk about. The accident came years ago, when he lived in Minnesota; he stopped for some students at a high school cross-walk and was rear-ended by an oil truck. (Frank figures that the driver was watching the young ladies on the sidewalk, but then Frank wasn't looking into his rear-view mirror either.)
Frank went to see a lawyer. "He was a really nice guy. We talked a little bit and he said, 'Gee Frank, your claim is worth a certain amount of money, not a whole lot.' And he said, 'if you could get all that money for yourself, you know, you'd have a little bit of compensation for the pain and hurt you went through. If I help your with it, I'll take half of it and I will not have enough to be worthy of my time, and you won't have enough to be worth your time. You're a librarian--you are sitting there with all those books. Why don't you just figure this out for yourself and keep your money?" And that's just what Frank did.

Frank learned two critical things from that experience. One was that the library could be a lot more empowering than even he had realized. The other was that the law is really interesting.

That's half the story of Frank's teaching, Bertrand Russell is the other; and it is connected to Frank's interest in the law by only a couple of short steps. In becoming his own lawyer and law scholar, Frank realized that clear writing is directly connected to clear thinking, that "if you can't write it clearly, you haven't thought it clearly." Clear writing can also be connected to clear oral communication, "learn to write clearly, and then learn to speak like you write," is his motto. Clear writing is also empowering and is even more widely useful than knowledge of the law. Bertrand Russell is a brilliant thinker and has done plenty of clear writing, about a hundred books of it. "One way to help oneself to learn to write clearly is to read lots of Russell and continually ovserve how he uses the language in many diverse contexts."

Of course behind all these interests of Frank's is the library and the empowering that's available to all through research. What Frank really does is to help students to find out about and learn to think clearly about whatever they are curious about. Frank once sponsored an individual contract on spontaneous human combustion. In spite of the skepticism of his peers and image-conscious deans, a fine piece of work, was the result, thoroughly supported by much work in researching obscure medical journals, and studies of paintings of unintended self-immolation. Frank will work with just about any student whose curiosity and desire to learn is adequate to the task, and who can tolerate Frank's gentle but ever-present help with clarity in writing. (He even schedules regular office appointments when teaching in a program.)

A student wishing to do a contract with Frank should bring in a draft of what they want to do that pretty much follows the standard form, which, in his view is pretty good because it asks students What is it you want to learn? and What is it you're going to do in order to learn it? Frank likes there to be in this draft a clear distinction between those two different things. For example, " How does the Red Cross earn its money?" and "I propose to learn about this by becoming a volunteer and I'm going to do this and read that." Expect to write a lot.

It is clear from their evaluations of him that Frank's students like him personally, like his easy manner, his obvious interest in them and willingness to help. They find that this--plus his strong belief that learning and the accumulation and assessment of information is what gives life hope--compensates them for the large amount of writing and reading they have had to do for him. He finds that all his students, but contract students in particular, appreciate the help they have been given by knowing that they do have to do the work.

Interviewer: Pete Sinclair

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Last Updated: March 15, 2007