“What hath God wrought?”
On May 24, 1844, that question was telegraphed from a railroad station in Baltimore to the U.S. Capitol. Samuel Morse, then one of the most highly-regarded and well-connected portrait painters in America, and the inventor of Morse Code not the telegraph, was demonstrating the world’s first commercial telegraph line to members of Congress.
His pioneering work launching the age of electronic communications was a poignant passion. Years before, while painting notables in Washington, D.C., the news of his beloved wife’s death in Boston did not reach him until days after her burial. Morse dedicated himself to discovering faster ways to connect people.
Taken from the Bible (Numbers 23:23) America’s first telegraph message reflects both awe and uncertainty about the dawn of a new age.
For almost two centuries since then, there have been profoundly disruptive advances in electronic communications from the telegraph to the telephone, undersea relay cables, motion pictures first silent then with sound, wireless radio, broadcast and subscription television, mobile phones, satellite communications, networked computer databases that moved eventually to mobile handheld iPhone devices and the rise of social media.
At each step along the way, as surveyed by Harold Furchtgott-Roth’s new e-book, “A New Look at Communications Law,” for good and sometimes not so good, law and public policy played a crucial role.
The origins of this symbiotic relationship between innovation and law is detailed in Christopher Beauchcamp’s fascinating book, “Invented By Law: Alexander Graham Bell and the Patent That Changed America.”
Fast forward, Time magazine and a gaggle of other influencers have picked the Architects of AI as the Person of 2025. Here we go again, with 2026 marking the spotlight shifting to a long era of necessary work by lawyers, scholars, teachers and state, federal and international governments, exploring, adapting to and shaping rules about how to use all the new stuff.
Parenthetically, this writer learned an embarrassing lesson from a great mentor about curbing ones’ enthusiasm before embracing innovation.
U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser for the Eastern District of New York was the fifth dean of his alma mater, Brooklyn Law School (1977-81), before being appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan.
Glasser’s parents entered the U.S. through Ellis Island. The judge’s father ran a butcher shop and his parents spoke Yiddish.
Now 101 years old and with senior status, Glasser’s caseload included trials of mafia figures such as John Gotti, Vincent Gigante and several members of the Gambino family.
A World War II veteran who received a bronze star for valor in the Battle of the Bulge, he handled a machine gun on the back of a half-track in General George Patton’s 3rd Army during its epic race to break through and rescue American troops outnumbered and trapped by German forces.
After Glasser received his law degree from BLS he joined its faculty, becoming a respected scholar while teaching thousands of law students, serving as a state family law judge, becoming a Bar review instructor and eventually the BLS dean of admissions and then law dean.
Speaking from personal experience, when I became the new law dean at BLS in 2012 it was valuable beyond measure to learn about the challenges and opportunities of the job from Glasser.
One day at lunch, I was bragging quite effusively about all of our recent “breathtaking” innovations at BLS. He listened impassively and I could not read his reaction at all. Deflated, I asked him what he thought.
“I don’t know. I’ll get back to you.” he said.
Soon thereafter, he sent me a satirical article by the great William Prosser, the father of torts and former Berkeley Law dean, titled “The Decline And Fall Of The Institute” (19 Journal of Legal Ed. 4, 1966).
When this weighty piece thudded on my desk, I briefly glanced at it and saw that it discussed the affairs of a medical school named “Kaiserliches Und Königliches” in Seiwasch on the Upper Rhein during the reign of Emperor Otto I in the Holy Roman Empire during the 1500s. (I didn’t know it was satire).
With little time to parse a dense journal article about a medieval medical school, I tossed Prosser to one side before getting to page three.
However, when I next encountered Glasser, I brazenly volunteered, “Hey, thanks for the Prosser piece. It was really helpful.”
“Really?” he replied, quite noticeably arching one eyebrow. Sometime later, going through my “to read” pile I actually read the Prosser article.
I learned that the famous medical institute appointed a new business-minded dean who introduced so many changes that what was once the world’s leading medical school rapidly deteriorated.
The enrollment of the institute fell to 89, and its licensing examination pass rate fell to 11%.
Kaiser Friedrich died of acute appendicitis, misdiagnosed by a graduate of the institute. Friedrich was succeeded by cruel Ludwig the Disagreeable.
Ludwig was suffering from a slight case of “house-maid’s knee.” Unfortunately, another young graduate attempted to cure the ailment with an unorthodox treatment that not only caused Ludwig excruciating agony, it also succeeded in crippling him for life.
Not to mention that the procedure was performed on the wrong leg.
Enraged, Ludwig the Disagreeable ordered his young doctor drawn and quartered. He also hung all the institute faculty and the innovative dean was strung up on the school’s highest flagpole.
Message received, lesson learned.
Dealing with innovation-driven change paradoxically is nothing new for the legal profession. It’s what law is all about.
After all, law is written in the past, stretched to fit the present and is already late for the future.
It is rarely, if ever, exactly the same. The tension between continuity and change is inherent in law.
In the 21st century, lawyers, and especially those engaged in public policy work, have the exciting opportunity — in truth, duty — to help society navigate through a perfect storm of transformational forces like AI that test the limits of our established values, norms, practices and rules.
It does not take a crystal ball to see that lawyers and forward-looking law schools that embrace the critical issues of our time will be engaged in meaningful work.
That is why it’s a sure bet that your Jacksonville University College of Law and the Haskell Public Policy Institute will be exciting for anyone who wants to make a positive difference in pursuit of a better future.