Scott Turow
Novelist, Author of “1L”; College roommate
I have known Bill Alford since we were friends and roommates as junior at Amherst College in 1968. Subsequently, we were reunited as law students at HLS when we both began our studies there in 1975. By then, Bill had completed his graduate work in Chinese Studies at Yale.
I have watched from afar as Bill has made his pathbreaking contributions to Asian Legal Studies. He was, in the years after law school, a remarkably prolific scholar and that has always been the case.
What is far more important to me as a friend is the person he became, as we both emerged from the relative emotional chaos of young adulthood. The grown-up Bill is a person of unrivaled emotional generosity, who understands that no one’s path through the world is ‘easy.’ He seems to approach all humans from a default position of love. That has made him a remarkable teacher and, for the wide circle lucky enough to be able to call him a friend, an invaluable ally and support.
He deserves to be celebrated in all ways – as a scholar, as a teacher, and as a highly worthy companion as we have traveled through life.