Justice & Law Quote by Norman Lamm

Not a proud parent hovering over a newborn institution, but something born in the same delivery room, at the same moment, with the same DNA. Norman Lamm’s line is a small masterpiece of institutional humility that still manages to claim real authority. “Midwife” would make him the enabling elder: present, helpful, but ultimately outside the creature he helped bring into the world. By rejecting that role, Lamm sidesteps the sanctimony of founders who want lifelong veto power. Then he swerves: “its fraternal twin” doesn’t shrink his importance; it recalibrates it.

The twin metaphor carries subtext about legitimacy and obligation. Twins aren’t accessories to each other’s origin story. They share a birth, a trajectory, and a fate. Lamm positions himself as parallel to the Law School rather than above it: neither creator nor caretaker, but a co-emergent presence whose own identity was shaped by the school’s rise. “Fraternal” matters too. Identical twins would suggest sameness, even competition over who is the “real” original. Fraternal twins share a womb but develop separately, implying difference without divorce: distinct missions, overlapping values.

In context, this sounds like a leader speaking to an academic community where origin myths can become political weapons. Lamm, an educator steeped in Jewish intellectual tradition and institutional building, uses a disarming image to manage ego and stake: he’s not demanding credit as progenitor, but he’s insisting that the Law School’s story cannot be told without his. It’s a line that says: I won’t rule you as your parent, but don’t pretend I’m merely the help.