In 1972, I became the first black law professor at the University of Virginia and one of the first at any predominantly white institution (PWI) in the South. My former professor at Columbia University, Monrad Paulsen, who had become the dean and the first northerner to hold that position at the University of Virginia Law School, traveled to Baltimore to persuade me to join their faculty. At the time, I was deeply involved in private law practice and had not considered a teaching career until he extended the offer. I accepted and have been teaching ever since. I stayed at Virginia from 1972 to 1974. When I moved back to Baltimore, I began teaching at the University of Maryland School of Law.