Thomas Howard Geoghegan
Lawyer, Despres, Schwartz and Geoghegan, Chicago, IL
Lecturing: Living Like a European: Exploring the Counter-Life
Host: Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
March 2001 - July 2001

Leading an active social life was an unexpected bonus to his Fulbright sojourn teaching American labor law in Berlin, notes Thomas H. Geoghegan.

Attorney Thomas H. Geoghegan, 52, had expected to be a little lonely and homesick during his nine-and-a-halfweek lectureship in Berlin. But the Chicago bachelor, who taught a course on
American labor law at Humboldt University, hadn't anticipated the tremendous warmth and "accessibility"of Berliners. "I went out to dinner with people almost every night," he says.

Through his teaching, Geoghegan, the author of two books about labor law practice, set out to correct some misconceptions about America by focusing on the Constitutional basis of U.S. labor law. In Germany, where workers can only be fired for cause, many wrongly assume that U.S. workers enjoy the same protections, he explains-leading Germans to relate America's laissez-faire market, with its inequalities and surges in unemployment, to failings of culture or character.

His students in Berlin were surprised to learn that although Americans can't be fired because of their race, age or sex, they can be fired for any other reason at any time. Why, they asked, didn't the U.S. pass stronger labor laws? "Because senators representing 9 percent of the population can in theory block any bill," Geoghegan told them. "They also think Americans are against human-rights treaties-until you explain that we don't have 'one person, one vote.' "

Geoghegan hopes that the conversations he enjoyed and the many business cards he collected will lead to future collaborations. "The experience gets you thinking about things in a new way," he says.

Please contact us if you would like to submit your own story and/or photographs.