For socially conscious law students, Boudin is himself something of a hero--a rare example of an individual who supports himself while doing civil liberties work. But he makes no pretenses when questioned about how he can do it:

"People ask me how I can justify sending my clients all over the country to collect for their defense. A couple of years back Kunstler came to Harvard, and told students they should do civil liberties work for nothing. But he's the exception--he can afford to do this because he does the lecture route. Most people can't, and I don't want to do this."

"I have a serious doubt about whether I'm ever paid enough for my services," he says. "There are untold costs in a case like Ellsberg's. You leave the office for a year to live in L.A., you often work 18 hours a day, and you can't build up a practice in the meantime. But the real issue is not the Spocks or Ellsbergs, it's the poor who have to rely on civil liberties groups who are seriously overburdened. The Ellsbergs and Berrigans are able to get lawyers."

"When they ask I tell concerned law students to build a practice that is at least half commercial."

Boudin maintains all his activity despite health problems. Since a heart attack in 1967 he has been dependent on a pacemaker. And he has suffered from cataracts which necessitated two eye operations.

But there is another basic nonphysical problem that disturbs him. His daughter Kathy has been a fugitive from the law since 1970, when she was charged in connection with an explosion in a Greenwich Village factory. Even Boudin's closest friends don't know whether he has seen her since.

When I asked Boudin about his future plans he said he'd like to do some teaching, and that he originally wanted to be an English professor. He enjoyed his year at the Law School in 1971, and is looking forward to a semester as a visiting professor at Yale Law School this spring.

It's easy to see that Boudin likes the attention he gets when he comes to an academic community like Harvard. He is surrounded by people who feel they are removed from the real world, and who love to hear him talk about things that go on behind the scenes, that they can't read in The New York Times.

Enticed by students at a Dunster open house, he touches on the attraction of this environment in his Brooklynese: "I hate living in New York...I love Cambridge...I'd like to come here to ride a bicycle...It would be great to be the master of Dunster House sometime..."

But somehow you have to doubt it. It's very hard to visualize Boudin in one place for more than a couple of hours, let alone...