Levi grew up in an “intensely collegial” academic community in the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. His father, the late Edward H. Levi, served as dean of the University of Chicago Law School and subsequently as that institution’s provost and president, before being appointed by President Gerald Ford as U.S. attorney general in 1975.

“The law faculty was heavily concentrated in a four-block area,” says Levi. “You can probably name any member of that quite unique law school faculty at that time, and they were a big part of my life growing up. They were all neighbors.” One of those neighbors was also his uncle, Bernard D. Meltzer, the Edward H. Levi distinguished service professor emeritus, who died in January. “He was thrilled with the news [of my appointment], and that meant a lot to me,” says Levi.

Levi speaks of his parents with great affection, recalling his mother’s intellectual strength and marvelous sense of humor. “You couldn’t call her a silent partner, because she was quite the reverse,” he says. “But with all the positions my father had, she was very much a part of his team. She was a wonderful woman who touched a lot of people.”

Extremely close to his father, Levi cherishes the “intellectual relationship” they shared, enhanced by their mutual interest in law and history.

“My father was a true scholar,” Levi says. “The most important title he ever held in his own estimation was ‘professor.’ He loved the Department of Justice where he had worked as a young man, and when he was asked to go back as attorney general to help repair the place [following the Watergate scandal], he did so with great pride. But he was able to do that because people trusted that he brought scholarly values and dispassionate, non-political inquiry to the problems that he confronted as attorney general.

That was exactly what they were looking for and it was deep in the marrow of his bones. When he was done in Washington, D.C., he immediately returned to teaching and to scholarship.” His father took a broad view of public service, Levi adds. “If it ultimately serves the public good, that is public service, and one can bring those values to whatever one does.”