William S. Richardson
- Graduation Class
- 1943
- Residence
- Honolulu, Hawaii
UC College of Law: I was born in Honolulu and grew up in Honolulu before World War II….one of my teachers had come from the University of Cincinnati and talked with the family. It seemed an impossibility at that time because it was so far away. It involved five days by steam ship and another five days by train… I think the tuition was about $125 a semester… It wasn’t long before World War II started, and of course I didn’t think it was even possible to finish… I enlisted in the Army Air Corps… the school dwindled down about a dozen students…but I finally graduated in 1943.
Being a Lawyer: Bringing Hawaii in line with all the cases that have come about after working its way across the country [was a challenge] …and the different living conditions in Hawaii had to be melded in with the American systems…. our students had to begin doing business with the Far East, …many of our lawyers are involved not only with American law, but with the Far East and Australia and Korea and Japan – it’s a different ballgame….we’ll be involved with the businesses in the Orient…they have some basic differences with ours, but especially in Hawaii we have the merging of their systems.
I started the law school here 30 years ago, and now they’ve named the law school after me.