The richness of our history lies not only in the lineage of deans or the visits of important judges, lawyers, and academics, but also in your stories. What was law school like during your era? Who was your favorite professor and what was your favorite class?
As one of our 175th anniversary projects, a representative group of alumni was interviewed by current law school students and by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank, an author of institutional histories, during the summer of 2007. The participants spoke of the College, the faculty, their classmates, and being a lawyer. Take a moment to read their memories, reminisce, and reflect on their law school experience.
We also would like to continue to add to the history of the College of Law by including your memories. To share your stories, just email us.
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UC College of Law: I went to Cincinnati because I wanted to get away from some of my friends in Columbus. I thought it would be better if I went to law school at Cincinnati instead of Ohio State. So I decided after visiting the school that it was the place for me. I went down to Cincinnati for my three years in law school and graduated and passed the bar exam. Then I went back to Columbus and became part of the law firm with my brother until the war came.
I remember the law school very fondly. I enjoyed Constitutional Law very much, probably more so than any other subject.
UC College of Law: Classes at UC Law were small in number. While it demanded class preparation, it also had a relaxed air. Our class initially numbered about 85, but only 45 graduated.
When called upon, a student delivered an oral brief of the case in point followed by class discussion. Interesting, but frequently amusing. Each of us in senior class participated in Moot Court.
Classmates: I cannot talk too highly of my classmates. They were of diverse ages and yet showed a fellowship — good-natured, but determined. Classmates I recall well were Bill Baetz, Tom Jones, Johnny Nolan, Bill Kinneary, but above all, my partner, Sid Brant. I should add Alfred Katz and Jerry Lischkoff to the above, as well as Joe Kinneary, Bill’s brother.
Being a Lawyer: You must show your client that you are giving him the best you have, not only as a lawyer, but as a friend. From what I see now, it would appear that the practice now is too impersonal and financially controlled.
UC College of Law: The class started out with about 80 and ended up with 55…And I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. One of the high points of my life…. I really thoroughly enjoyed the three years that I spent there. The faculty, the students, everything.
Everybody in those days thought if you were going to practice law, you go to law school in the town you’re going to practice in. That was kind of a common belief.
Faculty: I remember Dean Ferson, who had come from North Carolina… and also taught Contracts. And Rowley, who later became the Dean, taught Personal Property. Charlie Luberger taught Procedures. Tom Lavery taught Constitutional Law. And I remember one of the prizes I won was in Constitutional Law, which I shared with my later-to-be-wife, Mary. And I think Lavery wanted to do that to promote the romance.
Classmates: There were three women, one of whom I married… Adele Linch married a fellow named Harold Goldstein.
The students were very close, and we were very close to the faculty…. We even formed a football team…We did a lot of things together in the school socially.
Being a Lawyer: I think it [a law degree] really helped me tremendously in business — not so much the legal side, but the approach of really going to find the problem…It gave me a way of thinking. And much to the chagrin of a lot of our employees, I became a master at cross-examination. If anybody came with a problem, I’d ask them numerous questions and really almost make them come to a conclusion of what the problem was and how they would solve it.
UC College of Law: UC Law was small, intimate with fewer subjects then. Cincinnati was a quiet community with a strong German heritage.
Classmates: There were only 40 students, mainly local residents. A classmate helped me get my first job.
Being a Lawyer: Have good connections.
UC College of Law: I have enjoyed watching the University and the Law School grow into substantial institutions. I chose the University of Cincinnati Law School because it was small, enjoyed a good reputation, and accepted me.
Faculty: The professors were capable and friendly, especially Murray Seasongood, who was affiliated with the City of Cincinnati, and Frank Rowley, who…became dean of the law school.
Classmates: My class contained about 30 students, all of whom I knew, and especially Tom Pogue and Ralph Clark, sons of local lawyers.
Being a Lawyer: My advice to students is to have a good mentor, and after graduation, it is almost necessary to have one.
UC College of Law: At that time, J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he had, as was his usual custom, toured the various law schools and interviewed possible candidates. As the result of his personal visit to the University of Cincinnati Law School, almost everybody applied….the beginning salary of $3200 a year was very attractive. As time went by, when we were finished with law school, we had more or less forgotten about it because nothing had been done — we thought — about our applications. All of a sudden, two of us received long telegrams that were in the way of notifying a person of his appointment as a special agent of the FBI.
It was a combined program which ended in a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws….They didn’t particularly like it done that way. They preferred people coming there who already had acquired a Bachelor of Arts degree. [The bar exam] was two or three days and the questions were submitted by various acting members of the bar. It was quite an ordeal.
A number of my colleagues in school were drafted and I foresaw that it would happen to me, so I thought I might as well get a background in the military so that I would enter the military as an officer… While I was in law school, I was the only member of the law school who at the same time was going across the campus and taking ROTC classes in uniform. I got a lot of heckling about that.
Classmates: It was about 35 members. We did have one [woman]. She later became a judge.
UC College of Law: I had absolutely no experience in law in any form but my father during his short life time told me several times that I should, if I could, go to law school because he thought that getting a degree in law would prepare me for almost any activity that I wanted to go into and that training would be helpful….The pre-legal requirements for getting into law school at that time required two years of Liberal Arts College. At the end of the two year period, they changed it to three years and in the following year, they required a Liberal Arts Degree. Because of the change in the requirements during the interim of my attending school, they permitted me to enter law school at the end of the third year on the condition that I took the necessary requirements in Liberal Arts School…This I did and I was a freshman law school and a fourth year student in Liberal Arts College at the same time.
If it hadn’t been for the University and the Law School being located here locally, I would have never been able to attend… My mother had mortgaged the house to help pay for my tuition…. I was notified that I passed the bar in 1941 but from that time until February of 1946, I did not have any contact with law or the law school.
I am proud of the fact that I graduated from the University of Cincinnati Law School. I know its reputation has grown over the years.
Faculty: I remember Charlie Weber was one of the professors who taught a real estate course. Of all the courses I took, his was the one that I was most interested in and influenced me in my law practice.
Classmates: Our freshman class at law school was the largest group of students that enrolled in the law school since 1928. In fact, there were more students in our freshman class than there were in the second and third year classes combined. Because of the war and our serving in it, our class never kept close contact with each other.
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.
UC College of Law: UC Law was small. The men had gone to war. The other girl and I became good friends. There was no social life…. Any success I had was built on my legal education at UC.
Faculty: Dean Rowley made us work hard and toe the line. Murray Seasongood taught a class and asked me to come to work at Paxton and Seasongood. There I met Si Lazarus, who started the Law Department of Federated Department Stores and he got permission from Mr. Seasongood for me to come then with him.
UC College of Law: My father graduated from Cincinnati Law School. He was elected to Congress and served 1928 and 1929. He advised I go there. War was declared my sop
homore year of law school. [Ours was the] first class to graduate after the war — only six students in the class. I immediately passed the bar and became Assistant Attorney General of the State of Ohio (1947-49).
I loved that law school.
Faculty: Professor Charles E. Weber was a favorite.
Social Life: I enjoyed the law school fraternity P.A.D.
UC College of Law: My law school education was interrupted by the U.S. Army. When I came back from four years in WWII, I returned to law school, but remained in the reserves as a JAG officer.
UC was a friendly place and I mingled with all of my classmates. My law degree influenced my entire work career, from assistant prosecuting attorney to labor law.
Being a Lawyer: Enjoy your work. Be true to yourself with honesty and integrity.
UC College of Law: I was the only girl veteran who had applied….I loved it, and I finished in two years. There were six girls that started in the class in ’46, and I was the only one that graduated in two years. Out of the six, I think three graduated….People said, “Well, did you feel funny being in a class with so many men?” I felt very comfortable because I’d been in the Navy and most of the people were so very nice. I think there were 130 in law school in the freshman class in ’46. And 75 of us graduated in ’48 in September.
Nettie Birk, who was secretary, sort of looked after all of the law students and really went out of her way to help.
That was the bar exam where only 52 percent of the people who took the bar exam passed, and I was one of the lucky ones.
Faculty: We had some wonderful professors. Frank Rowley…there was something about him. Aside from being a terrific teacher, he had a special grace and manner, and he was so dignified. He was somebody that the College of Law could be very proud of as a Dean.
Roscoe Barrow…they called him the Gray Fox. He had this beautiful white hair. And when he retired, he dyed it red.
Being a Lawyer: Actually being Executive Director of the Bar Association was much more fun and much more interesting than practicing law, as such, in a law office. We had a little over 1,000 members of the Bar Association in 1949 when I set up the office….The first black lawyer was accepted into the Bar Association. I think that was in ’49.
UC College of Law: At that time, veterans…were permitted to go straight through and not take a summer vacation. So I did the three years in two years….My class when I entered the school was 120, I think, most of whom were veterans…we had only two women in that class.
During my first semester there…we had our first baby. That was lots of fun. I remember telling the Dean, Frank Rowley, who definitely was probably the finest teacher I’ve ever had…a brilliant man, an excellent teacher. I remember telling him and giving him a cigar.
We were attending college on the GI Bill, which when I started out was $90 a month. What I raised was about $20 a month. I used that to support my little family. Then I lived for the last year on campus, in what was called the Village, in a family trailer, a minimum amount of room. It was small and the rent was also…I graduated in ’49, took the bar actually before I graduated, palms perspiring and sweating the whole time. Because I could not afford the cram course. I did all the studying on my own…they failed the majority of persons taking it at that time (over 50%).
Social Life: We pretty much lived in the basement when we weren’t in class because they had ping pong tables there. We played ping pong and caroused around.
UC College of Law: Your senior year of college was covered by your first year of law school in those days…The school was wonderful. All these people were flooding in from the service….They did everything to accommodate the returning servicemen. It was just terrific.
We were permitted to take the bar exam in our fifth semester. They had all essay questions at that time, and it was a three-day experience.
Nettie Birk was one of the most outstanding people. She was administrative secretary…She knew every student by name. She knew all about them personally. She was sort of the Mother Confessor…She was a fixture here.
Faculty: When I came to the law school, Dean Frank Rowley was here. Probably one of the greatest men I’ve ever known….I said to him that I would like to continue my swimming through law school. And he said, “Okay, on one condition. That when you travel, you come in and tell me the day you’re going to leave, and the day you’re going to return….I lived by that religiously…All of the sudden I noticed on the day I left, I was getting called on in class. And the day I returned, I was getting called on in class.
We had a teacher who taught us real estate. Pop Morrison we called him. He’d been around forever. Wonderful, wonderful teacher, but we all referred to him as Pop Morrison.
Classmates: We had a very large class in ’48, maybe one of the largest they’d experienced up to that time… I was President of the freshman class, and I got this great idea that we would have a party. Invite all the students in our class and the professors. And we would put on a little skit about the professors….There was a real affection for our professors in our time.
Being a Lawyer: The reasoning required in law school really holds you in good stead no matter what you do throughout life.
UC College of Law: My adviser, Prof. St. John, had a friend who was the Dean of the College of Law at UC — Frank Rowley. He called the Dean and said that he had a young man who really wanted badly to go to law school, but had no money. As it happened there was a couple in Cincinnati — Weston — and they had just given the law school $1000 specifically as a scholarship for a student who otherwise could not afford to go to law school. So that scholarship just opened a door to a whole new world for me - the world of the law. I have been able to since then establish a scholarship… at the law school … for people like myself.
Faculty: Dean Rowley was my mentor, my idol. As a professor he was fantastic — just fantastic. And as a Dean he was superb. The other one I remember very well was my Torts professor, Fred Dewey… Prof. Toepfer taught Trusts. He was excellent. One of the most kindly professors was Alfred Morrison. He was also the adviser to the Cincinnati Law Review. … It was a wonderful school.
UC College of Law: What I remember so much on a daily basis from law school was walking up the stairs. The building was a Williamsburg colonial building when I was a law student. There were pillars in front and I would walk in the building past those pillars and I thought I was entering the U.S. Supreme Court. It gave me a sense of professionalism just to do that.
My father died [and my mother]… supported the family and kept me in law school. She wanted me to stay at the University of Cincinnati. As a result of what she did, I was able to go for two more years, graduate, get a teaching fellowship at Northwestern Law School, go into the Army JAG corps and do trial criminal work for three years, clerk for a federal judge in Chicago, then start teaching first in Cleveland at Western Reserve, ultimately at Ohio State. I would never have had any of those opportunities had I not graduated from a first class law school. …What she did was a life-altering experience for me — keeping me in law school at UC.
Moot Court: In the second semester, we had to engage in a [first year] Moot Court program. I had always enjoyed library work. I enjoyed writing. I enjoyed writing a brief. I had done theatrical work as a kid and I absolutely loved getting up in the court room and making an argument… It’s sort of theater, but I’m the writer and the director and the producer and the star when I get up in the court room and make an argument. I also, as a result of that experience, began to understand what was going on in the classroom. That the teachers were really asking the kind of questions a judge would ask of an advocate representing a client at appellate arguments. I knew then that this was what I wanted to do. I was the editor-in-chief of the Law Review and I finished first in my class. I attribute all that to Moot Court. It was a kind of life changing moment.
Faculty: Dean Frank Rowley taught contracts. And he was a rather foreboding person. He had been a colonel in WWII and had worked on contract work in Washington for the Army. He acted as though he was still a colonel. I was frightened of him in the classroom. He was a good teacher; he knew the subject. I enjoyed the class, but I knew I wasn’t going to mess around with him in the classroom.
We had several rather young professors. One of them was Robert Toepfer….in the days when I went to law school we had two separate courses in what was called Equity - one course at the end of the second semester and another course at the beginning of the third semester. He taught both of those courses. I thought a great deal of him. He knew his materials very well. I liked the subject matter. I liked his grasp of the course and later in life when I started to teach I tried to model myself after Mr. Toepfer.
Another faculty member I remember very, very well is Fred Dewey, who taught Evidence and Torts in the first year. He was another tough person in the classroom. We had the county prosecutor, Carson Hoy, as an adjunct professor who taught criminal law. He wasn’t the scholar that the regular law faculty members were, but we knew that he had a lot of trial and criminal experience as an assistant prosecutor and then the prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County…he got me interested in the subject of criminal law, which was something I really had not thought about until I went to law school.
The law librarian Alfred Morrison, whom everybody called Pop — he was the oldest member of the faculty — taught property law. He was very dry, but very thorough. We learned from him to have an eye for detail. The focus on little things — not forget the big things, but often the big things were made up of a lot of little things. All in all I had a very, very good legal education at the University of Cincinnati.
UC College of Law: The UC Law School was very small in size compared to the present facility. You were well aware at the time that you were in graduate school. All of my classmates took that fact seriously and were very conscientious about law school. There was no “fooling around.” A social life at the time in law school was a little bit more structured and formal as opposed to undergraduate school.
Being a Lawyer: I believe two characteristics essential to becoming a good lawyer are to be well organized and to be able to get cases concluded within a reasonable time.
Do not expect to become successful when practicing law unless you put in a lot of time, energy and patience in the legal matters that you are handling….You will find that your enthusiasm will greatly contribute to your success.
UC College of Law: The law school was totally different than it is today. There were a total of only 90 students in the entire law school, approximately 30 in each class. I think there were only about 2 or 3 women total of the ninety… Most law schools were much smaller… The biggest law firm in town when I graduated was Dinsmore and Shohl. In 1956, they had 13 lawyers.
I heard about a program that GE had where they send you to Washington DC. You go to night law school at George Washington and in the daytime you worked in the General Electric patent group… I came home one summer and I stopped at the GE plant. They asked would I be interested in transferring back here… I made a deal with the law school that I went to class in the mornings from 8 to 12; then I went to work at GE from 12-8. I did that for a couple of years and ultimately graduated with a law degree from UC.
The building was totally renovated and they built around the old building. They didn’t really demolish the old building, just kind of built around it. Part of it is incorporated in the new structure. But the outside appearance is totally different than it was then.
Faculty: [The professors] were very demanding, but they were very willing to be helpful when you needed help… We had Dean Roscoe Barrow. He was an interesting guy. He had some kind of a consulting job with the federal government which required him to go to Washington every other week while he was Dean. He was afraid of flying in an airplane, so he went down to Washington and back every couple of weeks on a train.
In my day, they only had about a 65% bar passage rate… So I went to a review course given by a retired judge, Judge Gusweiller, who gave a bar review course. He was a great guy; he was a good teacher. He cracked a lot of jokes; he took some of the boredom out of it. He gave us about a four month intense training course. So I went to Columbus and cranked it up for three days.
Social Life: By the time I came here, I had one and a half kids. I had eight hours of work and four hours of school. It was too much. I couldn’t do much extra curricular activities… At noon time when we would finish our morning classes, I’d jump in my car and go up to work and they would go over to Shipley’s and drink beer.
Classmates: One guy in particular, Will Ziegler, he and I are good supporters of the law school. We get together for a lot of alumni events. As I said, the law school Alumni Association has an annual spring luncheon where they honor two or three outstanding graduates from the past… That’a very nice event… I kind of stay in touch that way.
Being a Lawyer: I think one of the most fascinating things to me was that as a patent attorney, you are dealing almost every day with inventors. They are a different breed of people. It’s kind of interesting to interact with these people who are very creative.
I think it is a good profession, a good career. You meet a lot of interesting people. There is some very interesting travel. It’s a good business to get into.
UC College of Law: I started in the Fall of 1954, but then I was interrupted. In those days everyone had to serve in the military if you were physically fit. And so I was gone for a few years. Then I came back and ended up graduating in ’59.
The base’s Judge Advocate found out that I’d had a year of law school and he put me on every court martial that we ever had in the 50th Fighter Bombing Wing.
The law school in those days consisted basically of three large classrooms….The upstairs was the library, faculty offices, and the lower level was the student lockers, the Law Review offices.
Faculty: Roscoe Barrow was one of my favorite professors and another fellow named Fred Dewey…Fred also had another distinction…. In the locker room — what we would call the men’s locker room — there was a table tennis table, a ping pong table. There were fierce matches down there. And Fred Dewey was one of the fiercest players down there. He would challenge the students. He was a good guy and I liked his courses and I felt I learned a lot.
Classmates: Our class was sort of divided into groups, I would say. There were the vets and the non-vets…I think we had actually two females in the class…. Everyone wanted to be a great trial lawyer like Perry Mason.
Being a Lawyer: One [characteristic] you have to have is an analytical ability. The ability to look at a set of facts and determine what’s important and what’s not important, and what the issue is.... You have to be able to think on your feet…. It is very important to have good writing ability and good verbal skills. I think those three things make a very good lawyer.
Be diligent and expect in your career that your life work is going to be a series of highs and lows….It’s a great and growing field and it’s one that I would encourage any bright student to pursue.
UC College of Law: At that time, there were two choices [in Cincinnati]. There was the University of Cincinnati, which was recognized as a better law school by everybody, and there was Chase Law School, which was a YMCA nighttime law school. I was accepted at all the big schools — Harvard, Yale, Michigan…and I thought UC was a fine fit for me. And I think it has been. We had a small class, which I think I was more used to coming from Thomas More.
There were only three classrooms, essentially first year, second year, and third year. And a library, of course, and the faculty offices.
Faculty: We were convinced, as a consensus, that the people who were teaching here, many of them, were rejects from whatever administration had just been ousted in Washington, DC.
We did have Merton Ferson, who was a Dean here….Roscoe Barrow, who was a very good teacher, who was the Dean at that time, and taught Contracts. We had a couple of practitioners…. Carson Hoy was a prosecutor at that time, and he just laid it out pretty much like the Uniform Code of Military Justice…a very practical, pragmatic kind of fellow. We had Stevenson, who was from Kentucky…a tall man, bald, and he was always thinking of the point, the point. And he was pretty good….Fred Dewey, who taught torts, believed in the Socratic method. And he thought the Socratic method meant to embarrass the students as much as possible.
Wilbur Lester taught Administrative Law. He was pretty good… Irving Rutter had just come in from New York that year.
Frank Emerson…taught Corporations. He was a very practical fellow, very understanding of students’ problems….You got the impression that he was a very wise man….He was interested in what you had to say…but he frequently would add something that made it crystal clear.
Classmates: I think there were only four or five out of the 37 who had not been in some branch of the military. Ken [Aplin] was an accelerated student…A good student, an excellent student. He was a professor here for many years.
So many of the students were older and married, and even had children… We had Christmas parties. Portia [Schaefer]…was the official hostess for the class. Bill Flax was what today I guess we would call a radical libertarian.
So many of us had just been out of the service, seen a lot of things we didn’t like there…We’d had a lot of exposure to the world, I guess, in a short period of time… I think there was a genuine interest in improving the condition of just ordinary people….I think UC was of great value to me.
UC College of Law: We had two secretaries in the law school who were both Irish. One of them actually ended up marrying a classmate of mine…They were kind of fun because they had this Irish accent and they were like little mother hens. They kind of looked after the guys. They were always trying to keep you from getting into trouble. If you were called in to see the Dean, they would give you a heads up on what’s going on.
I was the first editor of the Restatement, which was an inhouse newpaper…We used it as a way to gripe without having to give out who we were.
One of the things that I’m probably the most proud of...[one of] my closest friends in law school [George Katsanis] died at a very young age…So we established a scholarship at the law school when he died. We started it with $2500 and it now has almost $400,000 in it. …we’ve given out scholarships since 1979.
Moot Court: I really did enjoy the Moot Court. We had a particularly good set of teams and we had an outstanding advisor in Professor Rutter, whom you may hear about from time to time from some of the older students. He was an amazing person that had a great impact on my life….We actually won the regional and we went to the national competition. We lost to the ultimate champion, which was Ohio State that year.
Classmates: The classes were very small. We started out with about 50 and we ended up with 32 or 33 in the class….You knew everybody in every class. The faculty was very accessible. They actually became friends - almost.
There were quite a few very illustrious people that were in our class. John Sharpnack was a classmate of mine and he is now a Supreme Court Justice in Indiana. John Getgey, who was killed in an airplane crash, was President of the Bar Association at the time he was killed….Judge Gorman was on the Court of Appeals for a number of years…Judge Valen, who was a Court of Appeals Judge in Butler County, District Two…it was a very close group. We still get together a lot…I should have mentioned among our illustrious graduates was Stanley Chesley….we had three Greeks and we had three Jews. Stanley and myself and Harold Freeman were the Jewish boys. Judge Valen was one of the Greeks and George Katsanis...and Dino Anginalo from Dayton…We had this little side group which we called the HaHa’s, which was the Hebrew American Hellenic American Association.
Social Life: The older students will tell you about the ping pong table that was downstairs. That was a recreational area and several of the faculty [played], particularly Professor Dewey who was the Torts professor and a particularly good ping pong player. We had an intramural baseball and basketball team when we were in law school. I’m not sure that every class did that, but ours was very involved in athletics. We participated in the college intramurals, we played against undergrad teams.
Being a Lawyer: I think the lawyers coming out of law schools today are better prepared than we were, quite frankly. I think the educational system has improved. I think the methodology is better….The opportunities presented to students are much greater….young people are a lot smarter and more sophisticated today than they were 40 and 50 years ago…The congeniality of lawyers was better 50 years ago than it is today. It’s much more adversarial.
UC College of Law: It’s an amazing school….I’m a living example of an amazing opportunity because the school was located in Cincinnati, Ohio… I didn’t have the bucks, the know-how, the wherewithal to go out of state…Selling shoes and paying my way through....They had a unique plan…You [did] your fourth year of undergraduate as your first year of law school and you saved a year… At the end of your first year of law school, you got your BA…then you did two more years of law school and got your law degree… I’m one of the few people that has an LLB instead of a JD.
It’s a unique institution…it’s an institution that instills confidence…this is the crown jewel of our community.
Faculty: There was a fellow by the name of Irv Rutter. He taught a course called Facts. And all of a sudden, my mind bristled on the idea that the facts are every bit as important as the law.
Social Life: In our old law school, you could play ping-pong down in the basement. Only 42 people graduated in my law class. We only had 3 women.
Being a Lawyer: Law is a great training of the mind. And it’s a great training to make leaders.
UC College of Law: I had graduated from Brown and my brother, who was five years older than I, had graduated from Harvard. My father had taught at both the University of Cincinnati and Chase, which was then called the YMCA night law school….He was a good tutor and mentor and he was also good friends with Dean Roscoe Barrow. So I supposed he influenced both of us to come back to the University of Cincinnati College of Law.
[The law school] was three rooms. Each year had a room. It was the old building…a basement recreational area where you could get away…The library was on the third floor.
The first semester the classes were arranged on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We had three classes and we were done by noon. On Tuesday and Thursday, I think we had two classes and we were done by one o’clock. On Saturday, we had an 8am class. After that, apparently they thought we weren’t spending enough time around the law school…They changed the classes then so that the earliest we got out was three o’clock.
The curriculum was very fixed until our senior year. …A course called Legal Method really caused ulcers to a number of the students… It was taught by a professor who was kind of a legend named Wilbur Lester. They called him the mystery man. He was really a very fine teacher. He was attempting to lead us into the appropriate way of thinking as lawyers. It was very difficult to break old habits. I think more students dropped out because of that course in the first couple of weeks than any other reason.
I think we had 63 or 64 students who started in our freshman class. I think we graduated with 37 or 38 students.
Faculty: We had a very good professor named Fred Dewey. He taught both Torts and Evidence. He was one of the few professors who didn’t lecture. He taught by using hypotheticals. You were expected to read your cases. I took an elective that was taught by Dean Barrow which was very interesting in my senior year. It was called Nuclear Energy Law or Atomic Energy Law….We had to write a paper and I remember that I wrote one on the regulation of nuclear power and reactors. I just barely knew what a reactor was…The Dean taught a great course….There was also an interesting elective, Constitutional History, that was taught by a professor named William Jeffrey, who was the law librarian.
We had a course called Appellate Practice, which was taught by Irving Rutter, a professor who came to the University of Cincinnati after practicing a number of years in New York. He taught really a fine class. We also had Trial Practice which was taught by Judge John W. Peck. It was a legendary course too, because it had been taught for years. It gave us a chance to actually conduct a trial. We used students from Hughes High School as the jury.
Social Life: We had in our senior year what was called a gridiron dinner. We would put on a parody… concerning members of the faculty. You would have various students playing the different faculty members.
UC College of Law: My legal education changed the way I approached issues so that my analytical skills became much sharper….I have never regretted my choice of law school and my legal career. In the many years since my graduation from UC, I have had occasion to work with lawyers and judges from some of the nation’s top law schools, and I have always felt my legal education was equal to anyone else’s anywhere.
Law Review: In those days (1960’s) you had to publish two case notes in your second year of law school, followed by a lead article in your third year. Because it was important for us to publish, my law review experience honed my legal writing skills and made me meet deadlines.
Faculty: The faculty was very stable with some fabulous teachers who have become legends…My favorite professors were Irwin Rutter, who made classes exciting and fresh; Stanley Harper, who came across as everyman, a journeyman lawyer who hit a home run by connecting the lesson with the real world; and Bill Jeffrey, a great thinker and intellect who possessed a keen and biting sense of humor, ridiculing your positions without ridiculing you. Underneath his brash and bluster, Jeffrey had a caring spirit for you as an individual. Facts, a course developed by Rutter, was an elective in the third year that taught me more than most of my classes put together. Another great teacher was Mr. Stewart, who taught an adjunct class in labor law.
Classmates: There were 73 students in my graduating class: 71 white men and 2 white women. I have enjoyed my continued association here in Chattanooga with Carlos Smith and J.L. Bailey, who are fellow graduates of UC Law School, plus the opportunity to encourage undergraduates at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to attend UC Law School.
UC College of Law: We were told at the outset…that it would take about three hours of prep for every hour of class work….You have to analyze, and think, and compare, and approach things thoughtfully.
We had an unfortunate incident in my freshman year. The professor who was supposed to be teaching Real Property — which, of course, was a matter of interest to me, because I thought I’d be practicing in that field, particularly — had a nervous breakdown, and it took the administration awhile to catch on. He kept showing up, but he kept teaching the same class over, and over, and over. All we ever learned was adverse possession.
Faculty: [John Murphy] didn’t stand behind the lectern and lecture. He walked around…and attempted to correct our Midwest accents. I can remember saying, “advertisement.” and he would say, “advertisement.” And I would say “advertisement,” and he would say “advertisement.” …He was entertaining, and brought some life to Contracts.
Professor Harper, for Civil Procedure…was entertaining. There was Professor Jeffrey in Constitutional Law…He was the one that took me aside and said, “You know, you’re taking up a seat that could be occupied by a nice young man who would make use of his education here.”
Professor Taft, who taught Municipal Corporations, was really very kind, and mentored me….Judge Peck was a wonderful encouraging influence.
Classmates: There were three women in my class. It was more than they had ever had in the whole law school at any one time before. And [the school] viewed themselves as quite progressive, and I suppose they were for the time…All three women were the daughters of lawyers….The men in our class seemed to be completely convinced that we were husband-hunting, but the fact that two of use were already married seemed to put the lie to the theory.
Social Life: I think the women were kind of left out. I don’t think in any mean-spirited way but, for example, the legal fraternities – and there were only fraternities — were not open to us….For the most part, there was a small women’s lounge that was off the rest room, and we’d all be in there studying, and the men would all be off elsewhere.
Being a Lawyer: I never have really admired people who scream and yell in the courtroom, or beat on the lectern. I think that’s a substitute for preparation and thought.
Faculty: I had [Professor Stanley Harper] for Civil Procedure, some Torts classes as well. I thought he was an excellent teacher. He was really good. There was another professor named Dewey. Professor Dewey taught Evidence and he was kind of an eccentric fellow. But what was unique about the way he taught Evidence was [he] related it to what the real life experience would be when you actually practiced law….Professor Rutter talked to you about the actual practice of law, how to do contracts, how to see and analyze problems.
Social Life: There were quite a few of my classmates, male and female, that were married. So you tended to meet other married couples as a result of some of those activities connected with the law school.
Being a Lawyer: I guess the best advice I could give was one that a lawyer a few years older than myself gave me when I first started practicing law. That is to look at yourself like you are a corporation or a business because you really are….With every passing day that you learn things, that you develop your skills, that you develop your professional reputation, it’s just like you are a company and your stock goes up….So my advice isn’t any different today than what I felt when I started practicing law. It’s like the Army commercial – “Be the best you can be.” Learn as much as you possibly can. Be extremely diligent about what you are doing and know you have to do it right. You have a professional responsibility….Never ever think you know it all. Go and seek advice from good people.
UC College of Law: I remember Sam Wilson, who I really liked. Sam always tells a story.
One of the interesting things about the times then that wouldn’t happen today…. In the middle of my second year, Dean Claude Sowle instructed Mr. Wilson to call me into the office. He was Assistant Dean. Mr. Wilson said the examiners — the law school examiners — had just been there and they commented on [me]….They said, “How can he make it through this law school?”… The Dean asked me to meet with you and tell you that you either had to quit school or quit working…I said, “Tell the Dean I’ll see him in court.” And I walked out. That was the end of it.
Claude Sowle always bragged that the best student in his class was his wife. I think he finished second, and she was first.
Faculty: I had this tax background and we had a brilliant tax law school professor…His name was Goldstein.
Classmates: I have fond memories of law school. The students, though younger, were very, very kind to me, very thoughtful. A couple of times students came over to study at my house. I can remember the next day, they commented, “How … can you study ….. You’ve got six kids running around, all this chaos.”
Law School and the Legislature: I got elected to the Legislature in my last year of law school…I was elected in ’66. My first year in the legislature was ’67 and the first session began in January. So I took off that semester, finished in the first semester of ’68, in the fall semester, and took the bar exam.
UC College of Law: Upon graduation at 19, my family thought I was too young to stop going to school. It was strongly suggested that I go to law school….When I said I didn’t want to go to law school, but instead wanted to work, [My father] said, “I will pay you $125 a week to go to law school. All you have to do is graduate and that is your job!!!”
I learned a way of thinking — what are the facts, what are the issues, and what is the rational. That thought process has stayed with me to this day. I was much more formed by law school than I was by college.
Faculty: I took my senior year, a course in Admiralty taught by Wilbur Lester. Commonly referred to as Boats. I thought it was going to be smooth sailing!!!...I was in trouble. I went to see Mr. Lester. Crying my eyes out, I said, “If you pass me, I promise you I will never practice law. I just had to get through the course.” He said he never had a student cry in his office….I kept my part of the bargain and never practiced law.
When they took our tax professor out in a straight jacket and gave us all passing grades in tax, that was a lucky break for us not him. I often wondered what grade I would have actually gotten.
Classmates: The beginning of my freshman year, there was one other woman in my class with about 100 men. By the end of the freshman year, I was the only woman. I had a hard time getting into studying in law school my freshman year. My grades were terrible – I almost flunked out!!! As a result, [I] took many of my freshman classes over again. So I had the unique situation of being part of the class of 1967 and 1968.
Social Life: Well, I was busy, loved playing bridge in the basement. My classmates were wonderful. I was like the class mascot; my nickname was Nicky. Everyone knew being a lawyer was not my career goal. I was having too good a time. One of the few people who can say they had fun in law school, which was reflected in my class standing...(I did graduate last in my class).
Being a Lawyer: I can really only talk about the legal profession from a client’s point of view. Lawyers have been such a huge part of my life. Christian Dior was basically a licensing company. The need for clear objective advice is essential in being able to make sound business decisions.
UC College of Law: I selected UC — at that time it was a municipal university and I lived in the city — [because] it was very reasonably priced… One of my relatives …was a lawyer and went to UC Law School, and he suggested that would be a great place for me and he was right. …I liked UC. In fact, the University of Cincinnati attracted me. I thought it had a lot to sell, it was a smaller school. All of our classes were very manageable, even the quote “bigger” lecture classes.
Faculty: There was a new Dean, Claude Sowle…During his tenure, he hired quite a few young professors...including John Murphy and Victor Schwartz and Gersham Goldstein, who was a tax lawyer…. those three really sort of “gelled” with the other staff…They were very bright guys. …I saw [Victor Schwartz] on the street a number of years after he had left the University and was making his name nationally and I said, “You know, it’s great that you’re in the tort business, but you taught domestic relations law.” [He said] that one thing he liked about teaching at UC… was that it was a law school that produced a lot of actual practicing attorneys… he felt that he was really teaching the future practitioners, and he really enjoyed that.
Wilbur Lester…was extremely good. And Professor Rutter. He taught Appellate Law. ..One of his favorite lectures was ‘words are the symbols of ideas’…You picture yourself holding a word in your hand and looking at all aspects of the idea that it’s trying to express — sort of esoteric…He was a great guy; he was a great professor.
Stan Harper…he was just the greatest Torts teacher in the world. After my first semester, I was wondering if I should be there and doing law. He counseled me … If you’re going to be a lawyer…being here at UC…is just as good as any place else… If you go to another law school -- you go to Harvard, go to Michigan -- you might have a more famous professor… But if you work hard and you put your nose to the grindstone so to speak, you’ll get as much out of this law school as you would any other law school, but you’ve got to do the work.
Social Life: We had a very good social group. Many of us were married, some were not…The whole class was very convivial, and I don’t remember anybody being on the outs with anyone else
Being a Lawyer: Stan Chesley one time told me…when you look across the table no matter who it is or what firm, you just have to believe in your heart and make sure that you know that you’re as good as the person across the table. Don’t be intimidated.
There was a judge here who used to refer to all the lawyers as counselor — “Yes, Counselor.” The first time someone calls you counselor…It’s really a good feeling, and I still get that good feeling.
UC College of Law: Law school was an interesting experience — fun at times, frightening at times (like being called on by John Murphy)….I think of our class as “close” and caring — friends.
Law Review: I was on Law Review and in my third year, I think I spent more time working on Law Review than working on classes. I think Law Review was a good education in managing a project.
Faculty: I have to say that I think John Murphy taught me the difference between
law school and undergraduate school. He was my favorite! Gersham Goldstein and Irv Rutter were memorable, too.
Classmates: Steve Nechemias, Jeff Kilmer, Steve Swanson, Mike Levey all stand out in fond memories, but then so do so many others.
Being a Lawyer: I think a good lawyer is a problem solver — that’s pretty general! As a commercial litigator, I think it is important to learn that you need to be able to be honest, realistic and objective with your clients. You have to be able to tell your client when he is demanding or expecting too much. And you have to be able to do that as a counselor or a friend, if possible.
One thing that has changed over the past 40 years is the emphasis on billing long hours and marketing yourself. Clients expect great legal work and then don’t want to wait for it. It is harder every year to practice “general” law. Specialization is expected. But knowing a little about areas of the law outside your specialty gives you a great advantage. I’ll never regret years spent in a “small” firm before mine became big.
Faculty: A new dean came in. His name was Claude Sowle and he brought in a group of very young professors — Victor Schwartz, John Murphy, Ken Aplin — I’m probably leaving some out — who were terrific and were the backbone of the faculty.
Claude Sowle and those professors really began turning the law school into the school [that] it is today. I felt lucky that Dean Sowle was my personal advisor…Sowle was a very personable, dynamic party-going type of guy, and he invited his advisees over to his house for dinners and… [He was] very good in the classroom as well. He taught Criminal Law and a few other things.
Gersham Goldstein… was a tax teacher and I run into him at ABA tax meetings still. These were very energetic people that were an inspiration and, you know, good to be around and in the classroom with.
Classmates: I was in the last class — this is back in the ‘60s — I was in the last class that could avoid being drafted and going to Vietnam by staying in school. There was a JAG reserve unit in Cincinnati and… I and half a dozen or so of my classmates in my law school class and a few from the class one year ahead of me were able to get into this reserve unit.
Social Life: There were two other married law students who lived in the same apartment complex I did and we sort of hung out with them socially. There was a group of guys that I was friendly with who hung out at the Bearcat Lounge and drank beer and played pool.
Being a Lawyer: I think the key thing to being a successful lawyer is the ability to write. You’ve got to be able to communicate, you have to be able to write briefs and arguments — that’s very important… but I write as many opinions and advisory letters to clients as I do argumentative type documents… One key to success is being able to explain to…somebody how it is and what they have to do [for instance] to become a resident of Florida for tax purposes rather than Ohio.
UC College of Law: [There were] riots because of Kent State and the invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War. …They were trying to shut down the school, and the law school was not shutting down and that really bothered them. One reason it didn’t shut down was there are requirements in all states that in order to take the bar you have to have…so many credit hours... We were walking up this long staircase and there were a bunch of young kids at the top, and they were trying to prevent us from going in and studying for finals…. [A law student] said, “Look, I’ve been here for three years; I’m going to graduate. I want to be able to take the bar. I understand what you’re trying to do, but you’re not going to prevent me.” They said, “We’re going to stop you.” …He picked one of these kids up and literally picked him up and dropped him off the steps about ten feet into the bushes…. Eventually they shut down the law school…The second semester of my first year in law school, we didn’t take finals, everybody just passed… We got seven or eight people back who’d been off in the Army and came back to law school, so we actually graduated with more people than we started with.
It was a white male class. There were two blacks and two women, and one of the women was black, so she counted twice. And by the time we were third years, the first year class probably had 25 minorities and probably 25 women…The law school went from being a white male bastion to a more reflective cross-section of society in literally a two year period, and it was just amazing — there was nothing gradual about it.
The great thing about the UC Law School… It is small and intimate. You knew all of the professors, you knew everybody in your class, you knew most of the people in the other classes. You always had a couple of people you could go to. It was a great atmosphere, and in my particular economic situation, it made it much more bearable.
Law school really honed my ability to think more strategically to better address problems, both personally and in the practice. I think you’re a better person when you come out of law school. It was the education and the experience that got me to where I am today… The education at the University of Cincinnati, both undergraduate and law school, are world class.
Faculty: We had Dean Barrow, who was a former dean of the law school — I’ll never forget Dean Barrow. We found out my wife was expecting our second child … I went in during the summer between my first and second years in law school and spent an afternoon with Dean Barrow talking about this. Dean Barrow was probably 80 at that point, but he was still teaching, and he was … a fellow whose judgment I trusted. He convinced me that it would be a mistake to leave law school because of having another child and to do what I could do to stay in law school — and I did.
On St. Patrick’s Day in those days — you could go in the local bars in Cincinnati and give them any kind of a container and they’d fill it up with draft beer. So we all decided we were going to get a gallon of green beer and bring it in to [John] Murphy. I got a gallon jug … and brought it in a paper sack and put it next to the lectern in the old main lecture hall. John started lecturing, and finally his curiosity got him, so he got up, looked at it, lectured for a minute or two more and he just couldn’t take it anymore. So he said, “All right, who brought in the beer?” …. “You’re not allowed to have alcohol on campus.” … “Come here.” So I came up. He says, “We’ve got to do something about this…Let’s destroy the evidence.” So he and I sat down and drank the gallon of beer, and he continued to lecture… John got me my first job with Johnson & Umstead… I always remained close to John and always relied on his view of the students when I worked for a large law firm.
Ken Aplin was a brand new professor when we were there. He was really great. Sam Wilson was great. We had a guy named Schwartz, who was our Torts professor.
Classmates: My kids will ask me about The Paper Chase, and it wasn’t that way. It was a very close class, it was a close law school and very cooperative…you always helped everybody out… Jim Patton would give me his notes and his notes were gold.
Being a Lawyer: I’ve made great friends, close friends, both lawyers and clients. I get to deal with people and help [them] through problems. I really enjoy doing that. I enjoy helping people solve problems.
UC College of Law: I came back from Vietnam in March of 1970. I knew friends who were seniors in the law school [during] the spring of the Kent State shootings. The school essentially shut down. Those seniors never had to take finals.
I had in the back of my mind that when you went to law school you wore a coat and tie every day. While there were some of us that wore coats and ties to school every day, most of those that did were working at law firms.
When I finished my legal education, I was naïve enough to think that I was prepared to practice law…. I think something about UC being small and the quality of the faculty instills a certain pride in us and so we know that we have to live up to a certain standard…causes us to work hard, especially when we are starting out.
Faculty: The relationship between the faculty and the students was a solid one. I liked Professor Aplin…Stanley Harper was another one that was just a riot in class, just a wonderful teacher. John Murphy was a great Contracts professor. And Vic Schwartz, he was an Evidence professor my second year…He was a great professor. You weren’t worried about nodding off in the classes that those men taught.
Classmates: My class…was over 50% veterans. One of the really sharp guys in our class was a guy named Jim Ralston who had been at UC Law School, got drafted, went in the Army, came back from Vietnam, and then picked up in our class.
There were three women in my class. Just tells you something else again about how much things have changed. I think there were maybe two women in the class in front of us. Most of the women who went to law school then had been out of college at least five or ten years.
Social Life: I got married at the end of the first semester. My wife and I endured the separation of Vietnam….We ended up managing the North Cincinnati Apartments on Old Vine Street in Corryville. …We were living there, but we were renovating the building for the owner…Week to week rent was $15, a pretty rough place, roach infested…For me, law school was pretty much work - family and law school.
Being a Lawyer: The key, I think, to being a good lawyer is working hard, especially early on…. The one that spends the extra time and drills down more deeply and understands the nuances and permutations of the issue is the one that ultimately will be a better lawyer and will develop judgment.
UC College of Law: I was a police officer and I got interested in the law. One of the attorneys challenged me to become a lawyer, and I took the challenge up and applied to the University and was accepted….When I attended law school, they had the largest freshman class that had enrolled – 125. They had the largest number of women and there were 11 of us. They had the largest number of African Americans and there were 5 of us. I was the only freshman African American woman.
They had a new Dean. They had this large class. They had women, a significant number of women. It was in the seventies, so law school was stressful. That was during the time just before the years when they were protesting at various colleges with guns and civil rights.
Faculty: I had one professor tell the women in the class that we were taking the place of men and we had no business being there…. I believe that was the first year that UC attempted to bring in young professors. There were young people like Dr. Singer…He was liberal. And then there was Larry Kessler. He taught Environmental Law and he was liberal. Victor Schwartz started and he was conservative and has become one of the torts leaders in the country today…They brought in some young bright professors who were out of that sixties age and that seventies age.
Then there was Professor Murphy…he was my favorite professor. I loved Contracts Law…Judge Spiegel did Bankruptcy and that was a good course that I enjoyed.
When I graduated, all the young professors were gone….When we left that year in 1973, those who started with us were leaving too.
Being a Lawyer: One thing about a law degree, you can do a lot with it, not just become a practicing attorney. You can teach. I almost applied to the FBI, but decided I couldn’t move around the country.
I would challenge [students] to stay focused and not get caught up in the glamour of the law because it can fool you. I would tell them to study. It’s a profession where you never stop learning. When you are not doing that, you are doing a disservice to your clients. I would tell young people to get a mentor, someone who can help advise them both personally and professionally. And not to get caught up in the theater of law.
UC College of Law: When I went to law school, I became a member of the Dean of Men’s staff [at UC] and continued to work in the Dean’s office for my first two years of law school. They had me working on various projects that were related oftentimes to the law. So I might do research on what were the rights of the resident advisors with respect to students.
I had two starts…..my first year, I was in the Army Reserve and called up for active duty…I had been in school for probably six or seven weeks, but lost that entire first year because I never got to the final exams….Suddenly the thing that I realized fairly quickly in the first week - I was around, in each of my classes, smarter people than I had ever been around in my life.
I was sitting outside the law school during that first week of orientation, [when] another student happened to be walking by and sat on the steps with me for a bit…Who turned out to be not only a friend in law school, but then a partner in law practice for about eleven years and my best friend…Jim Stuehringer.
There was a student who, in my opinion, was absolutely the most brilliant student there. A student by the name of Paul Nemann…he was an activist…Paul started a group of student volunteers, something called the Center for Consumer Affairs. I became involved and a lot of other students did as well….we actually opened up some store fronts in Cincinnati and assisted low income individuals with consumer problems.
Faculty: The professor that we had for orientation was a gentleman by the name of Lester…He was a fairly pompous individual, very dynamic and dramatic, sort of reminded you physically of Colonel Sanders with gray hair and gray beard, deep booming voice. In the first five minutes…he went up to the blackboard and drew a bunch of squiggly lines. He then looked back and said you are probably wondering what I am doing... [I am] demonstrating what this first year is going to be like for all of you. I’ve just depicted ground fog… Take a minute and look to the right and look to the left. Take a good look at the person sitting next to you because by the end of this semester one of the three of you is not going to be back for the second semester.
I loved Torts because I loved Victor Schwartz, who was just a very brilliant man and an outstanding educator. Contracts… ended up being a favorite, again because of just an interestingly unique professor by the name of John Murphy, who was also very brilliant, challenging.
Being a Lawyer: [We decided to] move to Tucson, Arizona and open up a law practice. The Arizona bar, if you were an out-of-state student who hadn’t attended an Arizona law school, the bar pass rate was less than 50%...The year that we took it, there were 30-35 out-of-state students…five of whom passed. Two of whom happened to be Jim and I. So we took the bar, and then there we were. We were both blue-collar kids with no money.
UC College of Law: In his legal drafting course, Irv Rutter taught us to “visualize” a transaction before we begin to write about it. As I “visualized” our experience at the College of Law, one of the clearest images was the lounge. Yes, the lounge. In particular, the lime green and popsicle orange chairs that exacerbated our day-to-day stress.
Faculty: I suspect that we are just a little grateful for the opportunities we gained from the College of Law. John Murphy taught us that parties can make their own law by contract. Through the medium of Harold Cranchford, Stan Harper taught us that civil procedure affects human beings. Gersham Goldstein pushed us to be more inquisitive with yet “another hypothetical.”
Classmates: There were 102 of us who entered in the Fall of 1971. Some came from Vietnam on the GI bill…Only 13 of those who entered were women.
Being a Lawyer: Perhaps our classmate, Mike Harmon, said it all best:
“All things considered, I’m very fortunate in the profession I landed in. Some people hate their job; I don’t. Some people have to worry every day about the bottom line; I don’t. Some people never get a chance to be creative; I do. Some people never get to perform in public; I do. Some people don’t get much chance to do good; I do. Some people don’t get the chance to speak out their mind; I do. Some people don’t get a chance to exercise discretion and independent judgment in their jobs; I do. Some people don’t have the luxury of valuing human relationships; I do. Some people never stop to smell the flowers; I do. Sounds like I found a great profession, doesn’t it?”
UC College of Law: My overall impression of law school was very favorable…I am still sometimes amazed at the things that I can trace back to just the experience of law school and being made to think and being made…to look at things in ways that I would never have done before. And the law school wasn’t The Paper Chase… once they admitted you, they expected you to graduate. And fortunately, they told you that so you didn’t sit there and quake in fear.
Faculty: Stanley Ellis Harper, Jr. was absolutely one of my all time favorite professors. I can still see him pacing back and forth in front of classroom 2 with one foot on the riser and the other not, talking about the merger of law and equity, Bucephalus and cutting the Gordian knot, and also about living with all females -- Ruth, two daughters, and a female dog. I know not why I remember all this, the subject was civil procedure — nothing sexy or exciting about that, but somehow his style of teaching reached me. He will be missed.
Classmates: The class ahead of us had 8 or 9 women in it, and our class had 15 out of 100. We have lunches twice a year, and I come to Cincinnati for at least one of them. For one reason or another, the class of ’74 has stayed really close, or at least a group of about 20 of us.
Social Life: We played hearts and euchre… we did a lot of card playing and then we would go to a place called the Pickle Barrel and play the pinball machine.
Being a Lawyer: I think that what you take away from law school isn’t knowing the criminal code and isn’t knowing how to do a title search for a real estate transaction. It is knowing how to look at a problem, evaluate it, and come up with a solution — or multiple solutions or possibilities or whatever. It’s that critical thinking skill…then when you’re out practicing, you pick up the substantive stuff.
UC College of Law: Law school taught me how to think more clearly and that few things are black and white. [It] also taught me how to solve problems.
The building was old. The chairs in the classroom frequently broke.
Faculty: UC had many interesting personalities on the faculty: Harper, Barrow, Lester, and Dewey… Fred Dewey giving the same lecture two weeks in a row and never mentioning that he did it….the ash on his cigarette never dropping. Every class taught by Stan Harper was memorable…Learned a great deal about the actual practice of law from Whitey Aug.
Classmates: I made lots of good friends. I still get together twice a year with about 20 of them.
Being a Lawyer: Be a person of your word. Be kind to everyone you meet. Your client’s enemy is not yours. Be respectful of everyone you deal with from the janitor to the president of a large company.
UC College of Law: We had a women law student organization…We got a grant from what was then the Women’s Studies program…to put together a slide show to take out to the local high schools… We would invite the girls to come and listen to us talk about women’s rights, and to see a real woman law student. Then we would invite them to spend the day at law school with us….A teacher came up to me and said, ”You know, I don’t know that any of the girls are probably interested in it — nobody’s expressed any interest — but I am. Can I spend a day with you?” So she did. She came to the law school. She spent the day with me. It’s Dolores [Learmonth], who was later President of the Cincinnati Bar. She’s the managing partner at her firm. And we became lifelong friends.
Faculty: I was in the small section of Larry Kessler, who was a new professor teaching criminal law and criminal procedure….he was very good. Ken Aplin was…just a classic excellent teacher. And that furthered my interest in criminal law. John Murphy taught me labor law, and Tom Murphy taught me employment law…..There were mostly wonderful teachers.
Classmates: I was delighted to find that there were a lot of people who were my age, and some who were older. There were returning Vietnam vets. There were people who had worked and then decided to go to law school. There were people who had had pretty good careers in other fields….It was the first year that there was kind of a critical mass of women in the school when I started in 1972… It was people who felt more on a par with the faculty, and less intimidated by the faculty than some people right out of undergraduate school. So that intellectual give and take, I think, was much more lively than it would otherwise have been.
Being a Lawyer: When I started teaching trial practice at UC, I would tell my students that being a trial lawyer is the perfect job, because you are the writer, the producer, the director, and, except when you’re doing direct examination, you are the star. I think the students, to me, as time passed, appeared brighter. They appeared to become more hardworking, dedicated, conscientious about doing their work, more confident.
UC College of Law: Law school refined my thinking and reasoning abilities to a very significant degree. Law is such a central feature of my life, it is hard to imagine it not being an important filter through which to view the world.
Faculty: Prof. John Murphy terrified me in Contracts. He became a trusted advisor. I took more courses from him and we are still friends. My 12-year-old sister came to the Contracts class and he called on her! Maybe because she was reading the book, Willard (yes, the one about the rats), right in front of him!
Social Life: My class was about 10% women and I made terrific friends who are still in my life prominently. We had no money, so social life was parties, common dinner, movies, etc. I-71 was built when we were in law school.
Being a Lawyer: A good lawyer’s first obligation is service: to justice, family, clients, colleagues, friends (and that order may rotate by the person or circumstances). Too often, lawyers may focus on “winning” or financial rewards. I don’t believe that has changed…When I was a senior in college, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas told me at a small dinner party I attended that I should not go to law school, that it “would ruin me” and that I “would not be able to see the forest for the trees.” Given a choice, people should only enter a profession about which they are passionate, enthusiastic, and to which they are willing to commit. After all, the law is not a “job,” it is a life.
UC College of Law: The law school was in the old building and had four main classrooms and a few much smaller seminar or small section rooms. There were not nearly as many course offerings then as now. Cincinnati was more the center of the region — more people worked and shopped downtown.
Faculty: We benefited from some of the legendary professors in the history of the school … I’m thinking of Professors Murphy, Rutter, Schwartz, Harper, Aplin and Goldstein. I enjoyed the Criminal Practice Clinic course, which exposed a few students at a time to genuine court room activity.
Classmates: My classmates were cordial and well-prepared. Most professors thought our class was over-serious!
UC College of Law: I’ve served on the Board of Visitors because I feel it is important to stay in touch with the College and to try to give back at least a fraction of what the College has allowed me to do.
Classmates: I matriculated in 1974, which was quite a class. That class was comprised of such luminaries as Al Nippert whose family the stadium is named after… There was a guy by the name of Bob Taft in that class. He later went into public service…I think he ended up as the governor of Ohio. … His cousin Guy Taft was in that class. There was a guy by the name of Charlie Luken…. Charlie ended up as the mayor of the city of Cincinn