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Excerpted from a speech by Stuart Rolfe ('78) to the Seattle University Board of Regents February 1998
What a great distance this law school has come in 26 years! It was just 26 years ago -- January 10, 1972 -- that Joseph Sinclitico was hired as the first dean of what was then the University of Puget Sound Law School. A feasibility study conducted by the University in 1971 had revealed that the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia area was the largest metropolitan area in the country served by a single law school. And that law school offered no part-time or evening program. (We should note that while the population of the area has increased by more than 50 percent since then, our ever-popular evening program remains the only part-time law program in the region.)
Just five days before Christmas in 1971, the University of Puget Sound (UPS) Board of Trustees voted to establish a school of law. Three weeks later, they announced the appointment of Dean Sinclitico, who came to Tacoma immediately and set up an office in a downtown hotel. He proceeded to hire a faculty; he arranged to rent facilities in the new Benaroya Business Park on South Tacoma Way; he engaged our one-and-only library director, Anita Steele, to build a 50,000-volume library from scratch; and he had a brochure printed up, hoping to entice 335 students to enroll for classes in the fall. Less than eight months later, on September 5, 1972, 427 students showed up for the first day of classes at this fledgling school.
Imagine the energy, drive, and imagination it took to accomplish so much in so little time! Happily for the state's newest law school, bar association accreditors were also impressed. Just six months after the opening of classes, the law school made history when it received provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association in record time. Judge George Boldt, chairman of the school's first Board of Visitors, summed up the excitement shared by faculty and students alike: "All of us feel that creation of the school has been nothing short of a miracle."
In fall 1974, the first year with three full classes, the school had 730 students, 17 full-time faculty, five professional librarians, and 70,000 volumes in its library. In September 1974, a joint team from the Association of American Law Schools and the American Bar Association (ABA) visited for a final accreditation inspection. By March 1975, before the school's first commencement exercises, both organizations had awarded the school full accreditation. This, too, was unprecedented in legal education up to that time.
From the very beginning, the achievements of our graduates paved the way for the law school's success. Forty-six students who had accelerated their studies graduated in time to take the February 1975 bar exam. Of those, 42 (a whopping 91 percent!) passed. The overall state rate was just 69 percent -- a full 22 percent under the UPS figure! With that performance, the state's third law school gained immediate credibility. (Our first-time takers continue to exceed the state-bar pass average even to this day -- but they have never surpassed that rate!)
The academic year 1974-75 also marked the first publication of the Law Review, establishment of the Student Bar Association, and the first of many clinical opportunities which have become a hallmark of the school's curriculum.
Wallace M. Rudolph, a highly regarded professor from the University of Nebraska, became the school's second dean in 1976. Dean Rudolph creatively solved the problem of providing a permanent home for the school by proposing to locate the law school at the downtown Tacoma site of the former Rhodes Department Store. The idea snowballed into a proposal for a "law center" that would include Division II of the State Court of Appeals as well as various law offices, a proposal that would greatly expand opportunities for law students in clinical areas. With the considerable help of U.S. Congressman Norm Dicks, the late Senator Henry M. Jackson, and an illustrious group of Western Washington civic leaders, the law school's dream of a permanent first home soon became a reality.
A highlight of the school's short history came in September 1980 with the dedication of the $9 million Norton Clapp Law Center. At a dedication ceremony that attracted hundreds of the state's legal elite, then-U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger called the center "a remarkable experiment in legal education." He added: "There is no school in the nation that can do what you are doing here, as you draw together the three branches of the legal profession -- teaching, practice, and judgment."
Our law library was at that time the most advanced legal resource center in the Northwest, containing more than 140,000 volumes and an extensive microform collection. There were WESTLAW and LEXIS computers, a COM card catalog, and video terminals for accessing the Washington Library Network database. Technology had arrived on the region's legal education scene.
So appealing were the law center concept, the refurbished building, and the growing reputation of the School of Law that an entering class of 466 students -- 130 more than anticipated -- arrived on the first day of registration! Several months later, in January 1981, prominent Seattle attorney Fredric Tausend, who had served for some years as an adjunct professor at the law school, was named our third dean. In his first report to the law school Board of Visitors, Dean Tausend articulated principles that remain fundamental to our mission today:
"Instilling in our students a sense of a lawyer's special obligations and social responsibilities while at the same time furnishing rigorous training in the principles of law and the skills of legal analysis should, I believe, be the guiding purpose of our School of Law."
Dean Tausend led efforts to increase diversity in the student body, expand clinical programs, and develop a first-rate legal writing program that today enjoys a national reputation. (Some years later, when Little, Brown and Company published The Legal Writing Handbook- -- co-authored by legal writing teachers Anne Enquist and Laurel Oates, along with research librarian Kelly Kunsch -- both the depth of our legal writing program and the excellence of our training in library research skills were confirmed. Already in its third printing, the handbook is in use at more than half of the nation's law schools.)
Under Fred Tausend's tutelage, the school also established its first alumni relations program, published its first alumni magazine, launched its first annual fund drive, offered its first comprehensive-achievement scholarship program, stabilized first-year enrollment at 360 students, and developed a highly sophisticated job placement operation that attracted more than 100 law firms to campus each year. (I also want to note here that the school was only 10 years old when one of its graduates was tapped to serve as a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court. Gay Gellhorn, a graduate of the law school in '82, was selected by The Hon. Thurgood Marshall to begin a judicial clerkship in 1983. What an honor for such a young law school!)
When Dean Tausend resigned to return to full-time law practice in 1986, James E. Bond from Wake Forest became the school's fourth dean. Among the major accomplishments during his seven-year tenure at the law school were the following:
Adoption of the school's first comprehensive long-range plan that called for smaller entering classes, improved first-year student credentials, increased student and faculty diversity, and re-energized fund-raising efforts;
Dramatic improvement in the statistical profile of entering classes (from the 61st percentile among law students in the nation to the 79th percentile);
A conscious, planned reduction in first-year class size from 360 to 330, then 300 students;
A tripling of annual fund gift dollars;
Increased productivity by the faculty who, for the first time, were included among the nation's "Top 50" for scholarly publication in the national Law Faculty Scholarship Survey.
For these and other efforts, the school was ranked among "America's Best Law Programs" in a book published by Prentice Hall, Top Law Schools: The Ultimate Guide. Cited particularly in the book was the growing strength of the school's reputation among law firms. Another quality the authors praised was the broad range of students, especially the inclusion of so many older students and persons of color.
Under Dean Bond's leadership, the clinical curriculum also continued to improve. The Law Practice Clinic, the recipient of two major grants -- including a $343,000 stipend from the U.S. Department of Education -- developed a series of component clinics to integrate with classes on immigration law, law and psychiatry, trusts and estates, and professional responsibility. These popular clinics have continued to grow, along with similar programs in administrative law, health law, and bankruptcy now being offered. The traditional curriculum was strengthened as well by such notable additions as courses in health law, law and medicine, international law, international law of human rights, employment law, and employment discrimination law.
Dean Bond resigned to return to teaching in July 1993 and was succeeded by Professor Donald M. Carmichael, who agreed to serve for three years as acting dean. (A faculty member at the law school since 1978, Carmichael had served as the school's associate dean for academic affairs from 1987 to 1993.)
Slightly more than a year into Dean Carmichael's tenure, the most significant event in the school's history occurred: In November 1993, Seattle University and UPS announced an agreement to transfer sponsorship of the two-decades-old law school to the state's largest, most diverse independent university -- and to relocate the school to the Seattle University campus. In his annual presidential report that year, Father William Sullivan called the event "the most memorable day of my 20-year tenure as Seattle University's president."
From the first moment he stepped into the Norton Clapp Law Center, Father Sullivan was heartily welcomed into the law school community. In meetings that first day with faculty, staff, and students, he was greeted with sustained applause. And he was "front and center" the following May to hear commencement speaker, then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright, describe the rule of law as the best protection against violent hatreds and ethnic conflicts raging in the world. "Law separates human civilization from chaos," she declared.
Of course, the student commencement speaker, Brian McLean, offered a less reverential view of his world: "I suppose the closest analogy to law school is that of a caning in the Singapore penal system: It hurts, it leaves scars, it has very little relation to the real world, and the British started it."
Just three months later, at 5 o'clock on August 19, 1994, the school officially became Seattle University School of Law. At a gathering of university and law school dignitaries, founding Professor James Beaver noted:
"We are very fortunate that the people who conduct affairs at Seattle University embrace with us the importance of learning, of law, and of legal education. Speaking for my faculty colleagues, let me say that I entertain the fond expectation that this 'new' law school will serve Seattle University extremely well -- and, in so doing, will serve the people of the Pacific Northwest and the nation in even greater ways for decades to come."
As many of you know, Jim Bond was invited to return to the post of law school dean in 1995. On that occasion, he told his colleagues:
"I am confident that when the history of this law school is written 25 years from now, and people look back at a half century of legal education here, they will identify our affiliation with Seattle University as the most critical decision in the institution's history, because that affiliation opened up for us enormous opportunities that otherwise would not have been ours. And I would hope that when the much longer history of Seattle University is written, the affiliation of this law school with Seattle University will be viewed as one of the critical decisions in the development and progress of the greater university."
The significance of the merger also was articulated by the man responsible for bringing it about. Said Father William Sullivan, S.J.:
"The integration of a law school into the university provides enormous opportunities for serving our community in new and important ways. We will be supporting the education of students who will go on to craft our public codes and legislation, shape our criminal procedures and judicial canons, set standards for our corporate behavior and professional ethics. In the long term, we will be educating many of the region's finest lawyers, women and men who are destined to play significant roles in determining how our society operates."
And so, for this law school -- more so than any other -- the past is indeed prologue. Now -- more than ever -- the future of this precious enterprise is truly in our hands.
No history of the Seattle University School of Law would be complete without a history of Seattle University. "A History of Excellence" is an interactive look at Seattle University's past. It uses video clips, text, and photos to tell the story of the people and events that shaped our institution. Highlights of the feature include: stories of pride and accomplishment, snapshots of student life through the years, video interviews with faculty and staff, and profiles of famous alumni.