21 73NCLRev563 (1994-1995)

The University of North Carolina School of Law:
A Sesquicentennial History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Martin H. Brinkley 565

Judith Welch Wegner
DEDICATION .........................
I.
INTRODUCTION
A.
Observations and Overview .....
Judith Welch Wegner 569
B. A Wonderful Journey: 1945-95 ....
William B. Aycock 571
C. Prophets in Reverse ............
Martin H. Brinkley 573
II. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOL OF LAW

IN THE MODERN ERA
A. The.War and the PostwarEra: 1945-64

1. The War Years: The Deanship of Robert Hasley
Wettach (1941-49) (reprinted from 47 N.C. L.
Albert Coates 575
REv. 1, 69-72 (1968)) ...........
of
Henry
2. The Postwar Years: The Deanship
Brandis, Jr. (1949-64) (reprinted from 47 N.C. L.
Albert Coates 579
REV. 1, 72-91 (1968)) ...........
B. An Era of Expansion and Turbulence: 1964-79
1. The Vietnam Era: The Deanship of James Dickson
Phillips, Jr. (1964-74) .... William Brantley Aycock 601
2. An Evolving Institution: The Deanship of Robert
G. Byrd (1974-79) ......
William Brantley Aycock 622
C. An Era of Transformation: 1979-89

1. The Modem Law School Comes of Age:
The Deanship of Kenneth S. Broun
(1979-87) ...............
2. A Time of Transition: The Deanship of Ronald C.
Link (1988-89) ...........
NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 73
D. Preservingand Enhancing a Legacy of Excellence in

Challenging Times (1989- ): The Deanship of Judith
S. Elizabeth Gibson 657
Welch Wegner ................
III. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN LAW SCHOOL: CRUCIAL
TRENDS THAT BRIDGE PAST AND FUTURE
A. People
1. African-American and Other Minority Law Students
Charles E. Daye 675
and Alumni .................
2. Women at UNC and in the
Laura N. Gasaway 705
Practice of Law .............
Judith Welch Wegner
B. Academic Programs
1. The Changing Course of Study: Sesquicentennial
Reflections ..............
2. Clinical Legal Education ...... Richard A. Rosen 749
C.
The UNC Law Library: 1945-95 .. Martha B. Barefoot 758
D. Student Organizationsand Their Evolving Impact on the

School of Law
1. The North Carolina Law Review at
Martin H. Brinkley
Threescore and Ten ........
2. The North CarolinaJournal of
InternationalLaw and Commercial
Regulation and International Course
Jerry W. Markham
Offerings .................
3. The Holderness Moot Court
Tracy Hamrick Davis
Bench ..................
4. Student Organizations: 1945-95 .. Winston B. Crisp
E.
773
805
817
830
Law Alumni Service to the Public and the Law School

1. Lawyers Talking: UNC Law Graduates and Their
Walter Bennett 846
Service to the State .............
Judith Welch Wegner

2.
The History of the UNC Law Alumni Association

Todd T. Lindsley 939
and Law Foundation, Inc.......
DEDICATION
Our "Citadel of Truth," William Brantley Aycock
MARTIN
H. BRINKLEY AND JUDITH WELCH WEGNER
This issue of the North Carolina Law Review is dedicated to

Professor and Chancellor Emeritus William Brantley Aycock, a man
who has graced the UNC School of Law in one way or another for
fifty years.
Albert Coates observed that there is a special spirit here at the
UNC School of Law, a "lifting power," that characterizes the place
and the institution. Bill Aycock embodies that "lifting power."
In an essay for entering law students, Coates spoke of the
school's proud traditions:
I talk to you of these traditions because I profoundly believe
that if they get into your bloodstream, you will find in them
a lifting power while you are in this Law School and on this
campus, and that you will carry them with you as tangible
assets when you go out to live and make a living in the
practice of law.1
Coates also reflected on his own experience at the School of Law,
then told a tale drawn from a letter. He said:
For three years, the Law School had worked to make
me independent of her and not dependent on her, and in the
process drawn me closer to my meaning with a letter from
a recent graduate, written a few years ago to members of the
Law School faculty who had taught him, on the occasion of
the death of one of them:
I am not sure why I got in the car and drove
eighty miles to attend Mr. Wettach's funeral; but I
believe that if I can put it right it is this: all of you
did something really important for me. You jointly
and singly equipped me to perform my life's work.
You have made it possible for me not only to make
a good living, but to make that living serving the
law with love, and that's right important to me.
1. ALBERT
COATES,
GREETINGS
TO FIRST YEAR
BEGINNING OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR 10 (1983).
LAW STUDENTS
AT THE
[Vol. 73
I hope to live my life in such a way, and with no

other ambition than to do what I am doing well;
give my family a good home; give my children as
good an opportunity as my father who drove a
truck and educated me by the sweat of his brow
and strength of his shoulder. And perhaps when it
is all behind me, and if I have done it well, and if
there is then such a need, I will follow in the
footsteps of men from the Law School, the University, and Chapel Hill who have gone before me in
public service undertakings.2
Bill Aycock is a man in whose footsteps we all should aspire to
follow. He is our community's memory of the best that our law
school has been and the greatness toward which we strive. Bill's
association with the law school began when he entered as a student
in 1945, after returning from World War II. He graduated in January
1948 and immediately joined the faculty. He served as Chancellor
from 1956 to 1964, then returned to the law school he so loved. He
taught full-time until his retirement in 1986, and continues to be an
active member of the law school community today.
Bill has ever been the historian, a high school history teacher in
his day, an aide to Dr. Frank Porter Graham during his historical
work in India and Pakistan, the Chancellor who led the University
through its notable encounters with the Speaker Ban, and a teacher
of property law who illuminated legal conventions through references
to feudal estates and interests in land. It is thus not surprising that he
served as inspiration for this UNC Law School Sesquicentennial
History project. He was our principal archivist and defining architect.
We are not the first to praise Bill Aycock. Lifelong friends such
as Judge J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., and the late Dean Henry P. Brandis,
Jr., have elsewhere spoken of Bill as a student, classmate, faculty
colleague, and companion over the years? For the law school family,
2. Id.
3. See generally J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., Bill Aycock in Law School, 64 N.C. L. Rev.
207 (1986); Henry P. Brandis, Jr., William Brantley Aycoclk There Are So Many of Him,
64 N.C. L. Rev. 211 (1986).
Judge James Dickson Phillips, in a retirement tribute,
retold a story about Bill Aycock, stemming from their times together in law school. He
said:
One winter day we woke to find that we'd had one of our rare hip-deep
snowfalls overnight. I looked out the window of my house on the Pittsboro
Road on the south edge of town and went back to bed. In a little while my
wife looked out and came back to tell me that she'd just seen Aycock
walking up the middle of the road from his house three miles out, up to his
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Bill Aycock is nothing less than our citadel of truth-a living symbol
of that same university citadel that he nurtured as faculty member and
chancellor, and to which he has given his whole life. He embodies
everything that has made the School of Law great: a passion for truth
blended with uncompromising devotion to his fellow human beings.
hips in snow, heading for school.

Here was a man who the winter before, under the compulsion of war's
circumstances, had been trying to stay alive and avoid frozen feet in the
Ardennes, and who now under no compulsion but that of felt duty, was
plowing through Ardennes-depth snow to go up and talk about "last 6lear
chance," or the Rule in Wild's Case or something equally inconsequential
over the long haul.... As usual, his influence was felt. Under the compulsion of shame, I struggled out and up the hill, following the path he'd
plowed.
I. INTRODUCTION
Observations and Overview
JUDITH WELCH WEGNER
No people can become a great people by exchanging its

individuality, but only by encouraging it and developing it.
We must seek out and appreciate our own distinctive traits,
our own traditions,our own deep-rooted tendencies, and read
our destiny in their interpretation.
-
Charles Brantley Aycock, 1880
graduate of the University of

North Carolina School of Law
and Governor of North Carolina.
The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or
a woman.
-
Willa Cather, 0 Pioneers!
This year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the University of

North Carolina School of Law. It is a time to remember our begin-
nings and the milestones along the way; it is a time to reflect on the
traits and tendencies that have touched both leaders and learners
within this institution; it is a time to rededicate ourselves to the best
of our traditions-our commitment to excellence, our devotion to the

shared educational enterprise, and our dedication to public service;
and it is a time to forge our future-as a community and as a learned
profession-drawing upon the best wisdom of our individual hearts.
This history is the product of impulses such as these. It reflects
the inspiration of Chancellor and Professor William B. Aycock, a
teacher of law and history throughout his life, and a shaper of women
and men. It unites four generations of North Carolina lawyers tied
by their heartstrings to the University at Chapel Hill-natives born of
the state's red soil and immigrants who have come home "by the
grace of God." It spans the greater part of the twentieth century, yet
derives much of its power from shared hopes for the twenty-first. It
reflects passion for justice as past generations have known it, as well
as diverse vantages on the challenge of forging a more enlightened
justice system in years yet to come. It describes our journey,
including our mistakes, yet also finds ample time for celebration. The
editors and I hope that it will be interpreted in this light.
[Vol. 73
This sesquicentennial symposium is organized into three major

sections. The first is this introductory segment, which includes short
essays contributed by each of the symposium editors, Chancellor and
Professor William Brantley Aycock, Martin H. Brinkley, and me. The
second provides an overarching discussion of the UNC School of Law
in the modem era. This section considers the major eras in the law
school's development since its centennial in 1945. The second section
is organized in chronological order around the deanships of the seven
deans who have served the school during that time. The third section
discusses trends that cut across these chronological eras and portend
important developments in the future. To that end, section three
considers changes in the people of UNC law school, its academic
programs, its law library, student organizations, and alumni service to
the state and the school. My colleagues join me in thanking the
editors of the North Carolina Law Review for their interest in and
support for this project, as well as for their incisive views.
I hope that readers of these pages will come away renewed in
their dedication to find and give their best to the legal profession and
in their devotion to the UNC School of Law. I know that my own
involvement with this history project and my time as a faculty
member at UNC have proved enduring and transformative chapters
in my own personal and professional life.
A Wonderful Journey: 1945-95

WILLIAM B. AYCOCK
In 1945, for me it was out of the Army and into the UNC School
of Law classroom. It has been my good fortune to remain here ever
since. Thus, the fifty-year period covered by this Volume coincides
precisely with the period in which I have been a member of the law
school family. My profound thanks go to Dean Judith Wegner, who
conceived of the idea of a history for the sesquicentennial year, and
to all those persons who under her leadership have brought the
project to fruition.
During my student days, the faculty consisted of nine professors:
Coates, Wettach, McCall, Breckenridge, Van Hecke, Hanft, Dalzell,
Brandis, and Baer. All nine stayed the course until retirement and
the circle remained unbroken until the death of Professor Van Hecke
in 1963 at the age of seventy-one. The last survivor of this magnificent group, Professor Baer, died in 1993 at the age of ninety-two.
Currently, the full-time faculty consists of thirty-nine persons. Of
these, twelve are women and three are African-Americans.
In 1945, the student body consisted of forty-two white students,
including two women. In the fall of 1994, the student body numbered
708, of which 308 were women and 120 were minority students. Of
the minority students, eighty-one were African-American, seventeen
were Asian-American, sixteen" were Hispanic, and six were NativeAmerican.
In 1945, support personnel for the faculty and students, including
the law library, consisted of three persons. It has now grown to fifty.
In 1945, the law library held 51,000 volumes. Currently, the
number of books and microforms number 392,751.
The Law Alumni Association was organized in 1952. Alumni
contributions the first year amounted to $1,025. In 1994, nearing the
end of the sesquicentennial campaign, over twelve million dollars have
been raised.
The curriculum has been enriched to meet the new demands; new
clinical programs have been added.
572
[Vol. 73
Student organizations have multiplied. Among the additions are

the Journalof InternationalLaw and CommercialRegulation and the
Holderness Moot Court.
This thumb-nail sketch of tangible developments seemingly
indicates revolutionary changes. But on the contrary, the many
changes have come about in an evolutionary way. This history will
shed light on how it all came to pass.
Changes in the physical dimensions of the School do not reveal
the intangible qualities existing in 1945 that for the most part remain
today. As a student, I observed the civility that existed among the
faculty, students, and staff. This precious attribute has prevailed
through the years. Transgressions have been few. The law school is
still a good place to work.
The law school faculty then and now exercises the prime
responsibility for educational policy. The Dean is the leader.
Wettach was the Dean in 1945. He was followed by Brandis, Phillips,
Byrd, Broun, Acting Dean Link, and Wegner. Each of these Deans
was a member of the law school faculty at the time of selection; thus
the role of the faculty was already understood and respected. The
law school then and now emphasized the importance of good
teaching. Research is regarded as a necessary ingredient of good
teaching. Further, when research results in publication, it is another
form of teaching for wider audiences.
As a member of the law school family, I rejoice in the success of
our alumni. To me this truly is "smelling the roses on the way." At
the same time, I grieve when occasionally a member of the family
falls below the standards we expect.
My half-century as a member of the School of Law family has
been one of gratification. My devotion to the law school could not be
greater.
Prophets in Reverse
MARTIN
H. BRINKLEY
The historian is a prophet in reverse.

-Friedrich von Schlegel
Some twelve years ago, the Harvard Law Review published a
comment examining the twenty diverse histories of American law
schools that had been published up to that time.' The authors of the
comment criticized the extant histories as exalting the Langdellian law
professor, and accused them of painting law schools as illiterate,

blundering backwaters before the gospel from Cambridge arrived in
the form of Harvard-educated faculty members. The "unilluminating
sameness"2 of these accounts, the authors seemed to feel, stemmed
in part from the sense that our school history "is not really a serious
form of scholarship,"' and in part from the seemingly inescapable
temptation of writing the history of the institution as a paean to the
professional law teacher. The cure to all this banality, according to
the Harvard critics, was to start viewing law students and teachers as
participants in a unique institution possessing a distinct social and
ideological character
I wish to record here my firm belief that these pages do indeed
portray the University of North Carolina School of Law as a unique
institution. The editors' decision to prepare this history from the
individual literary efforts of nearly a score of persons, all of them
more or less intimately connected to the law school, was made with
the goal of painting a vast mural in diverse styles-ultimately a truer
portrait of the school than any single individual could have created.
Doubtless some will fault the whole for its multifarious approaches.
Perhaps we have squandered a certain readability by declining to strip
each contribution of its individuality. Yet we have thought it best, on
1. Alfred S. Konefsky & John H. Schlegel, Comment, Mirror; Mirror on the Walk
Historiesof American Law Schools, 95 HARv. L. Rav. 833 (1982).
2. Id. at 839.
3. Id at 843.
4. See id at 847-51.
[Vol. 73
the whole, to encourage the contributors to speak in their own voices,

even as every member of the law school community is, we believe,
encouraged to speak personally of her communion with the
institution. We hope you will agree that, with such an end in view,
certain small sacrifices were justified.
A harmless pleasure of this work has been my growing, and
ultimately overwhelming, conviction that the University of North
Carolina School of Law has given the lie to Emerson. It was he, after
all, who thought that institutions were reducible to "the lengthened
shadow of one man."5 If this history does nothing else, it surely
shows that our law school and University are no single human being's
intellectual or personal progeny. Unlike our sister in Charlottesville,
we do not owe our conception to a father who emblazoned on us the
vast sweep and thundering power of his own magnificent brain. We
are the child of a whole people: the people of North Carolina. Their
mark is upon us everywhere we turn, but we must look to find it-it
does not leap out as a particular building designed in a favored style,
or as a single dominating name or principle. I have always thought
it significant that statues are not a prominent feature of our University or School of Law. It is not the cudgel of a single personality or
group that we feel, but an inward strain of spiritual beauty that

cannot be seen. I believe that inward strain is a history and destiny
of intellectual freedom.
Like Athens was to Greece and Rome, our University and law
school are an education to North Carolina. They have done much to
enable our citizens to express themselves with grace and confidence.
They do not seek distorted praises or exaggerated themes; they only
require an estimation of the facts that will enable the people of North
Carolina to gauge their true worth. To this goal the editors of and
contributors to this history have pledged themselves. In this sense we,
the chroniclers, are, indeed, prophets in reverse.
5. RALPH W. EMERSON, Self-Reliance, in ESSAYS: FIRST SERIES 35 (The Belknap

Press of Harvard Univ. Press 1979) (1841).
II. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SCHOOL OF LAW IN THE MODERN ERA
The War and the Postwar Era: 1945-1964
THE WAR YEARS:

THE DEANSHIP OF ROBERT HASLEY WETrACH (19 4 1-4 9 )t
ALBERT COATES
(1968)
Albert Coates was born on August 25, 1896, in

Smithfield, near Johnston County, North Carolina. He
attended the public schools in Smithfield, obtained his
undergraduateeducation at the University of North Carolina,

and his legal education at HarvardLaw School. 'He joined
the faculty of the University of North CarolinaSchool of Law
in 1923, and remained a member of that faculty for forty-five
years, until his retirement in 1967. He died in 1989. Coates,
and his wife Gladys Hall Coates, are best known as the
founders of the Institute of Government at UNC. Coates also
was a memorable teacher of criminal law, municipal
corporations,legislation,and family law. He sought to bridge
the gap between "classroom and courtroom, law school and
law office, law teacher and lawyer." He was concerned that
law students often "learned the words, but didn't learn the
tune," and emphasized that "learningthe tune" is vital to legal
education. Albert and Gladys Coates also were fine
historians. Together,they worked on many importantbooks
recounting the history of UNC and related topics. When the
law school dedicated its new building, Van Hecke-Wettach
Hall, Coates authored The Story of the Law School at the
University of North Carolina, which appeared as a special
issue of volume 47 of the North Carolina Law Review.
ChaptersV and VI of that issue are excerpted in the following
pages.
t Reprinted from Albert Coates, The Story of the Law School at the University of
North Carolina,47 N.C. L. REv., Oct. 1968 Special Issue, ch. V.
[Vol. 73
Robert Hasley Wettach came to the deanship of the University

of North Carolina Law School in 1941, after having served on its
faculty for twenty years. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1891,
graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with the degree of A.B.
in 1913, M.A. in 1914, and LL.B. in 1917, practiced law in 1919-20,
and took the graduate degree of S.J.D. from the Harvard Law School
in 1921. He became Assistant Professor of Law in the University of
North Carolina in 1921, Associate Professor in 1938-39, Professor in
1940, and Dean of the Law School in 1941, at the age of 49.
Starting with McGehee and McIntosh and working through the
administrations of successive deans, Dean Wettach acquainted himself
with the problems of legal education in North Carolina and throughout the country, and united in his experience the old law school
traditions with the new. His work with Bar Association committees,
with state commissions such as the Commission to Revise the
Insurance Laws (of which he was Chairman), with the Attorney
General's office, and with the National Textile Labor Relations Board
and the National War Labor Board, gave him a practical awareness
of the problems of the legal profession.
Coming events were already foreshadowed when Dean Wettach
came into the deanship in June, 1941. During depression years, the
student body had fluctuated from 95 to 131, with an average
attendance of 110 from 1931 to 1941. During the school year 1941-42,
many students volunteered or were called for active military service
and enrollment dropped to 21 in 1942 and to 13 in 1943. As for the
faculty, Professor Brandis enlisted in the Navy in 1942, completing his
service with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander. Professor Hanft
enlisted in the Army in 1943, was assigned to military government,
and completed his service with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
Professor Van Hecke became Chairman of the Fourth Regional War
Labor Board in 1942; and Professor Dalzell served as Assistant to the
Solicitor of the United States Department of the Interior in 1943.
Professor Coates was given part-time leave to act as Director of
Training for the Office of Civilian Defense in North Carolina. Dean
Wettach was left with three associates to keep the Law School in
operation, to maintain a standard three-year curriculum, to handle the
administrative duties of his office, to serve as faculty editor of the
Law Review, and to make plans for post-war expansion.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Students and Faculty

From the ebb of 13 in 1943 the student body steadily increased
to 16 in the fall of 1944, to 42 in the fall of 1945, to 113 in the spring
of 1946, to 149 in the summer of 1946, to 221 in the fall of 1946, and
to 288 in 1949.
Along with the return of the student body, Dean Wettach saw
the core of the old faculty returning to the Law School-from 7 in
1941 to 11 in 1949. This included Wettach himself, Van Hecke,
McCall, Coates, Breckenridge, Hanft, Dalzell, Brandis, and Miss
Elliott as Librarian, and he added Baer and Aycock in post-war years.
Coates began work with the North Carolina Bar Association in
organizing and conducting refresher courses for members of the bar
returning from military service, and served on the legislative study
commission on Private, Social and Special Legislation, directing
research. Wettach served as Chairman of the Commission to revise
the Insurance laws for the General Assembly of North Carolina.
Hanft was appointed to the General Statutes Commission. Van
Hecke prepared the revision of the 4th edition of Cook's Cases on
Equity and served on the Voluntary Arbitration Panel of the United
States Department of Labor. Brandis served on the North Carolina
Bar Association Committee for Improving and Expediting the Administration of Justice in North Carolina, started a revision of McIntosh's North Carolina Practice and Procedure in Civil Cases, and
served as special assistant to Frank Graham as a member of the
United Nations Commission on Indonesia.
The Law School student body in 1949 included the largest
number of students with the best academic training and the greatest
maturity and variety of experience of any student body in the Law
School's history. The records show that ninety percent of them had
spent from one to five years in the military services: in the Army, the
Navy, the Air Corps, the Marines; in North Africa, Egypt, Syria,
Palestine, Sicily, Italy, Austria; in Britain, Ireland, Scotland, France,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany; in New Britain, Australia, India,
Burma, China, Bougainville; in the Philippines, Guadalcanal, Saipan,
the Marsall Islands, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
They had come out of service with ranks ranging from Private
First Class, Seaman First Class, Electrician's Mate, Technician and
Aviation Mechanist through intervening grades to Ensign, Lieutenant,
Captain, Lieutenant-Commander, Major, and Lieutenant-Colonel.
They had brought with them arrowheads from every major
invasion, service ribbons and battle stars from every major theatre of
578
[Vol. 73
operations, Combat Infantryman's Badges and Presidential Citations,

the Air Medal, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Distinguished Flying Cross,
Legion of Merit, Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross,
clusters and clusters of clusters, and foreign decorations including the
Order de Nassau, Croix de Guerre, and Belgian Fourragere.
They brought to the Law School a spirit and a purpose which was
expressed by a member of the Faculty to the class in Criminal Law at
the close of the first term of the academic year just ending:
Many people anticipated difficulties of returning veterans in
getting down to work. Those difficulties have not appeared
in this group. In twenty years of teaching I have never
experienced a class of harder working students. To efforts
to mike the most of your time, you have added efforts to
make up for lost time. If you hold to the pace you have set,
you will get a proportionately better legal education than
any class that has preceded you. You are already setting
new standards of performance for future classes and adding
new values to Law School traditions of painstaking effort
and distinctive workmanship.
Dean Wettach saw the 1949 General Assembly respond to his
urging with an appropriation to double the size and facilities of the
law building he had inherited in 1941. In short, he turned over the
Law School to his successor in 1949 as a going concern with the
largest and best equipped faculty, student body, building, and facilities
in the hundred and four years of its history.
THE POSTWAR YEARS:
THE DEANSHIP OF HENRY BRANDIS, JR. (19 4 9 - 6 4 )t

ALBERT COATES
(1968)
Henry Brandis came to this Law School Faculty by way of
Salisbury, North Carolina, where he was born; the Salisbury Public
Schools; the University of North Carolina and its Law School;
Columbia University Law School; law practice in New York City; the
Institute of Government; and the Division of Tax Research in the
State Department of Revenue. He became Assistant Professor of
Law in 1940, Associate Professor in 1941, and Professor in 1947. He
started his career as Dean of this Law School on July 1, 1949, and
stopped it fifteen years later-on June 30, 1964. This writing touches
the joints in the backbone of his record in the years between.
Dean Brandis' first report discussed the elemental factors in the
building of the Law School itself: the students, the faculty, the curriculum, the library, the law review, the alumni, and the law building.
It went on to discuss the Law School in its setting: in the life of the
University, the State, the United States, and in the processes of legal
education in this country. It plugged the Law School into the sockets
of these surrounding relationships and described a going concern.
Later reports with the same framework followed a similar pattern.
The points of emphasis represent his sense of values and continues
through all the reports. The difference is not in the. values; it is in the
voltage, growing to the last report. It gives one the feel of a man who
knew his business from the start and went about it without lost time
or motion.
The unifying theme of all these values is in the dedication

paragraph, written as the climax to his first report in 1949, and
reprinted in the same words as the be-all and end-all of every one of
his reports for fifteen years: "It is our devout ambition that the
School, through its library, its student body, its faculty and its
graduates, may not only occupy, but may truly deserve a place of
t Reprinted from Albert Coates, The Story of the Law School at the University of
North Carolina,47 N.C. L. REv., Oct. 1968 Special Issue, ch. VI.
580
[Vol. 73
steadily growing importance in the field of legal education and in the

life of our state."
The Students
There were 288 students in the Law School when Brandis took
over the deanship in 1949. This number dropped year by year to 250
with the decreasing backlog of veterans from World War II. It
steadily climbed again to 376 by 1963-the highest peak in Law
School history. The graduating class climbed from seventy-three in
1949 to ninety-nine in 1964. In that year applications for admission
to the school were running forty-two percent ahead of the number
applying the year before. The quality of the student body, as
measured by academic standards, was steadily improving throughout
these fifteen years. Fifty-five percent of entering students came with
college degrees-A.B. or B.S.-in 1951 and eighty-seven percent in
1963.
The School held its character as a state university law school with
eighty-five percent of its students coming from North Carolina. "Our
objective," wrote the Dean in one of his reports, "is not to become a
second or third rate national law school. Rather it is to remain a first
line state university law school."
The school outgrew inbreeding as it drew a steadily increasing
percentage of students with all, or part, of their undergraduate work
at institutions other than the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. The number of colleges and universities represented in the
student body grew through the years to 104 in 1963, coming from
fourteen states and three foreign countries.
During Brandis' administration, these students converted the Law
School Association into the Student Bar Association, continuing old
activities and adding new ones. They expanded student participation
in the work of the Law School and its administration in many ways:
by introducing new students to the life and work of the school,
through orientation programs commencing before registration in
September and lasting for three days, and providing a handbook
describing procedures and personnel; by organized greeting of the
Alumni at a reception in the Law Building after the homecoming
game in October; by organizing the annual reunion dinner meeting of
former editors of the Law Review which later expanded into the
annual meeting of all former students on Law Alumni Day; by
bringing prominent lawyers to speak to the Law School as a whole;
by publishing The Tar Heel Barrister as a connecting link between
19951
SESQ UICENTENNLAL
students and alumni; by operating liaison committees to work with the

Law Librarian and with the Dean and Faculty on day to day problems
of the school; by arranging weekend picnics in the fall and spring for
students and faculty and their families; by establishing the Honor
Court to handle problems of discipline and set standards of conduct;
by coordinating a student legislature which collects fees, appropriates
money to finance student undertakings, and appoints student committees to operate student activities of all sorts and sizes; by publishing a brochure giving the pictures and records of graduating students
and operating a placement service as an aid to getting jobs; by
conducting the moot court competition-which was mandatory for all
first year students, voluntary for all second year students, with the
second year winners competing in the national moot court competition in their third year.
The Law Wives Association is included in law student activities
on the common law theory that man and wife are one and the man
is the one. These law wives meet every other week to talk things
over among themselves, hear visiting speakers on topics interesting to
themselves, conduct an annual fashion show, engage in cultural
activities adding to the context of their lives and education in Chapel
Hill, serve coffee and cookies in the student lounge to students going
through the ten-day ordeal of examinations in January and May-in
addition to holding full- and part-time jobs to put their husbands
through school.
The Faculty
There were eleven members of the faculty in 1949, including the
Librarian. It held together without a break for fourteen years until
retirement took one member in 1962 and death took another in
1963-despite offers and opportunities inviting many of them to go to
other places for higher salaries. Mary Oliver was added as Librarian
and given faculty status in 1955; Dan Pollitt and George Hardy came
to the Law School in 1957.
In his report for the year 1957-58, Dean Brandis said: "For the
past several decades our faculty has been the most remarkably stable
law faculty in the United States. At present, excluding the Dean and
Law Librarian, we have eleven full-time teachers."
This number was made up of Mr. Wettach, who had been
brought to the faculty by Dean McGehee in 1921 and had served for
thirty-seven years; Mr. Van Hecke, brought first by Dean McGehee
and later by Dean McCormick, for thirty-two years; Mr. Coates,
[Vol. 73
brought by Dean McGehee in 1923, for thirty-five years; Mr. McCall,

brought by Dean McGehee, for thirty-one years; Mr. Breckenridge,
brought by Dean McCormick, for thirty-one years; Mr. Hanft, brought
by Dean Van Hecke, for twenty-seven years; Mr. Dalzell, brought by
Dean Van Hecke, for twenty-one years; Mr. Baer, brought by Dean
Wettach, for thirteen years; Mr. Pollitt, brought by Dean Brandis, for
one year. Mr. Aycock had been brought by Dean Wettach and had
served for eight years before becoming Chancellor in 1956. Dean
Brandis himself had been brought by Dean Van Hecke and had
served for nine years before becoming Dean in 1949.
"Assuming that all continue in good health," continued Dean
Brandis in his report, "in the period beginning in 1961 and ending in
1966 a majority of our full-time teachers will reach mandatory
retirement age." To prepare for these departures new men were
added: Robin Hinson in 1958; Seymour Wurfel, Dickson Phillips,
Dan B. Dobbs, Richard Day, and John W. Scott in 1960; Thomas W.
Christopher and Kenneth L. Penegar in 1961; Ernest L. Folk, III and
Robert G. Byrd in 1962.
During these fifteen years fifteen members of the faculty
contributed thirty-two articles to the North CarolinaLaw Review, and
fourteen articles to law reviews and other publications throughout the
country. Mr. Van Hecke published a Casebook on Equitable
Remedies, which became the leading casebook in the field of Equity,
wrote chapters in a treatise on Labor Law under the auspices of the
Association of American Law Schools, and wrote the chapter on
Equitable Remedies in the Fourth edition of Ballantine'sProblems in
Law. Hanft published a book: You Can Believe, A Lawyer's Brief
for Christianity. Aycock and Wurfel published a book on Military
Law; Baer, a treatise on Admiralty Law of the Supreme Court; and
Dalzell, chapters in books entitled American Court Reports and How
I Find the Law. All members of the faculty participated in writing the
annual survey of North Carolina Supreme Court decisions and the
biennial survey of statutes passed by the North Carolina General
Assembly.
During these fifteen years they participated in the activities of
state departments, commissions, and other agencies of government:
Professor Hanft served six years on the General Statutes Commission-as member, vice chairman, and chairman; Professor McCall
continued his work as member of a subcommittee of this commission,
studying Intestate Succession Statutes, and when the recommendations of this committee were written into law he served on a subcommittee drafting a revision of the statute governing the administration
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
of decedents estates. In 1961, he became chairman of this committee.

Breckenridge served six years on a subcommittee of this commission
on the revisal of Corporation Laws, and the recommendations of this
committee were enacted into law in 1953. Brandis and Phillips
worked with a subcommittee of this commission on redrafting Civil
Procedure Laws. Coates served as a member of the Commission on
Public-Local and Private Legislation and was its research director. He
also was a consultant to the State's Municipal Roads Commission and
the Stream Pollution Commission, a member of the Advisory
Commission on Highway Safety, and he worked with many agencies
of state and local government.
Brandis served on the Legislative Commission for the Improvement and Expediting of the Administration of Justice and on the
Commission studying revisions of the North Carolina Constitution,
and worked with Baer in research and drafting for the North Carolina
Judicial Council. Wettach served as arbitrator with the State
Department of Labor's Voluntary Arbitration Panel. McCall
prepared a booklet for the North Carolina Agricultural Extension
Service to emphasize to farmers the importance of making wills.
Hardy served as Executive Secretary of the Commission to Recommend Changes in the North Carolina Constitution. 'Van Hecke served
on the North Carolina Employment Security Commission. Phillips
served on the North Carolina Wildlife Commission.
Also, during these fifteen years, members of the Law School
Faculty worked on a variety of committees of the North Carolina Bar
Association: Wettach on the Committee on Administrative Law and
on the subcommittee on Continuing Legal Education, Brandis and
McCall on the Special Committee on Taxation, Aycock on the
Publicity Committee, Baer on the Committee on Courts and Civil
Litigation and the subcommittee on Continuing Legal Education, and
Phillips as Chairman of the Committee on Administrative Law. They
have also been active in other affairs of the Association, in the
Institutes for Practicing Lawyers, and in the American Bar Association.
The faculty has also been active in the Association of American
Law Schools: Van Hecke as Chairman of the Committee on
Preparation of Teaching Materials, member of the Council on Labor
Law and the Council on Equity, President of the Association, and
Chairman of the Special Committee on Faculty Appointments;
Brandis as member of the Committee on Lawyers in Federal Services,
of the Committee on Law Buildings, of the Council on Remedies, of
the Committee on Revision of Library Standards, of the Council on
584
[Vol. 73
Admission Tests and Procedures, of the Panel of Law School

Advisors, advisor to a Special Committee on Discrimination in Law
School Admissions, Chairman of the Committee on Academic
Freedom and Tenure, Chairman of the Nominating Committee at the
Annual Meeting, and on the Executive Committee of the Association;
Aycock as member of the Council on Trade Regulations, of the
Committee on Cooperation with the American Law Institute, and as
member of the Curriculum Committee; Breckenridge on the Round
Table Council on Commercial Law; Baer as Chairman of the
Inter-School Committee to plan the Southeastern Regional Meeting
of the Association, and on the Committee on Educational Films;
Wurfel on the Committee on International Law; Christopher on the
Committee on Racial Discrimination and on the Editorial Board of
the Journalof Legal Education;Pollitt as member of the Committee
on Academic Freedom and Tenure; and Dobbs as member of the
Committee on Admissions to the Bar.
Miss Elliott served as a member of the Committee on Cooperation with the American Library Association, and as President of the
American Association of Law Libraries. Miss Oliver served as
President of a group which later became the Southeastern Regional
Chapter of American Association of Law Libraries, and on the
Committee on Chapters, as Chairman of the Education Committee,
and as Editor of the Membership News Section and contributor to
The Law Library Journal published by the Association.
Faculty activities in other national areas during these fifteen years

included: Van Hecke and Wettach serving as arbitrators in labor disputes-Van Hecke as chairman of the President's Committee on
Migratory Labor, Wettach on the Labor Panel of the American
Arbitration Association as a Labor Arbitrator; Aycock as personal
assistant to Frank P. Graham's United Nations Mission to India and
Pakistan to settle the Kashmir dispute; Aycock as Lt. Colonel in the
office of the Judge Advocate of Third Army and as teacher of Army
Judge Advocate Officers; and Wettach as a member of the National
Academy of Arbitrators. Brandis also served seven years on the
Advisory Board on Contract Appeals of the Atomic Energy Commission, while Van Hecke served as member of a Special Advisory
Committee to the United States Secretary of Labor. Pollitt researched for the National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor, and
he and Van Hecke were members of the National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor. Van Hecke sat on the Board of Directors of the
National Institute of Labor Education, and Pollitt was a Special
Assistant to the Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.
1995]
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Phillips served as North Carolina Chairman for United Nations Day;

Wurfel lectured in the Duke University World Rule of Law Center
and researched for the Ford Foundation, studying the laws of
Colombia. Day was a participant in a special conference of the Civil
Rights Commission.
During these fifteen years, Law faculty members served the
University Faculty and Administration in many ways: Wettach as a
member of the Advisory Committee of the University, on the
Administrative Board of the Library, as Chairman of the Board of
Governors of the University Press, on the Administrative Board of
the Institute for Research in Social Science, as Chairman of the
Faculty, as member of the Faculty Council, and as a member of
various faculty committees; Van Hecke as Chairman of the Faculty
Committee on University Government, member of the Faculty
Council, and member of various other faculty committees. Hanft
served as member of the Faculty Committee on Athletics, the
Committee on Established Lectures, and as member of various other
committees; Coates as the Founder and Director of the Institute of
Government and on the Advisory Committee on the Institute for Research in Social Sciences; Aycock as member of the Faculty Council,
member of other faculty committees, and as Chancellor of the
University of North Carolina in 'Chapel Hill; Brandis as ex officio
member of the Faculty Council, and on other faculty councils,
chairman of the TV Programming Council, and as Chairman of two
special All-University Committees; Breckenridge as member of the
Administrative Board of the College of Arts and Sciences; Dalzell as
member of the Committee on Retirement Allowances and other
faculty committees; Oliver as member of the Faculty Council. Baer
was a panelist discussing legal matters of interest to the Medical
School and as the Planning Committee Chairman for an Institute on
Medico-Legal Problems; Christopher produced a series of TV
programs carried by WUNC-TV. Van Hecke received a Kenan
Professorship. Van Hecke and Brandis received the Thomas
Jefferson Award, Albert Coates the 0. Max Gardner Award, and
Herbert Baer received one of the original five Distinguished
Professorships and was singled out in Brandis' report for his "extraordinarily imaginative and effective teaching and writing."
During these fifteen years, other law schools have recognized the
calibre of members of this Law School faculty by inviting them to
their Law Schools as Visiting Professors: Wettach was invited to
teach at the University of Colorado, the University of Florida, and
Duke University; Van Hecke at the University of Texas and Duke
[Vol. 73
University; Aycock at the University of 'Texas, University of Virginia,

and the U.S. Army School for Judge Advocates; Breckenridge at
Louisiana State University; Hanft at the University of Texas and
Duke Law School; Day at the University of Michigan; Dobbs at the
University of Texas; Christopher at Utah Law School; and Brandis at
the University of Texas, University of Colorado, and Stanford
University.
Curriculum
Throughout the fifteen years of Brandis' leadership the Law
School curriculum was steadily adjusting to meet the demands on the
legal profession by the changing society in which we live. Old courses
were revised and new ones brought in-including seminar courses
with special emphasis on original investigation by students and the
preparation of reports in an effort to extend the values of research
and writing from Law Review students to all students. To illustrate,
in 1949 a course in Brief Making was added, along with Taxation and
Unfair Trade Practices, and the courses in Civil Procedure were
reorganized. Other new courses were International Law and Legal
Accounting in 1951; in 1952, Legal Writing, Military Law, and
seminars on Wage and Hour Law and Estate Planning; in 1954
seminars on Debtors Estates, Labor Law, and Legislation; in 1955, a
course in Admiralty Law; in 1956, seminars in Jurisprudence,
Corporation Finance, Law and Accounting; in 1958, seminars in
Arbitration Law and Constitutional Law; in 1960, a course in
Preparation for Trial, and seminars in Air Law and Advanced Tax
Problems; in 1962, a course in Corporate Income Tax; and in 1963,
seminars in Legal Problems Involved in Doing Business and in Legal
History.
During these fifteen years the Law Library steadily grew from
70,000 to 100,000 volumes. A cataloging process was started with a
trained cataloguer who brought the collection into compliance with
the library standards of the Association of American Law Schools.
The library staff doubled and tripled in size to include a librarian with
an A.B., LL.B. and Library Science degrees, two full-time assistants
with A.B. degrees, and ten part-time student assistants.
During these fifteen years the stipend of the four top Editors of
the Law Review was raised from $250 to $750 a year. The Board of
Editors began on a nine-year supplement to the Law Review index.
The scholastic requirement for editors was raised from a B average to
a high B. The articles, notes, comments, and book reviews expanded
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
the contents of the Law Review from 600 to 1000 pages. The survey
of case law and statute law was continued and expanded, bringing to
lawyers of the state biennial reviews of the more important laws of
the General Assembly and the annual review of Supreme Court
decisions. And there was added the periodical analysis of problems
basic to the state and the legal profession such as the 1963 Symposium
on Civil Rights. All of these new and expanded activities furthered
the stated desire of the Dean "to present materials, trustworthy as to
research and scholarship, of interest and value to the bar of the state."
During these fifteen years the summer school sessions brought
fifty or more of the great legal scholars and law school teachers of the
country to law school classrooms at the rate of four each summer-adding to the stimulus, variety, and content of legal education
in this Law School and strengthening the reputation of the School
throughout the country.
During these fifteen years the Law School Alumni were brought
into organized and active participation in the affairs of the Law
School.' The process started in 1949 with the annual reception for the
Law School Alumni in the Law School Library after the homecoming
football game. It grew in 1951 with the annual dinner of former
editors of the Law Review. It grew further in 1952 with the organization of the Law School Alumni and the expansion of the annual
assembly of Law Review Alumni to include all Alumni of the Law
School.
In his 1952 report, Dean Brandis wrote: "The writer believes
that November 8, 1952 is potentially one of the most significant dates
in the 107 years of Law School history"-referring to the organization
of the Law School Alumni Association-"for the purpose of
contributing to the sound future of the Law School by assisting the
Law Review, increasing aid in student placement, resolving problems
of curriculum and teaching methods, encouraging prospective teachers
to attend the Law School, and enabling students to carry on activities
that cannot be financed by state funds." This Association grew from
200 active members contributing $1,025 for Law School uses in 1953
to 1,109 members contributing $7,488 in 1963. Out of it grew the Law
Foundation, starting with a few Alumni contributing $572 in 1959 and
growing to 281 Alumni contributing $5,016 in 1963, with $52,250
contributed by that time. The Graham Kenan Fund was established
in 1962 with a contribution of $160,000 from Frank Kenan and.the
Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation. A legacy of $10,000 from the
estate of Thomas Ruffin has been added to the Law Foundation's
capital fund.
[Vol. 73
According to Dean Brandis' stated objective, appropriations from

these funds have been used for scholarships for needy students, to pay
travel expenses of the Law School Librarian to Los Angeles to accept
the Presidency of the American Association of Law Librarians to
which she had been elected, and to help publish The Tar Heel
Barrister,which was started by students to keep the Alumni in touch
with the School.
During these fifteen years the Law Building, erected in 1923, was
doubled in size with an addition authorized by the 1949 General
Assembly; and throughout the later years of his deanship, Dean
Brandis pressed without stint or limit for a new and larger building
better adapted to Law School needs. He moved it to the head of the
University's Capital Improvements Priorities list in 1963, saw it
authorized by the 1965 General Assembly, and the Law School will
move into this new building for the fall term in 1968.
Institute of Government
There is another movement initiated by Dean Brandis which may
prove to be as significant in the Law School's history as the beginning
of Alumni participation in the activities of the Law School and the
coming of the Law Foundation, and that is the beginning of the
formal working relation with the Institute of Government in the early
1950s. Let me illustrate:
The first Law School professor, William Horn Battle, had put
himself in the service of the state in the 1830s by revising and bringing
up to date the statute laws of North Carolina, annotated with
Supreme Court decisions. The second Law School Professor, John
Manning, had continued this public service tradition in The Code of
1883. Professor Lucius Polk McGehee had kept this tradition alive in
the Consolidated Statutes of 1918, and Atwell Campbell McIntosh
had continued it as Secretary and member of the County Government

Advisory Commission in the early 1920s.
This public service tradition was expanded in the 1920s and
continued thereafter by Professor Coates, who taught the Law School
courses in Criminal Law, Municipal Corporations, Legislation, Family
Law, and the Seminar Course in Legal Problems Involved in Intergovernmental Relations. Services to local and state officials and the
General Assembly grew out of these law school classrooms in the
1920s and 1930s and outgrew them in the years that followed, finding
expression in the Institute of Government.
1995]
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In 1933, Dean Van Hecke picked up and expanded the public

service tradition of the Law School by offering and giving the services
of himself and other faculty members to the Legislative Commission
for revising the North Carolina Constitution, to the General Statutes
Commission, and in many other ways described in his reports and
outlined earlier in this writing. Dean Brandis went still further in
expanding the Law School's services to the state in ways already
described in this report. During the fifteen years of his administration
and the administrations of his predecessors for forty years the Law
School paid the full time salary of the Founder and Director of the
Institute of Government and permitted him to devote half or more of
his time to Institute activities.
In 1951 the Law Faculty followed the recommendation of Dean
Brandis in starting a working relation between the Law School and
the Institute of Government, which were following parallel and
independent programs of service to the state and local units of
government. This beginning relation was described by Dean Brandis

in his 1957 report: "As explained in the 1951 annual report the Law
School and the Institute of Government now have an arrangement
under which selected members of the Institute staff, all of whom are
members of the general University faculty and have degrees in law,
assist in instructing the courses taught by Mr. Coates. In this way our
law students can be given the advantage of the specialized experience
of these men, which includes intensive field and library research,
particularly in criminal and public law subjects. Those now designated as Lecturers in Law under this program are George Esser, Philip
P. Green, Jr., Henry W. Lewis, John A. McMahon, and Ernest W.
Machen, Jr." This sharing arrangement was later extended to include
Clyde L. Ball, Jr., Richard Mysen, and Roddy Ligon.
Pursuant to this agreement Dean Brandis invited Institute staff
members to sit in on faculty meetings and attend Law School
functions as members of the faculty. The Law School and Institute
began using each other's services and facilities, including the Institute
for Practicing Lawyers conducted by the North Carolina Bar Association. Efforts were made to locate a building site for the new Institute
of Government building adjacent to the Law Building, but available
space was lacking. When the Institute Building was erected at the
eastern gateway to the University, with room around it for added
buildings, Dean Brandis' report for 1961 carried the following
paragraph: "A new law building might well be placed in the area of
the Institute of Government building. As you will recall, this was a
strong recommendation of the American Bar Association and the
[Vol. 73
Association of American Law School evaluators in their report on

their inspection of the school in the spring of 1960." This has been
done, and with the Law School moving into its new building adjoining
the Institute of Government this fall, the foundation is laid for
combining the resources of Law School and Institute of Government
into the Law Center envisioned by Dean Brandis in the late 1950s and
early 1960s.
This Law School trained all of the men who laid the foundation
of the Institute of Government in the early and middle 1930s, with the
exception of one man who was not a lawyer, and he got his undergraduate training in the University. The Law School continued to
train the men who held the life line of the Institute and kept it going
in the latter 1930s and early 1940s. It trained twenty-eight, or well
over halt of the men who have worked on the Institute staff since
World War II.
The Law School of today is the product of many men, working
since 1836 against the background and in the context of the first
American State University to open its doors-on the fifteenth of
January, 1795. It is the product of the labors of David Lowrie Swain,
William Horn Battle, John Manning, James C. McRae, Lucius Polk
McGehee, and Atwell Campbell McIntosh from 1845 to 1923. It is
the product of the labors of Harry Woodburn Chase, Merton Leroy
Ferson, Charles Tilford McCormick, Maurice Taylor Van Hecke,
Robert Hasley Wettach, and their Faculties from 1923 to 1949. The
Law School of today is what it is because these men were what they
were. If Henry Brandis has brought the Law School forward faster
in the fifteen years from 1949 to 1964 than it had come in the
administration of any man or group of men in any other period of its
123 year history, he would be the first to say it is because he has been
standing on the shoulders of these men who had gone before him
Illustrationsof the Theme Song
Everyone reading the fifteen reports of Dean Brandis, as I have
read them, reads between the lines a larger picture of a Law School
faculty moving into a growing participation: in the affairs of students
beyond the classroom; in civic affairs in Chapel Hill; in the affairs of
the University of which the Law School is a part; in the affairs of the
North Carolina Bar Association, the State of North Carolina, and the
Association of American Law Schools; and in the affairs of the nation.
It may be said that fifteen years of the life and record of Henry
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Brandis have become the living illustration of the Law School at its
growing best in all of these relationships.
He has been teacher and scholar and has written his share and
more of articles appearing in the North CarolinaLaw Review. He has
been an administrator with his door open to all the students all the
time with a regularity that has become a legend.
He has served as adviser to the Chancellor and :President of the
University on crucial questions of law and policy, as chairman of the
Faculty Committee on the relation of the Consolidated University to
the Board of Higher Education, chairman of the Faculty Committee
on Tenure and Academic Freedom, chairman of the Faculty Committee on the Visiting Speaker Ban Law, chairman of the Faculty Committee on Educational TV Programming, member of the Faculty
Committee on Instruction, and member of the Administrative Board
of the School of Social Work.
He has served as a worker in the civic affairs of Chapel Hill, including the School Board, the Community chest, the Mayor's
Committee on Human Relations, and in his church-where he sat in
the congregation, served on committees, occupied the pulpit, and
appeared before the district board in defense of a local minister
involved in questions of orthodoxy.
He has served as a participant in the activities of the North
Carolina Bar Association, including work as chairman or as member
of committees on Civil Procedure, Taxation, Expediting and Improving the Administration of Justice in the Courts, Continuing Legal
Education, and as organizer and lecturer in Bar Association Institutes
for practicing lawyers.
He has served as a member of state commissions authorized by
the North Carolina General Assembly, including the Commission on
Revising the Constitution and the Commission on the Administration
of Justice in the Courts.
He has served as chairman or member of committees in the
Association of American Law Schools, including: Lawyers in the
Federal Service, Law Building Plans, Council on Remedies, Admission Tests and Procedures, Panel of Law School Advisers, Revision
of Law Library Standards, special adviser to the Committee on
Segregation, adviser to the Special Committee on Discrimination in
Law Schools, Academic Freedom and Tenure, Nominating Committee, Law Building Planning, Executive Committee.
He has served as a participant in national affairs as vice chairman
of the National Executive Council of United World Federalists, as a
member of the Advisory Board on Contract Appeals of the Atomic
[Vol. 73
Energy Commission, of the American Judicature Society, of the

American Law Institute, of the American Association of University
Professors, and of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under
Law formed by President Kennedy. He has served in the armed
forces of the United States at Iwo Jima and Okinawa on the U.S.S.
Texas, and as special assistant to the United States Representative on
the United Nations Committee of Good Offices in Indonesia.
Precise Mind
To all of these meetings and committees and assemblies he has
brought a mind which is a precision instrument. The superintendent
of the Chapel Hill School Board states that he was one of the most
valuable school board members he had known in his experience, and
gave this illustration of his meaning: "An important question would
come up for discussion. One member after another would tell what
he thought about it but nothing was being settled. And then Henry
would come in with a few precise sentences that picked up the

differing viewpoints, bring them into focus and point the way to a
solution which was not so obvious before he spoke." Any member of
the University faculty can tell of his doing the same thing in faculty
assemblies when the point under consideration was getting lost in the
confusion of many voices. And so in other gatherings where he
worked. A few days ago I was reading the memoirs of Claud Bowers,
and ran across this description of the United States Senator Tom
Walsh, which is a literal description of Henry Brandis in action:
He was on the Committee on Privileges and Elections, which
numbered among its members some of the greatest lawyers
in the Senate. I was secretary of the committee. The
members would be mulling over a measure that involved
some intricate legal difficulty, talking incessantly without
reaching a solution, and Walsh would sit in silence, looking
down. At length he would straighten his chair, lean forward,
fix his eyes on his colleagues, and in one or two precisely
spoken sentences suggest the wording that ended the
discussion.
With this mental precision working for him it is perhaps to be
expected that he suffers fools-never gladly, sometimes tolerantly,
sometimes with obvious impatience, sometimes with a patience
obvious enough to turn impatience into a virtue. Sometimes he
suffers them not at all-with a thrust which can be lethal, and
sometimes is. Here is one illustration. One year the Law School
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
registration came on a Friday. That night he talked to the annual

convocation of students and faculty on the state of the Law School,
emphasizing the virtues of getting to classes on time, and meeting
responsibilities as they come. No one ever heard of classes starting
on Saturday, though a look at the schedule would have shown it.
Two members of the faculty were scheduled to set law students an
example of meeting classes on time on this particular Saturday
morning, and they did not show up. The Dean called one of them
and found he was somewhere on the highway from Virginia Beach to
Chapel Hill and could not be reached. Then he called me in an office
in another building. "Can you read?" he asked with all the fury of
molten lava which had not caught the man who was already fleeing
from the wrath to come. There was only one sensible answer to this
question, put in this way, and that was No; and that is what I told
him. This reply was briefly satisfying to me, but not at all satisfying
to him. The upshot of his reply was that I should pick up that part
of my anatomy which was usually covered up, and hurry over to the
classroom where my students were meeting their responsibility if I
were not meeting mine. I followed his instruction to the letter, and I
don't mean maybe.
Here is another illustration. The Law Faculty was passing on petitions for readmission to the Law School by students who had flunked
out. The feeling which is said to make men wondrous kind found full
expression in these meetings. Precision and logic seldom ruled the
roost. Now and then we would vote in men with records showing
little promise of improvement and then vote out men with better
records than men we had voted in-leaving the Dean to justify the
ways of faculty to students and their parents. One day he got fed up
with this desultory process and broke in with this graphic expression
of an inexpressible disgust: "I see the faculty lacks one vote of a tie
on this applicant. For the first, and I hope the last, time in my
Deanship, I am going to vote as a faculty member to tie the vote and
then vote as Dean to break the tie." This may have been unconstitutional but no one raised the point at that particular time. He told me
the other day, when I checked this illustration with him for accuracy,
that one faculty member had come to him with a wife's observation
that the Dean's procedure was against all the rules of order. But I
noted that this observation came from the faculty member's wife, not
from him, which goes to show that the least arbitrary of men confirms
an exception which proves the rule.
[Vol. 73
A Precise Conscience
If his mind is a precision instrument, it is wedded to a conscience
working with no less precision. He has his own high code of conduct
and comes as close to living up to it year in and year out as any man
I know. He comes as close to judging fairly, and bluntly, as any man
I know. He comes as close to meeting his responsibilities with
courage, candor, and conscience, as any man I know. Let me
illustrate my meaning.
He had practiced law in New York City for two years when he
came to North Carolina to work with me in laying the foundations of
the Institute of Government. That was thirty years ago, and I can
hear him protesting now: "For two years I have not heard the
question raised as to whether it is morally right to break a contract,
but only what will it cost?"
He was at one time called on to testify in a judicial proceeding
that the Law School of the North Carolina College for Negroes in
Durham was as good as the Law School of the University of North
Carolina in Chapel Hill, so as to keep a Negro applicant out of the
Law School in Chapel Hill. He did not believe it was as good and
steadily refused to go on the witness stand and say it was as good-in
the face of pressures which had been strong enough to triumph over
other men in other places at that time.
He resigned from a school board which refused a Negro child's
application to the public schools for reasons he did not think would
stand up in court, saying:
On the issue of racial integration in the public schools
I am, in my own eyes, a moderate. I fully appreciate (and
on occasion have publicly stated my appreciation of) the
enormous difficulties and real educational dangers inherent
in rapid integration.... To qualify as a member of the
Board, I took a solemn oath to support the Constitution of
the United States. I felt, and still feel, that had I voted to
deny the Vickers application I would have violated the oath.
...Constitutional rights are personal. A promise, as yet
untested and intestable, to recognize the constitutional rights
of a first grader in the future is not valid justification for a
present denial of the constitutional rights of a sixth grader.
... In the last analysis it comes to a matter of conscience.
I say this with great diffidence, most strongly urging the
reader to remember that my purpose here is not to advise
the reader or other Board members what their consciences
should dictate. My sole purpose is to attempt to account for
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
my action to my fellow citizens, who are clearly entitled to

an accounting.
There come times in the life of every man when his
conscience lays upon him a very strong mandate. He should
not be naive in heeding it. He should be aware that it is
subjectively possible to identify as the dictate of a mature
conscience what is, in reality, a mere juvenile desire to have
his own way. He should be doubly aware that there are
others, decent and perceptive, whose consciences impel them
in other directions. If he is experienced and not given to
self-deception he knows, in the light of hindsight, that his
conscience is capable of error.
Nevertheless, as a man undertakes to find an enlightened way through the smokes and smudges of the high
controversies of his time, he increasingly perceives that his
hardest task of life is to live with himself. The penalties
inherent in taking action strongly disapproved by others
whom he respects become less frightening than the penalty
inherent in living with the knowledge that, at a time of
critically significant decision, he lacked the fortitude to do
what he knew in his heart to be right. When, after being
tested by the most objective standards a man can bring to
bear, the mandate of conscience lies still sufficiently strong
and heavy, it should be heeded. Long personal experience
with my foibles and few strengths convinces me that there is
far greater likelihood that a man will fail his conscience than
that his conscience will fail the man.

I saw him write this notice and put it on the Law School Bulletin
board on the day President Kennedy was shot:
On the Death Of PresidentKennedy
We are sure that each student and faculty member in
the Law School joins us in a reverent prayer for the family
of President Kennedy, for the people of the United States,
and for the welfare of our country.
Let us also, to the extent that it is within our power to
do so, ennoble the death of the President by rededicating
ourselves to the ideals of the profession we have chosen.
Let it once more be burned deeply into each of us that law
and justice provide the indispensable framework for order in
society and peace among men; that the reiterated voicing of
unrestrained hatreds is as cancerously murderous within the
body politic as is controlling and consuming hatred within
the individual human soul; and that contempt for and
[Vol. 73
defiance of law, particularly when expressed by lawyers, are

preludes and incitements to tragic and fatal violence.
He spoke out in the Chapel Hill Weekly against a rising tide of
civil disobedience:
I was very glad to read that the local Ministerial
Association has indicated that it does not support the trafficblocking activities with which Chapel Hill has recently been
blessed. I noted, also, that the Association requested Chapel
Hillians to try to understand these demonstrations have been
directed not only against segregated facilities, but also
against the community, because the community could
challenge the situation if it would.
I believe that this latter is already understood by the
overwhelming majority of Chapel Hill citizens. We understand that the reasoning involved is precisely the same as
that which induces a military occupation force to take and
shoot hostages, regardless of individual guilt. To penalize an
individual because he is a member of a community is as
irrational and immoral as to penalize him because he is
black.
It is clear enough that CORE and its cohorts, by their
recent methods of operation, have been proceeding, as
rapidly and effectively as is within their power, to destroy
the essential moral basis of the movement for racial justice.
The statement of the Ministerial Association is a welcome
indication that it is already beginning to identify some of the
dangers inherent in the scofflaw Christianity which some of
its members have been preaching.

The Association is obviously struggling with the thorny
question of which laws it is moral to flaunt. The scofflaw
doctrine, unfortunately, leaves each minority to determine
this for itself. It is not more saintly to engage in criminal
activity merely because one disapproves the law being
violated than, as in the case of the traffic-blocking, to engage
in such activity because one disapproves some other law or
some general condition in the community. At least, if this is
saintly, then Barnett, Wallace and General Walker are
equally entitled to canonization. (Incidentally, to label the
recent criminal activities "civil disobedience" has about the
same measure of accuracy as the Russian use of "people's
democracy.")
Those who have been making it should abandon the
attempt, in the framework of the reasonably democratic
society in which we live, to furnish moral underpinning for
organized law breaking. The preservation of effective
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
democracy is always a delicate and difficult task, at best, and

only a very small portion of humanity has ever managed to
accomplish it. No democracy can survive if every minority
is allowed to take the law into its own hands, turning its
back on peaceful persuasion and all the opportunities
available for use of ordinary political and judicial processes.
The doctrine that organized law breaking is the moral
and Christian way to behave is dangerously subversive not
merely of public order in general, but also of individual
rights and the personal safety and security of every citizen,
whatever his race, color or creed.
A glance backward over developments in the United
States during the past decade demonstrates conclusively that
much progress has been made, through ordinary civic,
political and judicial processes, toward more equal justice for
the Negro. Measured by the time taken to effect other
profound changes in human relations, the pace of this
progress has been rapid. (The pace can be considered glacial
only by those who have the fanatic's characteristic myopia or
youth's unavoidably foreshortened perspective.) There is no
possibility that more completely equal justice can be
achieved for the Negro through the destruction of public
order. I concede that, through such destruction, there can
be achieved for him a sort of equality-the tragic equality of
injustice and insecurity for all.
On the same day he wrote this letter to the Chapel Hill Weekly,
he wrote another letter to his Congressional Representatives:
I am enclosing a copy of a letter of mine, published in
the February 19th Chapel Hill Weekly, severely criticizing (1)
the recent campaign of organized law breaking in Chapel
Hill; and (2) the attempt to depict the campaign as a moral
and Christian endeavor. I am writing you because I think
that Senate consideration of the Civil Rights Bill is highly
relevant to the situation in Chapel Hill and in many other
communities in North Carolina and elsewhere.
I urge you not only to refrain from participating in any
filibuster but also that you use your persona. influence to

persuade other Senators to refrain from such participation.
It seems to me to be incontrovertible that the blocking of
vital legislative traffic on the floor of the Senate is a more
deadly danger to the future of democracy in the United
States than is the blocking of automobile traffic on the
streets of Chapel Hill.
I am not undertaking to argue the merits of the Civil
Rights Bill as a whole or in detail. If it is bad as a whole, it
[Vol. 73
should be defeated. If it is good as a whole, it should be

passed. If it is good in part and bad in part, it should be
passed as appropriately amended. But in any event, it
should be allowed to come to a vote. I am sure that millions
of Americans agree with me that the protagonists in the
movement for racial justice should eschew organized law
breaking and stick to lawful methods normally available in

our democratic society. But this view presupposes that the
legislative process-a critical part of such normal methods-will be available to them to the point of securing a
vote on the merits.
This record gives the background and underpinning of the
Thomas Jefferson Award going to him from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill in a general meeting of the University faculty
on April 24,1964. In the words of Chancellor William B. Aycock this
award goes each year "to that member of the academic community
who through personal influence and the performance of his duties has
exhibited the highest example of personal and scholarly integrity.
These personal and professional qualities would be as nearly as
possible those which Thomas Jefferson would have recognized as
essential to the political, religious, and intellectual advancement of
society."
He quit his deanship on June 30, 1964, of his own free will, at the
age of fifty-five, ten years short of the Trustee limit of sixty-five for
administrative responsibility. He quit with the satisfaction of knowing
that more than half of the 2,200 living alumni of this Law School have
gone through its classrooms in the fifteen years of his deaning. He
quit with the satisfaction of knowing that there has never been a
moment in these fifteen years when he was not the undisputed leader
of the school entrusted to his keeping. He quit with the satisfaction
of knowing that, without exception, his students and his colleagues
wanted to see him keep on going as Dean, and that they are happy
to see him keep on going as a colleague. He shares the satisfaction
of pulling in harness with them in the service of North Carolina, the
University of North Carolina, the Law School of the University of
North Carolina, the South, and the Nation.
In the February, 1964 issue of the North CarolinaLaw Review he
paid this tribute to the late Professor Maurice Taylor Van Hecke: "I
wrote about him happily because he was a man upon whom I could
heap the highest praise without the slightest danger of prejudicing my
own integrity or of inflating his ego beyond its naturally modest
portions." It may come as a surprise to him to find that there are
those who can write happily about him for similar reasons.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
599
Twenty years ago I said that Henry Brandis was as fine a

combination of brains, character, and personality as I had taught in
twenty years of teaching. After forty years of teaching I repeat that
statement now-in tribute to the man who was once my student, later
my colleague, then my dean, and always my superior.
An Era of Expansion and Turbulence: -1949-64
THE VIETNAM ERA: THE DEANSHIP OF JAMES DICKSON

PHILLIPS, JR. (1964-74)1
WILLIAM B. AYCOCK
William Brantley Aycock is a Kenan Professor of Law

Emeritus at the University of North CarolinaSchool of Law.
He earned a bachelor of arts degree from North Carolina
State University in 1936, a master of arts degree from UNC in
1937, and graduatedfrom the UNC School of Law in 1948.
It is particularlyfitting that Aycock recount the history of the
law school during the period 1964-79, a time when he had returned to the UNC law faculty following distinguishedservice
as Chancellorof the University of North Carolina.tt
In 1964, upon learning that Professor J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., had
been selected as Dean of the University of North Carolina School of
Law, George Cochran, the ranking member of his class and editor-inchief of the North Carolina Law Review, commented: "Everyone
here.., feels that it is a wonderful thing."1 So it was; appreciation
for Dean Phillips's myriad contributions as dean continued in the law
school community throughout his decade-long tenure.
James Dickson Phillips, Jr., was born in Laurinburg, North
Carolina, where he attended the public schools. As an undergraduate
at Davidson College he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and became
t Most of the material in this essay is extracted and distilled from Dean Phillips's
ten annual reports, published in Volumes 42 through 52 of the North Carolina Law
Review; his Annual Reports to the Chancellorfor 1971, 1972, and 1974; the minutes of law
faculty meetings from July 1964 through May 1974; law school catalogues, 1964-74; and
two student publications, the Tar Heel Barristerand the North CarolinaLaw Record.
tt For more information on Professor Aycock (including the source of information
included in this summary), see Kenneth S. Broun, Tribute to William Brantley AycockForeword 64 N.C. L. REV. 204 (1986); James L. Godfrey, William Brantley Aycock.University Administrator1957-64, 64 N.C. L. REV. 215 (1986); J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., Bill
Aycock in Law School, 64 N.C.L. REV. 207 (1986)
1. J. Dickson Phillips Named To Follow Dean Brandis As Law School Head, TAR
HEEL BARRISTER (UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Feb. 1964, at 1.
[Vol. 73
captain of the varsity baseball team. He obtained a bachelor of

science degree from Davidson in 1943.
Following graduation Dick Phillips entered military service,
becoming a rifle platoon leader in the 513th Parachute Regiment.
During the Second World War, Lieutenant Phillips served with
distinction in three campaigns in the European Theater. He was
awarded the Bronze Star for valor and the Purple Heart. His unit
received a presidential citation for the Rhine airborne crossing.
Phillips early developed an interest in teaching. This interest was
enhanced while instructing the troops under his command. When the
war ended, he considered undertaking graduate study in history, with
a view to a career in the classroom. But circumstances led him to
enroll in the University of North Carolina School of Law in the fall
of 1945 while on leave from a military hospital.
As he had in college, Phillips excelled at the law school. He
served as Associate Editor of the North Carolina Law Review, was
elected to membership in the Order of the Coif, and, in 1948, received
the degree of Juris Doctor with honors.
After serving for a year on the faculty of the Institute of
Government, Phillips entered private practice in Laurinburg and

Fayetteville, North Carolina. The firm, originally called Phillips &
McCoy, subsequently was expanded to Sanford, Phillips, McCoy &
Weaver. He was admitted to practice before the courts of North
Carolina, the United States District Courts for the Eastern and
Middle Districts of North Carolina, the United States Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United
States. From 1949 to 1960, Phillips was engaged in a general criminal
and civil practice that included estate planning, corporate law, real
estate, probate, administrative law, and trial and appellate litigation
in tort, contract, and property matters. He also had experience in
bankruptcy, tax, family law, and public-utility regulation. His clients
included personal-injury plaintiffs, liability insurance carriers, a
regulated natural-gas distribution company, an urban redevelopment
commission, radio stations, real estate development companies,
various small corporations, partnerships, sole proprietorships and their
owners, savings and loan associations, criminal defendants, personal
representatives of estates, and various purchasers, sellers, and
financiers in land transactions. A substantial part of his practice
involved litigation in the state and federal courts at both the trial and
appellate levels.
Dean Henry P.Brandis, Jr., and other members of the law faculty
were aware of Dick Phillips's unexcelled personal qualities, his
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
scholarship, and his deserved reputation as a highly competent general

practitioner. In the late 1950s it came to Dean Brandis's attention
that, during his student days, Phillips had mentioned an interest in
teaching. Accordingly, he was invited to serve as a visiting professor
at the law school in 1959. One year later Phillips was offered a fulltime position as a member of the faculty, which he forthwith accepted.
As those who knew Dick Phillips predicted, his star in the
academic world rose spectacularly. In 1961 he became associate
professor of law, and one year later took on additional duties as an
assistant dean at the law school. In 1964, after only four years as a
full-fledged member of the faculty, he was promoted to the rank of
full professor. On July 1, 1964, he was appointed dean of the law
school to succeed Henry P. Brandis, Jr.
A keen student of the history of education, Dean Phillips
understood that the law school, like other components of the
University, did not stop and begin again with a change of administrations. The school is, to the contrary, always flowing into the future.
Events, of course, may affect the rate of the institution's flow.
Phillips was aware that the demand for growth in University
enrollment, already underway and more insistent than the surge after
World War II (which had subsided), would continue for many years.
Thus the rate of flow was destined to accelerate. Intertwined with
student growth were inevitable demands for more faculty, more space,
and increased library resources.
ENROLLMENT
In the fall of 1963, the last year of Henry Brandis's fifteen-year

deanship, student enrollment was 376, an all-time high in the history
of the law school.
Under Dean Phillips, the upward trend in enrollment continued.
A new record was established each year for the next four years.
Thus, in 1967, the fall enrollment reached 510 students. In the fall of
1971, all records were shattered when 754 students overflowed Van
Hecke-Wettach Hall, the new law building which had opened in 1968.
In light of this growth, necessity dictated more rigid controls on
admission. The result was a reduction of twenty students in 1972 and
a further reduction of thirty-four students in 1973. At the beginning
of the final year of Dean Phillips's ten-year term, the student body
numbered 700-virtually twice the number present at the beginning
of his deanship. Phillips cited the growth of the school's enrollment
and the increased interest of undergraduate students in attending law
[Vol. 73
school as the "major phenomen[a]" that occurred during his years as

2
dean.
Of great importance was a change in the composition of the
student body. In 1964 ten women were enrolled at the law school; by
1973 the number had increased to 121. In 1964 only one AfricanAmerican student was a member of the student body. By 1973
through the leadership of Clint Eudy and Ken Essex, members of the
Student Bar Association's Law School Recruitment Committee who
actively sought law school applications from students enrolled in
North Carolina's historically black colleges, the number of AfricanAmerican students had increased to twenty-three. In addition, the
student body that year included two American Indians and one
student of Hispanic origin.
Growth in numbers was accompanied by continued improvement
in the academic quality of the student body. Entering first-year
students with undergraduate degrees gradually increased from eightyseven percent in 1963 to ninety-five percent in 1970. Of the five
percent without undergraduate degrees at the time of enrollment, all
but one student were in a combined degree program in which the
undergraduate degree would be awarded upon successful completion
of the first year of law school. In 1972 Dean Phillips noted:
"[U]ndergraduate averages in the B to B-plus ranges and Law School
Admission Test scores in the ninetieth percentile range (625-650
scores) have now become the norm to which students must aspire for
fair assurance of admission."3
Every year between 1964 and 1974 eighty to eighty-five percent
of the entering class qualified as North Carolina residents. Nonresident students came from fifteen or more states and represented at
least fifty different colleges and universities. Each year the largest
sources of entering students were the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, Davidson College, Duke University, and North Carolina
State University.
FACULTY
In 1945, when Dick Phillips was a first-year law student, the law
school observed its centennial as a part of the University of North
Carolina. That year the full-time faculty consisted of nine professors:
2. Richard Boner, PhillipsYears MarkedBy Change,N.C.L. REC. (UNC Law School

Student Bar Association, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Apr. 1974, at 1, 4.
3. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 51 N.C. L. REV. 517, 517 (1973).
1995]
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Dean Robert H. Wettach, Maurice T. Van Hecke, Albert Coates,

Frederick B. McCall, Millard S. Breckinridge, Frank W. Hanft, John
P. Dalzell, Henry P. Brandis, Jr., and Herbert R. Baer. All nine of
these professors constituted the faculty during Phillips's student days
and all were on hand in 1960 to welcome him as a full-time member
of the law faculty.
In 1963 Phillips, then an assistant dean under Dean Brandis,
witnessed the breaking of, the legendary circle of nine due to the
mandatory retirements of Kenan Professor Van Hecke and Professor

Wettach. The other seven faculty members reached mandatory
retirement age during Phillips's deanship. These nine professors
served the law school for a combined total of three hundred and
thirty-nine years, with Albert Coates serving the longest term'forty-seven years.
On July 1, 1964, the date on which Phillips assumed the deanship,
the faculty was composed of nineteen full-time members. This
number included William B. Aycock, who had returned to the law
school after serving as Chancellor of the University for seven years.
In 1974, when Phillips relinquished his duties as dean, the full-time
This increase-fourteen faculty
faculty numbered thirty-two.
members in ten years-was only part of the story of faculty recruitment. Due to retirements, resignations, and one death, in addition to
new positions essential to accommodate student growth, thirty-one
faculty members were employed in the decade between 1964 and
1974. This increase meant that Dean Phillips was constantly involved
in faculty recruitment. The process included appointment of search
committees, interviews, background checks, faculty meetings on
recruitment, and adherence to the procedures for hiring promulgated
by the University. The loss of all senior faculty members was
somewhat alleviated when Phillips induced Frank R. Strong to join
the faculty in 1965. Professor Strong had served as dean of the Ohio
State University School of Law for thirteen years. During that period
he was elected President of the Association of American Law Schools
for a term. A nationally recognized legal scholar, he brought
considerable distinction to the school.
Harry Groves, a legal scholar and administrator with experience
at home and abroad, was a visiting professor in the summer of 1970.
He was the first African-American to teach in the law school.4 Two
years later, Charles E. Daye, a graduate of the Columbia Law School,
4. In 1981 Harry Groves joined the law faculty as Henry P. Brandis, Jr., Professor.
606
[Vol. 73
became the first African-American to join the law faculty as a fulltime instructor.
In 1969 Mary W. Oliver was promoted to full professor.
Appointed to succeed Lucille Elliott as librarian, in 1952 she had
become the first woman to join the law faculty. In addition to her
library duties, Professor Oliver conducted a seminar in legal history.
In 1972 she was elevated by her law library colleagues to the
presidency of the American Association of Law Librarians.
In 1973 the law faculty proposed to allot one of the next four
permanent
faculty
positions
to
become
available
to
an
African-American and one to a woman. This affirmative action

program was a part of the general university obligation to the U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. 5
Maurice T. Van Hecke, who was appointed Kenan Professor of
Law in 1955, died in 1963. At the beginning of the Phillips deanship,
Herbert R. Baer, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Law, was the
only member of the law faculty who held a distinguished chair. In
1965 Henry P. Brandis, Jr., and Frank W, Hanft were chosen by the
law faculty as the first recipients of the two Graham Kenan Professorships established in the law school. In 1972 Daniel H. Pollitt and
John W. Scott succeeded to these professorships upon the retirements
of Brandis and Hanft. In 1966 William B. Aycock was named Kenan
Professor of Law, and in 1972 Frank R. Strong was elected a Cary C.
Boshamer Distinguished Professor.
In 1969 Henry P. Brandis, Jr., received the 0. Max Gardner
Award. His mentor and colleague Albert Coates had previously been
the recipient of this award, which is presented each year by the Board
of Governors of the University of North Carolina to recognize faculty
members who have made significant contributions to humanity. In
1967 William B. Aycock was chosen by the faculty of the University
to receive the Thomas Jefferson Award. Maurice T. Van Hecke had
been the first recipient of this university-wide award in 1962. Two
years later Brandis was chosen the third recipient.
Throughout the 1960s, members of the law faculty continued to
emphasize teaching as the most important of their University duties.
Dean Phillips, like his predecessors, taught in the classroom half-time

throughout his deanship despite the growing pressure of administrative duties. During the 1966-67 school year, the Student Bar
5. Minutes of Law Faculty Meeting, UNC School of Law (May 9, 1973) (on file at
the UNC School of Law Library).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Association created an award in honor of Professor Frederick B.

McCall to be given annually to a member of the faculty for "Excellence in Teaching." The recipient of this award is selected from a list
of eligible members of the faculty by a vote of the third-year class.
The announcement of this award has become a part of the annual
commencement exercises. A plaque displayed in Van Hecke-Wettach
Hall honors the winners of this award.
The first recipient of this award was William B. Aycock in 1967.
Subsequent recipients during the Phillips deanship included Herbert
R. Baer, 1968; Robert G. Byrd, 1969; Dale A. Whitman, 1970;
William B. Aycock, 1971; David G. Epstein, 1972; David G. Epstein,
1973; and Douglas J. Whaley in 1974.
Professor Strong was selected to direct the Association of
American Law Schools' Law Teaching Clinics. Professor Richard
Smith served as assistant director. The clinic, first held in Chapel
Hill, was designed for beginning teachers of law. Registration of new
teachers totalled forty-nine, representing thirty-nine law schools.
Scholarship, an essential ingredient of good teaching, was
encouraged. Illustrative of the research and writing activity of the law
faculty during Dean Phillips's administration was the publication in
the North CarolinaLaw Review of seventy articles and thirty case-law
surveys. During this period the most prolific contributors to the Law
Review were Professors Byrd, Dobbs, Stein, Pollitt, -Schoenbaum,
Strong, and Walker.
Along with this extensive contribution to the Law Review, many
faculty 'members contributed to casebooks, practice manuals and
treatises. Professor Baer prepared a second edition of his Admiralty
Law of the Supreme Court. Professor Dobbs produced a treatise on
remedies. Professor Seymour Wurfel wrote a book on Foreign
Enterprise in Colombia: Laws and Policy. Professor Epstein
contributed a book on debtor-creditor relations to the nutshell series.
Dean Phillips faithfully prepared supplements to the two-volume
second edition of McIntosh's North CarolinaPracticeand Procedure;
Professor Brandis was equally diligent in updating Stansbury on North
Carolina Evidence. Special mention is due the work of Professor
Walker and psychology professor John W. Thibaut, who worked
together to produce significant studies of human behavior and the
legal process.
In addition to serving on law school and University committees
and in professional organizations, the faculty was active in rendering

public service. Selected examples reveal the scope of these activities
during Dean Phillips's term.
[Vol. 73
Dean Phillips himself led the way by serving on the North

Carolina Courts Commission throughout his administration. Further,
he served as a member of the drafting committee for the General
Statutes Commission's Civil Procedure Code Project.
In 1968 Professor Frank W. Hanft completed a six-year term as
Chairman of the North Carolina General Statutes Commission. A
joint resolution of both houses of the General Assembly praised his
leadership in developing proposed legislation.
Professors Ernest Folk and Richard M. Smith were consultants
to the legislature on North Carolina's adoption of the Uniform
Commercial Code. Professors McCall and Aycock drafted proposed
legislation on the Administration of Estates. Professor Martin B.
Louis assisted in drafting new legislation on civil procedure; Professor
John W. Scott worked on North Carolina's Principal and Income Act.
Professor Robert G. Byrd served on the Governor's Commission
on Automobile Insurance. Professor Peter B. Glenn was a member
of the State Estuarial Planning Committee. Professor Wurfel was a
member of the North Carolina Coastal Zone Planning Committee.
Professor Ronald C. Link was staff director of a study sponsored
by the North Carolina Bar Association on the "Lawyer's Role in Real
Estate Transactions." Professor Oliver served as Chairman of the Bar
Association's Committee on "Bar Notes." Professors Donald F
Clifford, Louis, Scott, Laurens Walker, and Whitman were numbered
among faculty members who appeared on educational programs
sponsored by the North Carolina Bar Association.
Professor Daniel H. Pollitt served as special consultant to the
House Committee on Labor and Education of the United States
Congress. Professor Kenneth L. Penegar was consultant to the
federal Office of Economic Opportunity. Professor Louis served as
consultant to the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.
Professor Seymour W. Wurfel was an invited witness before the
United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on proposed amendments to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
In 1969 Professor Brandis made his sixth consecutive appearance
as a commentator on problems of evidence at the Annual Seminar of
the Conference of Federal Trial Examiners in Washington, D.C.
In 1973 Professor Murphy began to conduct the Southwest Legal
Foundation's Short Course in Labor Law, a service he provided
annually through 1990. That same year Professor Link was vice-chair
of the American Bar Association Committee on Continuing Legal
Education, and Professor Strong became the National Treasurer of
the Order of the Coil.
SESQUICENTENNIAL
1995]
609
On November 10, 1972, his forty-eighth birthday, death came to

Professor Walter D. Navin, Jr., a member of the law faculty since
1965. The entire law school community was saddened by this great
loss. Former dean Henry P. Brandis, Jr., penned a fitting tribute to
6
him which appeared in Volume 51 of North CarolinaLaw Review.
VAN HECKE-WETrACH HALL
In 1958 the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

conducted a self-study titled "Planning for the Future." The law
school predicted that not later than 1965 a new wing approximately
the size of the 1951 addition to Manning Hall would be needed. In
1964 another self-study was conducted. The law school reported: "A
new building to meet the needs of a larger enrollment, of a larger
faculty, of a changing curriculum, and of a growing library is in the
planning stage."7 In the last year of Dean Brandis's administration,
the University requested an appropriation from the General Assembly
for a new law building, to be located adjacent to the Knapp Building
where the Institute of Government is housed. The University gave
top priority to this request for the 1965-67 biennium.
In 1965 the General Assembly responded by appropriating

$1.8 million for a new law school building. During the planning stage
it became apparent to Dean Phillips that rising building costs and
increasing enrollments, both of which seemed certain, called for more
space than the legislative appropriation would provide. Under
Phillips's initiative an application for a grant from the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare was prepared. In August
1966 the Department approved a grant in the amount of $740,000 to
supplement the state appropriation for the proposed new building.
Professor John W. Scott, chairman of the law faculty's building
committee, contributed his considerable talents and much time in
working with Dean Phillips, the University Planning Officer, and the
architectural firm of Wheatley-Whisant and Associates of Charlotte
in developing plans for a modem law school building. Phillips and
Scott visited every new law school building east of the Mississippi
River and Scott studied forty sets of plans provided by the Association of American Law Schools.
6. Henry P. Brandis, Jr., Walter D. Navin, Jr., 51 N.C. L REv. 387 (1973).
7. UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL, SELF STUDY SUMMARY
REPORT 205
(1964).
[Vol. 73
Construction on the new law school facility commenced in March

1967. The occasion was marked by groundbreaking ceremonies at
which the Honorable R. Hunt Parker, Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of North Carolina, State Senator Lindsay Warren, Jr., and
University Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson spoke.
Van Hecke-Wettach Hall, named for two law school professorial
greats and able deans, was occupied September 23, 1968. The
dedication took place in May 1969. The high point in a series of
events extending over three days was the dedicatory address by The
Honorable Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States.
LAW LIBRARY
The decade 1964-74 was one of substantial growth for the law
library. Catalogued volumes increased from 97,000 on July 1, 1964,
to 157,740 on July 1, 1974, for an average annual growth of 6,000
volumes. Catalogued microcards in 1964 numbered 38,000. After ten
years this number, together with microfiches, had increased to
120,000. This significant growth was attributable to increased
appropriations by the General Assembly and gifts from dozens of
donors. Dean Phillips listed the donors for each year in his annual
reports.
Assisted by four professional staff members, Librarian Mary W.
Oliver provided excellent leadership in the development of the law
library throughout the Phillips administration. In 1972-73 she served
as President of the Association of American Law Libraries. Dean
Phillips in his annual report for that year made the following
comments:
During the past year, as indicated above in this report,
Professor and Librarian Mary W. Oliver was President of the
Association of American Law Libraries. This necessitated
a considerable amount of travel on her part in discharge of
the duties of that office. Her staff responded admirably to
the increased responsibility which necessarily devolved upon
all and maintained library operations with undiminished
efficiency. This was a tribute both to them and to Professor
Oliver's administrative skill in organization for which the
school feels just pride.'
Kathleen S. Cheape ably served as Assistant Law Librarian
during Dean Phillips's administration.
8. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 52 N.C. L. REv. 574, 580 (1974).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
CURRICULUM
Dean Phillips had a keen interest in the improvement of the
curriculum. Although he would have preferred the creation of a

model designed to achieve agreed-upon goals, he was aware of the
constraints, both human and institutional, on a radical overhaul.' He
appointed a standing committee of the faculty to make a continuing
study of the curriculum. In 1968 students were added to this
committee. Each year the faculty considered recommendations by the
curriculum committee, and changes were made on an annual basis.
Unquestionably, the continuing interest of Dean Phillips and Cary C.
Boshamer Distinguished Professor Frank R. Strong in curriculum
reform accelerated the number of changes adopted each year by the
faculty.
In order to free time for new courses, it often became necessary
to combine and realign existing courses. For example, the courses in
Pleading and Parties and Trial and Appellate Practice were combined
into a single course named Civil Procedure; the Equity and Damages
courses were similarly combined into a course on Remedies. Three
courses in Property taught over nine hours were reorganized into one
course of six semester hours.
Among the new courses introduced during the Phillips administration were Government Contracts, Regulated Industries, Land
Finance and Development, Social Legislation, Patents and Copyrights,
and Housing and Urban Development. Significant additions were
made in the tax field, including a course in State and Local Taxation.
The seminar program, instituted two decades earlier, was
expanded to accommodate increased numbers of students and to
enrich the curriculum. Estate Planning, the original seminar
introduced after World War II, was made available each semester.
New seminars included Business Planning, Criminal Law, Criminal
Procedure, Real Estate Transactions, Civil Procedure, Legislation,
Antitrust Law, Advanced Torts, Social Legislation, Administrative
Law, Advanced Problems in Taxation, and Consumer Credit.
In the fall of 1971, first-year students were assured a small section
class of not more than thirty students. Each small section teacher had
the services of a student member of the Holderness Moot Court
Bench for assistance in legal research and rudimentary legal writing.
9. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., Phillips Emphasizes RationalAnalysis of Goals, N.C. L.
REC. (UNC Law School Student Bar Association, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Nov. 1970, at 2.
[Vol. 73
Professor John E. Semonche of the Department of History

provided enrichment in the curriculum by offering a course in
American Legal History and a seminar on American Legal Thought
in the law school.
In 1971 a new curriculum policy permitted law students to
broaden their legal education. A student could be granted permission to take courses in other graduate divisions of the University for
as many as three hours of credit toward the law degree upon a
showing that the course chosen would make a significant contribution
to the student's legal education. Later, at the Dean's request, the
necessity of seeking approval from the Dean was rescinded.
In 1972 two joint degree programs were instituted: one between
the law school and the School of Business Administration, the other
between the law school and the Department of City and Regional
Planning. Students enrolled in these programs could earn a master's

degree in those fields in addition to the law degree upon completion
of a four-year combined curriculum.
Clinical law gained a foothold in the law school in 1972. Under
the supervision of Professors Pollitt and Nakell, seven law students
argued cases that year before the United States Court of Appeals for
the Fourth Circuit. This was made possible under Fourth Circuit Rule
13, which made possible "Legal Assistance to Indigents by Law
Students." Under this rule a qualifying student, "with the written
consent of an indigent and his attorney of record[,] may appear in this
court on behalf of that indigent in any case."1
A cooperative arrangement between Duke University School of
Law and the School of Law at Chapel Hill provided that a student
attending either law school could take any course in the other,
provided that the course was not available at his home school at the
time the student wished to take it. Only a two-dollar administrative
fee was charged for this service.
In 1970 the faculty approved academic credit for summer school
courses in Foreign and Comparative Law and International Law taken
at the College of the City of London.
In 1966 a three-day orientation course for entering students was
inaugurated. Dean Phillips correctly predicted that this innovation
"seems likely to remain a permanent feature.""
10. Alexa Jordan, Clinical Law Comes To U.N.C., N.C. L. REc. (UNC Law School
Student Bar Association, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Oct. 1973, at 1.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
TWo sessions of summer school were continued during the years

1964-73. Six courses were offered during each session. Typically two
visiting professors joined four resident faculty members each session
to teach the six courses. In response to greatly increased student
enrollment, the number of courses offered in the summer session was
increased in 1973 from twelve to fifteen courses, with a commensurate
increase in resident and visiting faculty.
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
During the Phillips administration the law faculty was permitted

to award the law degree with honors and with high honors. Students
who were awarded the degree with high honors during Dean Phillips's
tenure were: Robert A. Melott, Doris Bray, William I. Stocks, John
Troy Smith, Jr., Martin Nesbit Erwin, Clayland Boyden Gray, Reed
Johnston, Jr., Richard Whitlaw Ellis, Neill Gregory McBryde, Michael
Robert Abel, Thomas Franklin Loftin, III, Raleigh Alexander
Shoemaker, Joan Boren Brannon, Lanny Boone Bridgers, Roger
Douglas Groot, Kenneth Bryan Hipp, Kenneth Coyner Day, Clarence
Hatcher Pope, Jr., Robert Bain Tucker, Jr., John David Lowery,
James Stoddard Hayes, Michael Everett Kelly, William Charles
Livingston, and Edward Cyrus Winslow, III.
In 1967 the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree was adopted as the
primary professional degree granted by the law school. The J.D.
degree was to be granted to all graduates who successfully completed
the course of study prescribed by the faculty, and who presented,
prior to graduation, evidence of the award of a bachelor's degree
from their undergraduate school. The bachelor of laws (LL.B.)
degree continued to be awarded when the undergraduate degree
requirement was not fulfilled.
Upon the recommendation of the law faculty, the trustees of the
University in 1970 approved giving to law school graduates who had
first earned an undergraduate bachelor's degree and were awarded
the degree of bachelor of laws the option of retaining their present
degree
2 or applying for a certificate changing the IL.B degree to a
J.D.
Beginning with the spring semester in 1971, each student who,

while carrying ten or more hours of course work, achieved a grade
point average of 3.0 or above was placed on the Dean's List.
12. J.D.'s Now Available For Alumni, N.C. L. REC. (UNC Law School Student Bar
Association, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Jan. 1970, at 1, 5.
[Vol. 73
STUDENT BAR AcTvrrlES AND STUDENT AcIvIIEs

During the last spring of the Brandis administration, the official
student organization, formerly known as the Law Student Association,
changed its name to the Student Bar Association in order to relate
more directly to traditional organizations of the legal profession.
Beginning in 1964, the Presidents of the Association during the
Phillips deanship in successive order were: Sheldon Leslie Fogel,
William M. Allen, Jr., Dwight H. Wheless, V. Clayton McQuiddy, III,
Edward K. Greene, Franklin E. Freeman, Jr., Stephen J. Edelstein,
Stephen E. Hart, Lee A. Patterson, II, and Joyce L. Davis (the first
woman to be elected to the office).
From student fees the Student Bar Association paid part of the
cost of publishing the Tar Heel Barrister. Law Day activities were
planned and supervised by the Association. Increased participation
in an orientation program became an important contribution to the
law school made by the Student Bar.
During the summer of 1969, the Student Bar Association
compiled, published, and distributed to over 1500 law firms across the
nation a placement brochure designed to acquaint prospective
employers with the quality of the students, faculty, and program of
the law school.
In December 1968 the TarHeel Barrister,the law school's student
newspaper founded in 1952, was replaced by a new publication, the
North CarolinaLaw Record. This magazine was encouraged by the
administration of the law school, the Law Alumni Association, and
the Student Bar Association. W. Samuel Woodard was the first
editor-in-chief.
In the spring of 1966 the Greensboro law firm of Brooks, Pierce,
McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard made a donation to the Law
School Foundation to fund the creation, development, and operation
of a comprehensive three-year appellate moot court program. The
gift stipulated that the program be named in memory of the late
William Holderness of the Guilford County bar. Thereafter, the
Holderness Moot Court Bench became responsible for the planning
and administration of all moot court activities at the law school. This
duty included the annual selection of a team to represent the school
in the National Moot Court competition.
In the fall of 1970 the University of North Carolina Student Bar
Foundation, Inc., completely staffed and run by students, distributed
twelve full-tuition scholarships to members of the law school student
body.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Student unrest in the spring of 1970, resulting from the shooting

of students at Kent State University and the escalation of the war in
Vietnam, led to many peaceful protests. Since some students
neglected their studies in the process, the law faculty voted to give
students an option for deferred examinations. Only fifty-five students
took advantage of the option. Of this number, thirty-eight deferred
only one examination.
During the summer of 1970 a Legal Services Office was opened
in Chapel Hill. It was operated by second and third-year law
students. Professor Kenneth S. Broun, a board of faculty members,
and a group of local attorneys served as advisors to the Service.
In 1971 Women in the Law, a newly organized group of women
students, concerned itself with activities of particular relevance to
women law students.
In 1968 Dean Phillips, with approval of the faculty, appointed
student members to several law school committees: curriculum;
library; building use; and grading and examinations. The students
were selected by the dean from a list of nominations submitted by a
committee of student leaders. In addition, a new joint faculty-student
committee was constituted to give attention to overall operational and
structural problems in the administration of the law school. In 1969
the law faculty, upon the recommendation of the joint student-faculty
committee, adopted a student evaluation form to enable students who
desired to do so to evaluate the performance of members of the
faculty.
One measure of student achievement in the law school is the
passing rate of those who took the North Carolina Bar Examination.
During the ten-year period beginning in August 1964, 95.8% of the
1193 graduates of the University of North Carolina School of Law
who took the examination were successful.
PLACEMENT
During the administration of Dean Brandis, the law school had

begun to increase its efforts toward bringing together graduates and
prospective employers. During Dean Phillips's administration, the
Dean's Office and individual faculty members continued to assist in
placement. By 1972 the assistant dean became the administrative
officer primarily responsible for the placement program.
In 1966 Dean Phillips reported two distinctive trends in placement. The first was that the prime time for contacting potential
associates had been pushed up to early and mid-fall of the year
preceding graduation. Second, placement was increasingly being
[Vol. 73
handled through contacts made in the employment of second-year law

students during the summer preceding their final semester or year of
law school.
In the first year of Dean Phillips's administration, 101 students
were graduated. Placement of the Class of 1965 was as follows:
Three opened their own law offices; forty-four associated with other
lawyers or law firms; eight became clerks to judges; three accepted
government attorney positions; four worked in legal positions with
corporations; one was employed by a bank; fifteen occupied miscellaneous positions in business; four joined the Federal Bureau of
Investigation; and one chose to enter graduate school. The exact
status of seven graduates was not known at the time of the report.13
In 1974, the last year of the Phillips administration, a total of 223
students were graduated. Placement of the class of 1974 was as
follows: The largest number, 124, were employed by law firms,
ninety-one of these with North Carolina firms and thirty-three with
firms in other states. The next highest number, thirty-nine, were
employed with government agencies, twenty-three with state and
sixteen with federal agencies. Placement of the remainder was as
follows: sixteen opened law offices; fifteen were employed as law
clerks, of which twelve were with state and three with federal judges;
twelve were employed by corporations; eight were in military service;
four joined legal aid agencies; four were in graduate and professional
schools and accounting firms; and one chose a non-legal position.14
ALUMNI AcTvrrms
The UNC Law Alumni Association was founded in the fall of

1952 under the leadership of Dean Henry P.Brandis, Jr. Seven years
later the Law School Foundation was established. A substantial
contribution to the Law Foundation and a commitment for future gifts
were made in 1962 by Frank Kenan and the Sarah Graham Kenan
Foundation. Known as the Graham Kenan Fund, the resources were
sufficient to support two Graham Kenan Professorships in the law
school during the second year of Dean Phillips's administration.
The Presidents of the Law Alumni Association in successive years
beginning in 1964 were: Charles G. Rose, Ralph M. Stockton, Donald
W. McCoy, Richmond G. Bernhardt, Jr., Robin L. Hinson, Franklin
T. Dupree, James B. Garland, Stuart R. Childs Cyrus F Lee, and
14. Robert G. Byrd, The Law School, 53 N.C. L. REV. 957, 971 (1975).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Julius A. Rousseau. Each of these persons worked closely with Dean

Phillips to increase the number of members of the Law Alumni
Association and to promote a commensurate increase in annual
giving. In 1964 the fees amounted to approximately $8,000. Ten
years later this sum had increased to $20,000 a year. During those
years, the bulk of the contributions were allocated to scholarships.
Smaller sums were allocated to the Tar Heel Barrister and the
Placement Brochure, and assisted faculty members with travel
expenses to professional meetings.
The Law Foundation was established during Dean Brandis's
administration. In 1957 William A. Dees, Jr., then President of the
Law Alumni Association, drew up the papers necessary to create the
Foundation. Dees headed the Law Foundation during its first five
years (1958-1963). E.K. Powe followed Dees and served during the
last year of the Brandis deanship. During Dean Phillips's administration the following persons served as either Chair or President of the
Law Foundation: Ralph M. Stockton, Jr., Thomas A. Uzzell, Jr.,
Albert J. Ellis, Paul A. Johnston, Robert H. Schnell, Richard G.
Bernhardt, Jr., Donald W. McCoy, Thornton H. Brooks, Robin L.
Hinson, and John T. Allred.
The Law Foundation attracted capital gifts from several sources.
In 1964 the Foundation reported assets of $36,000, exclusive of the
Graham Kenan Fund.
In December 1968 an ambitious fundraising program titled "The
Second Century Fund" was announced by Dean Phillips. Governor
Dan K. Moore accepted the chair of this campaign. The Law School
Foundation announced a "campaign cabinet" to assist Governor
Moore. The cabinet was composed of several distinguished law
school alumni, including Paul Johnston, James K. Dorsett, Thornton
Brooks, Richmond Bernhardt, Albert Ellis, E. K. Powe, T. A. Uzzell,
Robert Schnell, and Dean Phillips himself. In 1974 the book value of
the Foundation's assets was reported to be in excess of $1,000,000.
Many of the special gifts were the result of the Second Century Fund
Campaign.
In 1974 the number of living law school alumni was slightly in
excess of 3,000.
THE LAW CENTER
Dean Phillips reported on July 1, 1969, that the law school budget
had been the recipient of a transfer of funds from the Institute of
Civic Education, an organization founded, developed, and operated
by Professor Albert Coates after his retirement as Director of the
[Vol. 73
Institute of Government. Within the law school community, these

funds were to be administered by a-newly created "Law Center." The
Center was to accomplish two basic purposes: (1) direct, legallyoriented service through research, consultation and writing to the
State; and (2) enrichment, in the process of providing this service, of
the internal educational mission of the law school. Former Dean and
Graham Kenan Professor Henry P. Brandis, Jr., was appointed by
Dean Phillips as the first director of the Center. The Administrative
Board of the Center was composed of three law school faculty
members, the Editor-in-Chief of the North CarolinaLaw Review, and
a member of the staff of the Institute of Government.
In his 1971 Annual Report, Dean Phillips summarized the
operation of the Law Center during its first two years:
The Law Center has completed its second year of
operation with a number of tangible results that indicate that
its mission of providing better service to North Carolina
through research, consultation and writing, and enrichment
of the internal educational objectives of the law school is
being accomplished. During the past year the Center has
funded studies of (1) regionalizations of water supply
systems, (2) developments of North Carolina tort law in
respect of limitations on duty, (3) non-profit corporations in
North Carolina, (4) the North Carolina law on fraudulent
conveyances, (5) alternatives to tort law for compensation of
personal injury victims, (6) needed revision of North
Carolina land title laws, (7) discovery rules in criminal cases
in North Carolina, (8) Chapter 75 of the General Statutes
regarding Monopolies, Trusts and Consumer Protection, (9)
the effectiveness of the Court Reform Act, and (10) the
lawyer-population ratio in the state and the projected level
of need for state support of legal education. In addition, the
Center assisted financially in the preparation or publication
of law review articles on North Carolina administrative
practice, the use of the contempt power, and court reform.
Funds have also been expended to assist in the development of new teaching materials in Constitutional Law and to
obtain resource materials in the area of environmental law.
A significant and encouraging development is that two
projects for which the Law Center supplied the "seed"
money have now been federally funded in greatly expanded
form.
After two-years' experience in the operation of the Law
Center, the Board has now established as main priorities
statutory revision and continuing legal education. These are
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
the areas in which the Law Center has done the most
effective work and through which it can most meaningfully
use its resources in the future.'5
Assistant Dean Robert A. Melott succeeded Professor Brandis as
Director of the Law Center in the 1971-72 academic year. Melott's
duties included serving as a liaison between the law school and
outside groups such as state departments and agencies, editing all
publications resulting from the Law Center's projects, and maintaining
a clearing house of information regarding research in progress by
faculty members and students.
In 1973 the Law Center provided direct service to the General
Assembly. Students performed research with respect to the reorganization of the State Highway Commission, the antitrust and unfairtrade provisions of Chapter 75 of the North Carolina General
Statutes, the price-fixing authority of the State Milk Commission, state
housing and community development laws, injunction bonds, "nofault" divorce laws, coastal zone management, environmental
protection, and worker's compensation.
The Center funded other projects, including preparing teaching
materials in consumer protection for use in high schools and adapting
the American Bar Association's Code of Professional Responsibility
to the North Carolina State Bar's Canons of Legal Ethics.
INSTITUTES FOR PRACTICING ATrORNEYS
In the early 1950s the North Carolina Bar Association and the
law schools at Duke, Wake Forest, and the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill joined in sponsoring programs of continuing
legal education for practicing attorneys. These programs were
continued throughout the Phillips administration. Professors Richard
M. Smith, Kenneth L. Penegar, Robert G. Byrd, Richard Robinson,
and Walter D. Navin served at various times on planning committees
for these institutes. Most members of the faculty participated in one
or more programs related to their areas of expertise.
CONCLUSION
Although Dean Phillips enjoyed serving as dean during his

second five-year term, he chose to return to full-time teaching rather
than be considered for a third term. Professor Robert G. Byrd, his
successor, quoted Professor Brandis, Phillips's predecessor as dean, as
[Vol. 73
saying that Phillips had served "the toughest ten [years] in the history
of the deanship."' 6
On the administrative side, Dean Phillips was assisted during his
entire tenure by Ruth H. Strong, Administrative Secretary, and by
Gladys Dimmick, who served as Secretary to the Dean until promoted
to the positions of Director of Placement and Alumni Secretary.
Chester Kirby faithfully served as housekeeper.
During Dean Phillips's tenure the faculty continued its historical
role of promulgating law school policy. Because of the size of the
faculty it was necessary to hold regular faculty meetings. The Dean
presided over these meetings with patience and skill. The faculty
presented his portrait to the law school in commemoration of his
administration.
When Phillips returned to full-time teaching and legal writing, his
course assignments included Civil Procedure, Trial Advocacy, and
Appellate Review. In 1977 he was appointed an Alumni Distinguished Professor. This appointment entailed an initial selection by
a University-wide Committee of Distinguished Professors, and
approval by the Chancellor and the University Board of Trustees.
In 1977, in recognition of his outstanding contribution as a citizen
of the University, he was chosen to receive the University's Thomas
Jefferson Award "as that faculty member who best exemplifies in his
professional life the Jeffersonian tradition." A portion of the citation
accompanying the award stated:
Through effective leadership and dedicated effort he has
made great contributions to this State and University. Much
of his work in the State and the University has concerned
basic changes to make the law and [its] institutions more
responsive to the society they serve. The remarkable success
he has achieved in this work is not happenstance. He
combines, in a way that few are able to do, a respect for
facts, a belief in principle, a quest for justice, and a balance
of common sense and superior intellect. For this reason, he
often provides the perspective, direction or ideas needed to
permit work to progress.
Phillips was appointed to serve on the North Carolina Wildlife
Commission shortly after he joined the law school faculty. During his
deanship he was a member and later Vice-Chairman of the North
Carolina Courts Commission. In 1977 he was appointed the first
16. Robert G. Byrd, The Law School, 53 N.C. L. REV. 959, 960 (1975).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Chairman of the North Carolina Board of Ethics, created to monitor

conflicts of interest in state government.
In 1975 the North Carolina Bar Association chose Phillips to
receive the Judge John J. Parker Award for "conspicuous service to
the cause of jurisprudence in North Carolina." The citation noted
that Dean Phillips had served as a member of the Board of Governors
of the Association and at various times as a member of seven
important committees, including the North Carolina Courts Commission.
It was most fitting that Dean Phillips continue his brilliant career
by following in the footsteps of Judge John J. Parker. On August 11,
1978, James Dickson Phillips, Jr., was sworn in as a Judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a position he
has occupied ever since. In a comment on Phillips's appointment to
the Court, Dean Byrd said
Dick Phillips has been a crucial part of this law school for
almost twenty years and has been significantly instrumental
in its growth and development. His leadership, good will,
and good sense will be sorely missed. We are extremely
pleased with his appointment to an important position in the
judiciary but at the same time are painfully conscious of the
great loss we will experience in his departure. 7
The challenges during the decade 1964-74 were-many and great,
but under Dick Phillips's leadership the law school's achievements
were lofty. To fashion words adequate to summarize his contributions
to the law school is beyond my competence. He was my law school
classmate, my faculty colleague, and my dean, but more than that-he
is my friend and my personal hero. Thomas Carlyle's idea of a hero
fits mine: "The Ablest Man ... truest hearted, justest, the Noblest
Man."
17. PhillipsSworn In as FourthCircuitJudge, LAW ALUMNI NEWsLETTER (UNC Law

School, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Oct. 1978, at 1.
AN EVOLVING INSTITUTION:
THE DEANSHIP OF ROBERT GRAY
BYRD ( 1 9 7 4 -7 9 )t
WILLIAM B. AYCOCK
Robert Gray Byrd, a member of the law faculty, was chosen to

succeed Dean J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., effective July 1, 1974. Although
a nationwide search was undertaken, it was determined that the
tradition of selecting a dean from ranks of the faculty should be

continued. Dean Phillips commented: "In one sentence, I think it
was a magnificent selection."' Professor Byrd already had demonstrated that he had the qualities essential for effective leadership in
the law school.
A native of Selma in Johnston County, North Carolina, Bob Byrd
had excelled as a student in the public schools. In 1953 he received
the B.S.B.A. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Forthwith he enrolled in
the law school, where he continued to perform with distinction. As
the highest-ranking student in his class, he became editor-in-chief of
the North CarolinaLaw Review, and earned membership in the Order
of the Coif In 1956 he received the J.D. degree with honors.
Shortly after graduation Byrd was admitted to the North Carolina
bar. The following year he entered military service, and became a
first lieutenant in the Army Judge Advocate General Corps, where he
served principally as a trial attorney for three years.
In 1960 Byrd joined the staff of the Institute of Government as
an assistant director. Three years later he was appointed an assistant
professor of law at the University. Like Dick Phillips before him,

Byrd's star in the law school rose spectacularly. In 1964, one year
after joining the faculty, he was promoted to associate professor of
t Most of the material in this essay is extracted and distilled from the reports on the
law school made by Dean Byrd in the North CarolinaLaw Review, Volumes 53, 54, 55,
and 56; Dean Byrd's reports to the Chancellor for the years 1976-77, 1977-78, and 1978-79;
the minutes of law faculty meetings, September 4, 1974-May 12, 1979; law school
catalogues 1974-79; the Student Bar Association Newsletter 1976-77, Nos. 1-6; and the Law
Alumni Newsletter, Vols. 1-3 (Apr. 1977-July 1979).
1. New Law Dean Chosen, N.C. L. REC. (UNC School of Law Student Bar
Association, Chapel Hill, N.C.) Apr. 1974, at 1, 4.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
law. In 1966 he served as acting dean and in 1968 was elevated to the
rank of professor of law.
Byrd taught courses in Torts, Remedies, Evidence, and Law and
Medicine. In 1969 he was chosen by the third-year class to receive
the McCall Award for Excellence in Teaching. He authored a series
of articles on North Carolina tort law, and books and articles dealing
with local government law and administration.
Byrd understood that basic operational policy for the law school,
by tradition, was determined by the faculty. Areas subject to faculty
control included admission standards, enrollment quotas, scholastic
eligibility standards, readmission regulations, and the planning of
curricula and teaching assignments. Policy decisions were made by
majority vote of the full faculty at regularly held meetings, of which
formal minutes were kept. The dean made recommendations on
programs for approval by the faculty and implemented policy
decisions made by the faculty. Upon taking office, Byrd stated that
he did not foresee making any significant changes in the law school.2
ENROLLMENT
Enrollment at the law school reached 754 in 1971, an all-time

high. Van Hecke-Wettach Hall could not accommodate adequately
a student body in excess of 650-675 students. Thus, after 1971, the
faculty began to monitor carefully the size of the entering class. The
faculty established 235 as a ceiling on the number of students in the
first-year class. In the last year of Dean Phillips's administration, the
enrollment had declined to 700 students. During the first year of
Dean Byrd's administration these controls remained in effect, and
enrollment in the fall of 1974 was 677 students. By the fall of 1979,
the last year of Dean Byrd's term, the enrollment was 667. Through
careful monitoring, the size of the student body remained at an
acceptable level during the period 1974-79.
The number of women students increased from 121 to 201 during
the tenure of Dean Byrd. The number of African-American students
increased from twenty-three to forty-eight during the period 1974-79.
For several years, the law school had sought to achieve more diversity
in the student body than was possible by adhering strictly to an
admissions index number consisting of a combination of applicants'
undergraduate grade-point average and their scores on the Law
School Admission Test. In 1978 the United States Supreme Court
2. Id. at 4.
[Vol. 73
decided Regents of the University of Californiav. Bakke.3 In a fiveto-four ruling, the Court decided that state educational institutions
need not be color blind in establishing "a properly devised admissions
program" to achieve diversity in enrollment.4 Dean Byrd appointed
a faculty committee consisting of Professors Aycock, Gressman,
Murphy, and Strong to examine law school admission policies in the
context of the Bakke case. This committee decided to recommend a
policy that incorporated precisely the factors set forth in Justice
Powell's opinion for the majority. The new plan, like the old,
excluded all applicants whose index number was below the score
needed to succeed in law school. The faculty approved the new plan
and Dean Byrd announced it would be followed in the selection of
the entering class of 1979. Approximately the same number of
African-Americans and other minorities qualified under the Bakke
plan as under the law school policies in effect prior to that decision.
The quality of the entering class continued to be high. In 1978-79
the median grade point average on a scale of 4.0 was 3.54 in
undergraduate studies. The median Law School Admission Test score
was 652.
In terms of residence and educational background, the composition of the student body remained essentially unchanged from the
years preceding the adoption of the new plan. In 1978-79 approximately eighty-four percent of the entering class were residents of
North Carolina. Twenty-three states and eighty-three undergraduate
institutions were represented in the first-year class. The University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, and Davidson
College had the largest representation in the first-year class during the
final year of Dean Byrd's term.
FACULTY
When Professor Byrd assumed the deanship on July 1, 1974, the

full-time faculty of the law school numbered thirty-one. Of these only
Aycock and Oliver were members of the faculty when Dean Byrd was
a law student (1953-56). All but six of the thirty-one faculty members
had joined the faculty after Byrd did in 1963.
At the end of Dean Byrd's five-year term the full-time faculty
numbered thirty-four. During this five-year period a total of eight
new faculty members joined the law school. They were Charles
3. 438 U.S. 265 (1978).

4. Id. at 320.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Gordon Brown, Eugene R. Gressman, Stewart Michael Jay, Norman

Lefstein, John V. Orth, David S. Rudolf, Sally Burnett Sharp, and
Kenneth R. Wing. Paul G. Haskell, a visiting professor in 1978-79,
became a full-time member of the faculty in 1979.
Historically, visiting professors taught during the law school's
summer sessions rather than in the regular sessions. But this practice
began to change as student enrollment increased under the Phillips
and Byrd administrations. Special mention should be made of Susan
Ehringhaus, Assistant to the Chancellor and the University's legal
counsel, and Seymour L. Halleck, professor of psychiatry, who
enriched the law school's course offering on a part-time basis during
the Byrd administration, and continue to do so today. For several
years, John E. Semonche, professor of history, shared his expertise in
legal history with law students. Visiting faculty members drawn from
the ranks of the practicing bar served the law school on a part-time
basis, supplementing the number of faculty members from other law
schools.
When Byrd became dean in 1974, four members of the law
faculty occupied distinguished chairs. In 1979, at the end of his fiveyear term, this number had doubled. In 1972 Daniel H. Pollitt and
John W, Scott succeeded Henry P. Brandis, Jr., and Frank W. Hanft
as Graham Kenan Professors, upon the retirement of the original
holders of those chairs. In 1970 Frank R. Strong was appointed to
occupy one of two Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professorships.

These professorships are open to any faculty member at the Universi-
ty. Of the four additional endowed chairs filled by members of the

law faculty during Byrd's deanship, two are permanently assigned to
the law school. The Paul B. Eaton Professorship was established by
Mrs. Paul B. Eaton to memorialize her husband, who practiced patent
law in Charlotte. Laurens Walker was the first faculty member
selected to occupy this chair. The Aubrey L. Brooks Chair of Law
was endowed by the Brooks family to honor Aubrey L. Brooks, a
Greensboro attorney, author, and philanthropist. Professor Dan B.
Dobbs was chosen the first Brooks Professor. As noted above,
former Dean Phillips was appointed Alumni Distinguished Professor
in 1977. These professorships are funded by the alumni of the
University at large, and the selection of faculty members to fill
Alumni Distinguished chairs are made by the same University
committee that recommends Kenan Professors. After the death of
William Rand Kenan, Jr., the charitable trust created by his will
began funding William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professorships at Chapel Hill
and at fifty-six other leading colleges and universities. In 1977 the
[Vol. 73
chancellor authorized the law school to recruit a new faculty member

to occupy one of the Kenan professorships assigned to the University.
In 1977 Eugene R. Gressman, an authority on United States Supreme
Court practice and on the federal Constitution, came to the law
school as a William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor. He served the law
school with distinction until he reached mandatory retirement age,
and continues to teach a seminar on Supreme Court Practice and
Appellate Advocacy.
Members of the law faculty continued to emphasize teaching as
the most important of their University duties. Dean Byrd, like his
predecessors, taught in the classroom half-time. As previously
indicated, Dean Byrd was chosen by the third-year class to receive the
Frederick B. McCall Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1969. The
recipients during the Byrd deanship were William B. Aycock (1975);
John H. Martin (1976); William P. Murphy (1977); Kenneth S. Broun
(1978); and William B. Aycock (1979).
Scholarship also continued to be an essential ingredient of good
teaching at the law school. The law faculty regularly engaged in
research and contributed to various legal publications. Professors
Broun, Blakey, Byrd, Clifford, Dobbs, Daye, Gressman, Loewy,
Lefstein, Murphy, Pollitt, Smith, Strong, Turnier, Verkuil, and Wurfel
published one or more books, monographs, or supplements during the
period 1974-79. In addition, the faculty published at least seventynine articles in learned journals, including the law reviews of the
University of North Carolina, Columbia, Chicago, California,
Michigan, Yale, and Virginia. The most prolific contributors to law
reviews during these five years were Professors Loewy, Pollitt,
Schoenbaum, Strong, and Walker.
When the law school moved from Manning Hall in the center of
the campus to Van Hecke-Wettach Hall, the law faculty lost daily
contact with faculty in other schools and departments. Some concern
was expressed that the law school faculty might drift away from its
historic role of participating in the ongoing affairs of the university
outside the law school. These fears were unfounded. The move from
Manning Hall to Van Hecke-Wettach Hall did not impede participation by the law faculty in the affairs of the University.
Some illustrations of law faculty service to the University during
Dean Byrd's five-year term are listed in Table I following this
chapter.5
5. See infra Table I.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
In addition to committee meetings, research and writing, student

counseling, law school committee responsibilities, and participation in
general University affairs, the faculty also engaged in a variety of
professional and public service activities. These activities are
summarized for the period 1974-79 in Table II following this essay.6
Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor Frank R. Strong was
the only faculty member to reach mandatory retirement age during
the period 1974-79. When he retired in 1978, in recognition of his
lifetime of leadership in education, North Carolina Central University
conferred on him the LL.D. degree. In commenting on Professor
Strong's retirement, Dean Byrd said:
In the thirteen years he has taught here Frank Strong has
become so integral a part of this school that his retirement
will leave a void that cannot be failed. His widely recognized
preeminence as a legal educator has enabled him to assume
a role of national leadership in legal education that few
others have been able to achieve. As a colleague, he has
constantly challenged us to examine the content of our
educational program and the effectiveness of our teaching so
that our efforts might be directed to our primary purpose of
providing the soundest possible legal education. It is my
hope that in retirement he will continue to share with us his
wisdom, experience, leadership, and genuine concern for
excellence in legal education.7
LAW LIBRARY
Professor Mary W. Oliver, a professional librarian and a graduate

of the law school, continued as librarian throughout Byrd's deanship.
Five other professional library staff members (four assistant librarians
and a cataloguer) were directly responsible to Professor Oliver during
this period. The librarian was responsible directly to the dean for the
administration of the library, but she was given wide autonomy in her
sphere. The librarian was responsible for acquisitions, processing and
maintenance of volumes and periodicals, administration of library
services, cataloging, and recruitment and supervision of the library
staff. The staff consisted of Kathleen Cheape, Ann Fortenberry,
Claire B. Pratt, Patricia Wall, and Deborah K. Webster.
6. See infra Table II.

7. Frank R. Strong Retires, LAW ALUMNI NEWSLErER (UNC Chapel Hill School
of Law) July 1978, at 1.
628
[Vol. 73
The period 1974-79 was one of steady growth for the law library.
On July 1, 1974, the number of catalogued volumes was 157,740; in
addition, the library contained a total of 120,067 catalogued
microcards and microfiche. On July 1, 1979, these numbers increased
to 194,662 catalogued volumes, with comparable increases in acquisitions of microcards and microfiche. An increase in state
appropriations and generous gifts from friends of the law library made
this growth possible.
During Dean Byrd's tenure, cooperative efforts were undertaken
by the law libraries of the University at Chapel Hill, Duke University,
and North Carolina Central University in developing research
collections with a view toward reducing unnecessary duplications.
Furthermore, the staff of the law library engaged in long-range
planning, with the principal assignments being undertaken by Claire
Pratt, Reference Librarian, and Patricia Wall, Acquisitions Librarian.
CURRICULUM
The major development in the curriculum during Dean Byrd's
tenure was an increased emphasis on legal ethics and professional
responsibility. In addition to the regular course in Professional
Responsibility, each teacher of a first-year course was required to
devote three class hours each semester to instruction in professional
responsibility. The next step was to require as a prerequisite to
graduation that a student take the regular course in Professional
Responsibility or enroll in a non-credit course of at least ten
classroom hours in which legal ethics and related matters were taught.
In addition to the emphasis on ethics, new seminars offered were
Energy Regulation, Educational Policy Law, Juvenile Law, and Aging
and the Law, and a new joint-degree program was undertaken with
the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs at Duke University.
During the 1975-76 academic year, the faculty adopted a
resolution permitting third-year law students to be certified to
represent clients in specific cases under the North Carolina third-year
practice rule. To qualify for practice under the rule, the student was
required to work under the supervision of a practicing attorney and
a faculty member licensed to practice in North Carolina. A number
of students were so certified by the North Carolina State Bar.
Although the beginnings of clinical education at the law school
occurred during the Phillips administration, it was under Dean Byrd
that clinical legal education programs were established and became a
regular part of the law school curriculum. In the fall of 1977, Dean
Byrd appointed a committee composed of Professors Broun (chair-
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
man), Kalo, Lefstein, and Martin to study clinical education.

Subsequently the faculty adopted the committee's recommendation to
employ a full-time faculty member to supervise students selected to
represent prison inmates and to conduct courses related to this
representation. In February 1978, David S. Rudolf was approved by
the faculty to head a clinical education program. In the fall of 1978,
a program consisting of twelve credit hours was inaugurated. There
was a trial practice component of three hours, a course in prisoners'
rights and post-conviction proceedings of three hours, and the
supervised clinical component involving six credit hours.
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
Students who were awarded the Juris Doctor degree with high
honors while Biyrd was dean were William Graham Champion
Mitchell, Edward Garrett Walker, Stanley D. Davis, Sarah Elizabeth
Gibson, Henry Marvin Mercer, III, Henry P. Oglesby, Richard A.
Simpson, Jo Ann T. Harllee, Alan Edward Kraus, Robert A. Jaffee,
Andrea Ann Timko, Dewey Michael Jones, E. William Bates, II,
Richard P. Levi, James Harry Clark, and Sheila Hogan Fellerath. Jo
Ann T. Harllee earned special recognition for her academic
achievement. She made an "A" in every one of her twenty-seven
courses in the law school.
STUDENT AcrIvIrlS
The Student Bar Association continued to provide the center

stage for student activities during Dean Byrd's administration.
Through the Association students were provided a wide range of
services, funding, and information. The Presidents of the Association
during Dean Byrd's tenure were Robert F. Orr, Catherine Cooper, G.
Rankin Coble, Raymond Eugene Owens, Jr., and Stuart S. Lipton.
The North Carolina Lawyers' Research Service was formed by
law students at Chapel Hill for the purpose of carrying out legal
research for North Carolina attorneys. The service was sponsored by
the Student Bar Association and partial funding was provided by the
Law Student Division of the American Bar Association.
The Holderness Moot Court Bench was quite active. Two teams
participated in the National Moot Court Competition. In 1976 the
law school team reached the National Finals in the Client Counselling
Competition. In 1978 the Holderness Moot Court Bench sponsored
its first annual J. Braxton Craven, Jr., Memorial Moot Court Competition.
[Vol. 73
Three new student organizations were created during the five

years between 1974 and 1979. The Minority Law Students Association was organized to meet the special needs of minority students
enrolled in the law school. This organization developed out of
informal groups consisting primarily of African-American students
that gathered to help the law school recruit minority law students, to
plan social activities, and to serve on committees as representatives of
the special interests of minority students.
The establishment of The North CarolinaJournalof International
Law and Commercial Regulation during the 1975-76 academic year
was a significant milestone in the history of the law school. Professor

Seymour W. Wurfel, with full support from Dean Byrd, provided the
inspiration and the driving force for this achievement. Professor John
P. Dalzell and Associate Professor Jonathan A. Eddy helped with the
organization. All the founders agreed that the ultimate success of this
new venture depended on the student board of editors. Henry M.
Burwell was the first editor-in-chief Students who served on the first
editorial board were L. Holmes Eleazer, Jr., William Macon
Richardson, Eugene A. Reese, Stephane Grogan, John A. Swem,
Michael A. Swann, and John T. Kennedy.
Students continued to sit on joint student-faculty committees
dealing with placement, curriculum, student-faculty relations and other
areas. Students also interviewed prospective faculty members and
conducted teacher evaluations.
PLACEMENT
The administration and the law faculty assisted prospective

graduates and alumni in finding positions requiring a legal education.
The placement director was the administrative officer primarily
responsible for the placement program. Gladys Dimmick became the
Director of Placement and Alumni Secretary under Dean Phillips; she
continued to serve in this position under Dean Byrd until the last year
of his deanship.
Placement of the members of the Class of 1975, the first year of
Dean Byrd's leadership, was as follows: The largest number, ninetyfive, were employed by law firms, seventy-one of these with North
Carolina firms and twenty-four with firms in other states. Forty-two
were employed by government agencies- twenty-nine with state and
local agencies and thirteen with federal agencies. Nineteen were
employed as law clerks, of whom eleven worked with state judges and
eight with federal judges. Sixteen were engaged in indigent legal
services, fourteen opened law offices, eight were employed by
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
corporations, five entered military service, three worked in non-legal

positions, and one entered graduate school.'
Sarah Elizabeth Gibson of the Class of 1976 served as law clerk
to Judge J. Braxton Craven, Jr., of the' United States Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She then.became the first woman to
serve as law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice Byron R.

White. In the fal of 1983, she began a distinguished career as a
member of the law school faculty, where she is now Burton Craige
Professor.
Data furnished by voluntary reporting indicate that at least

ninety-two percent of the Classes of 1977 and 1978 took law-related
positions within a year after graduation. As of the spring of 1980, the
217 members of the class that graduated in 1979 reported 194 in lawrelated positions and seven in non-legal positions; sixteen were either
seeking employment or of unknown status. The median starting
salary of the ninety-seven reporting was approximately $17,370. 9
ALUMNI ACTIvrrEs
Under Dean Byrd, contributions to the Law Alumni Association

and the Law Foundation showed steady growth. From 1974 to 1979
donations to the' Law Alumni Association increased from approximately $20,000 year to $30,000 a year. The budget of the Law
Alumni Association for the last year of Dean Byrd's administration
was as follows: scholarships, $15,000; Dean's Discretionary Fund,
$4,500; publication costs for the law alumni newsletter, $5,000;
Holderness Moot Court, $2,000; faculty professional travel, $1,500;
and operating expenses, $2,000.0 The Presidents of the Law Alumni
Association during Dean Byrd's tenure were: Robert G. Vaughn, Jr.,
Stephen P. Milliken, T. LaFontine Odom, Robert Byrd, and Willis P.
Whichard.
In 1974 the Second Century Fund established by Dean Phillips
had raised $675,425. In 1977, $245,750 was added to endowment
funds. Most of this increase came from distributions from the
liquidation of the Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation. During the
academic year 1977-78 the Law Foundation disbursed $45,000 to the
law school. Beginning in 1974 the Presidents of the Law Foundation
were Nelson W. Taylor, III, Herbert S. Falk, Jr., and James C. Fox.
8. Robert G.Byrd, The Law School, 54 N.C. L. REv. 845, 856-57 (1976).
9. UNC SCHOOL OF LAW, LAW SCHOOL CATALOGUE 40 (1981).
10. Willis P. Whichard, Letterfrom PresidentWhichard, LAW ALUMNI NEWSLETrER
(UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Apr. 1979, at 1.
632
[Vol. 73
After 1975 the Foundation's bylaws were changed to permit a

president to serve for two terms. Thus, Falk and Fox were elected for
two one-year terms.
Law Alumni Weekend, held on November 1-2 in 1974, was the
occasion for initiating two lectures. The William T. Joyner Lecture
on Constitutional Law was established by a gift from the Sarah
Graham Kenan Foundation to honor attorney William T. Joyner for
his outstanding service to the State of North Carolina and to the legal
profession. The Marvin K. and Florence T. Blount Lecture on Estate
Planning was made possible by a gift from the Blounts, who sought
to engender greater professional and public awareness of this
important area of the law.
At its twentieth reunion in 1976, the Class of 1956 under the

leadership of Herbert S. Falk, Jr., pledged $4,000 as a special gift to
the law school. This was the beginning of the practice of special
giving by twentieth reunion classes.
LAW CENTER
The Law Center, created in 1969, continued to function effectively during Dean Byrd's tenure. In 1975 Professor Laurens Walker was
chosen to succeed Assistant Dean Robert A. Melott, who had served
as director of the center since 1971.
In his annual report for 1976, Dean Byrd commented on the
work supported by the Law Center:
The projects supported included a continuing review of
North Carolina's new Administrative Procedure Act, an
examination of the estate planning problems of young North
Carolina families, and a study of the State's Commercial
Code and its commercial paper loss allocation provisions.
Other projects included an investigation of procedures
imposed on city and county boards in connection with
requests for special use permits and zoning amendments and
an effort to determine the significance of the identity of the
draftsman in dispositive legal instruments. Also, the Center
sponsored an examination of the continuity of interest
doctrine in tax law and an effort to determine the meaning
of "control" under the Uniform Partnership Act. In
addition to these research projects, the Law Center maintained its interest in continuing education and sponsored two
special lectures, one relating to North Carolina estate
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
planning, and the other dealing with selected developments

in money remedies for tort."
In 1977 the Law Center funded research projects on seven topics:
"The North Carolina Administrative Procedure Act and Agency
Legislation"; "The North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission";
"Support Services for Corporate Trustees"; "Plea Bargaining in North
Carolina Felony Cases"; "Expansion of the Substantive Antitrust
Reach of the Federal Trade Commission"; "The Role of Theory in
Administrative Law"; and "A Different and More Viable Theory of
Equal Protection."
The historical interest of the faculty in good teaching was
enhanced as a result of the financial support for basic and applied
research practiced by the Law Center. The bulk of this support was
in the form of summer grants for faculty members who were not
scheduled to teach in one or more of the summer sessions. The
nature of the research not only enriched the teaching of the faculty
member but made valuable contributions to the legal profession, the
state, and the nation.
INSTITUTES FOR PRACrICING ATrORNEYS
Under Dean Byrd the law school continued its participation with
the North Carolina Bar Association and other North Carolina Law
Schools in the Cooperative Legal Education Program. Each year
several members of the faculty volunteered to take part in the
program.
CONCLUSION
Robert G. Byrd elected to return to full-time teaching at the end

of his five-year term as dean.
Dean Byrd was assisted in the performance of his administrative
duties by Associate Dean Morris R. Gelblum, Registrar Ruth H.
Strong, and Placement Director and Law Alumni Coordinator Gladys
Dimmick. Dimmick, after serving twenty-four years at the law school,
left to become personal secretary to Judge J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., of
the United States Court of Appeals. When she departed Dean Byrd
said:
Over a period of almost a quarter of a century... Gladys
Dimmick has remained as a constant influence in the law
11. Byrd, supra note 8, at 853.
[Vol. 73
school. In this time she has served the school and its alumni
with loyalty, dedication, hard work, and great civility.12
Edith Finley, Secretary to the Dean, Gelblum, and Strong served
throughout his term.
During Byrd's tenure as dean, the Alumni Association was
strengthened through initiation of the Law Alumni Newsletter and
through the inauguration of class reunions. Both membership in the
Law Alumni Association and giving to the Law Foundation increased.
The relative competitiveness of faculty salaries improved. The
number of faculty increased, the student-faculty ratio was reduced,
and the size of instructional classes lowered. The strength and
diversity of the faculty was maintained through able replacements of

faculty lost because of retirement and resignations. Faculty research
support continued at a high level, and the excellence of the library
was maintained. The quality of the student body remained high, and
support for student-related activities, particularly scholarships, the
Holdemess Moot Court, and placement, was strengthened. Although
these many threads of tangible progress soon became interwoven into
the ongoing life of the law school, it is evident that under Bob Byrd's
quiet, steady, and efficient leadership tangible progress was made in
many vital areas. Dean Byrd fully appreciated the necessity for
protecting the character of the law school. He exemplified in a high
degree the qualities of truth, honor, and integrity. In this he stands
tall among his illustrious predecessors.
At the end of Byrd's deanship he was Chairman of the Governor's Brown Lung Study Commission and a member of the North
Carolina General Statutes Commission and the North Carolina
Legislative Study Commission on Evidence and Comparative
Negligence. Further, he was serving on several University committees, including the Faculty Committee on Student Conduct, the School
of Public Health Board of Visitors, and as chairman of the Search
Committee for a dean of the School of Social Work.
A Resolution of the Board of Directors of the Law Alumni
Association expressed the profound gratitude .of the alumni for Dean
Byrd's leadership.
On July 1, 1979, Dean Byrd was succeeded by Kenneth S. Broun,
a faculty colleague.
12. Gladys Dimmick Resigns, LAW ALUMNI NEWSLETrER (UNC School of Law,
Chapel Hill, N.C.), July 1979, at 2.
1995]
ANDREWS:
AYCOCK:
BROUN:
CLIFFORD:
DAYE:
GELBULM:
GLENN:
KALO:
LEWIS:
LINK:
NAKELL:
OLIVER:
PHILLIPS:
POLLITr:
RICHMOND:
SESQUICENTENNIAL
TABLE I: FACULTY SERVICE 1974-79

Member, Academic Affairs Cormmittee on Use of
Human Subjects in Research.
Chairman, University Committee on Distinguished Professorships; Member, Central Committee on Selection of Morehead Scholars; Board of
Directors of the General Alumni Association.
Member, Faculty Hearings Committee.
Member, Faculty Welfare Committee.
Chairman, Committee on Status of Minorities and
Disadvantaged; Member, Business School Dean
Search Committee; Steering Committee FacultyStaff Caucus.
Member, Affirmative Action Advisory Committee; Residence Status Committee; Committee on
Recruitment of Black Faculty.
Member, Parking Appeals Committee.
Member, Committee for the Protection of Human
Subjects in Research; Dean's Delegate to the
Supervisory Board of the Student Judiciary.
Member, Faculty Council.
Member, Committee on the Protection of the
Rights of Human Subjects in Research; Faculty
Athletic Committee; Committee on Recombinant
DNA .Research; Chairman, University Staff
Employee Grievance Committee; Chairman,
Academic Affairs United Fund Campaign in 1977.
Member, Faculty Grievance Committee; Advisory
Board to Student Government Attorney; Nursing
School Research Review Board; Faculty Council.
Member, Faculty Council.
Chairman, Committee on University Government;
Member, Committee on Faculty Hearings; The
Tenure Study Committee; The Search Committee
for Dean of the School of Business Administration.
Chairman of the Faculty; Chairman, Faculty
Hearings Committee; Member, Committee on
Faculty Welfare.
Member, University Title IX Committee; Advisor
to the Subcommittee on Retirement Plans of the
Faculty Welfare Committee.

SCHOENBAUM:
TuRNIER:
VERKUIL:
WALKER:
WING:
[Vol. 73
Member, Technical Staff of UNC Water Resources Research Institute; Member, Board of Directors of UNC Botanical Garden.
Member, University Grievance Committee;
Traffic and Parking Advisory Committee; Advisor, University Welfare Committee.
Chairman, Staff Personnel Committee.
Member, Educational Policy Committee; Committee on Scholarships and Student Aid.
Member, Institutional Review Board, School of
Public Health.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
TABLE II: FACULTY AcTIVTImS 1974-79

ANDREWS:
AYCOCK:
BLAKEY:
BROUN:
CLIFFORD:
DAYE:
Reporter, North Carolina Superior Court Judges'

Pattern Jury Instructions Committee for Criminal
Cases; Director, 1978 AALA Workshop on
Teaching Criminal Justice Courses; Consultant to
the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee
on Juvenile Delinquency.
Drafting Committee for Legislation on the Administration of Estates.
Member, ABA National Client Counseling Committee; Reporter to the Contracts Subcommittee
of the Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions of
the North Carolina Conference of Superior Court
Judges.
Director, National Institute for Trial Advocacy;
Member National Board of Trial Advocacy.
Pattern Jury Instructions Committee on Commercial, Banking and Business Law.
Member, Board of Directors and Executive
Committee, North Carolina Center for Public
Policy Research; Chairman, Triangle Housing
Development Corporation; Member, Board of
Directors; In-Chu-Co Housing Development
Corporation; President North Carolina As-
sociation of Black Lawyers.

DOBBS:
EDDY:
GELBULM:
GLENN:
HASKELL:
Moderator of and a participant in a presentation

to a joint meeting of the Remedies and Torts
Sections of the Association of American Law
Schools.
Chairman of the Section on Commercial, Contract
and Related Consumer Law of the Association of
American Law Schools.
Member, Executive Committee, AALA Section
on Pre-Legal Education and Admission to Law
School; UNC Representative to Law School
Admission Council.
Pattern Jury Instructions Committee for Civil
Cases.
Member, ABA Standing Committee on Legal
Assistants.
[Vol. 73
KALo:
Team Leader, Southeast Regional of the National

Institute for Trial Advocacy.
LEFSTEIN:
Reporter, ABA Standing Committee on As-
LEWIS:
Louis:
LINK:
LOEWY:
MURPHY:
sociation Stands for Criminal Justice; Member,

ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and
Indigent Defendants; Member, Board of Directors
and Executive Committee, National Legal and
Defender Association.
An American delegate to the first Inter-American
Conference on Law, Population and the Status of
Women; Member, Governor's Juvenile Code
Commission.
Consultant to the Antitrust Division of the
Department of Justice; Member, Rules of
Procedure Drafting Committee of the North
Carolina General Statutes Commission.
Member, Real Property Committee, North
Carolina Bar Association; Member, Chapel Hill
Community Appearance Commission; Member,
several committees of the ABA Real Property
Section.
Member, Criminal Law Subcommittee of the
Pattern Jury Instructions of the North Carolina
Conference of Superior Court Judges; Chairman,
Nominating Committee AALA Constitutional
Law Section.
Member, Board of Governors, National Academy
of Arbitrators; Permanent Arbitrator, Tennessee

NAKELL:
OLIVER:
PHILLIPS:
Valley Authority; Member, National Task Force

on National Labor Relations Board Procedures.
Member, Criminal Law Committee, Multistate
Bar Examination; President, North Carolina Legal
Services, Inc.
Member, ABA Committee on Relations with Law
Publishers; Member AALA Committee on the
White House Conference 1978-79; Consultant,
Virginia Council on Higher Education.
Reporter and Consultant to the National Carolina
Bar Association Appellate Rules Committee;
Chairman, North Carolina Board of Ethics;
Reporter for the North Carolina Bar Association
Committee on the Administration of Justice.
1995]
POLLrTr:
RICHMOND:
RUDOLF:
SCHOENBAUM:
ScOTr:
SMrrH:
STRONG:
TURNIER:
VERKUIL:
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Special Counsel to House (Committee on
Education and Labor, U.S. Congress; Board
Member, Southerners for Economic Justice;
Board Member, American Association of University Professors; Board Member, North Carolina
Civil Liberties Union.
Member, Standing Committee of the Southeastern
Conference of the Association of American Law
Schools.
Advisory Member, North Carolina State Bar
Special Committee to Study Rules Governing
Practical Training of Law Students.
Member, Delegation for the meeting between
Soviet and American specialists in environmental
law; Member, North Carolina Marine Science
Commission; Member, North Carolina Bar Association Committee on Corporate, Commercial
and Banking Law.
Vice President School of Arts Foundation; Trustee Louisburg College; Member and Director,
Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation.
Named by the Federal Power Commission to
head a task force to study the Alaska Natural Gas
Pipeline.
Continued to serve as Director of the Association
of American Law Schools Law Teaching Clinic
and as National Secretary-Treasurer of the Order
of the Coif; Member of the Practical Training
Committee of the North Carolina Bar Association; Member of the Bar Examination Study
Project of the Association of American Law
Schools; consultant to the President of North
Carolina Central University on the law school of
that institution.
Submitted to General Assembly a Report on

Corporate Income Tax prepared by him and his
students.
Consultant, Administrative Conference on the
United States; Vice President of the North
Carolina Consumers Council; Member, Administrative Procedure Drafting Committee of the
General Statutes Commission; Member, American
640
[Vol. 73
Law Institute; Chairman, AALS Administrative

Law Section.
WALKER:
WING:
WURFEL:
Lectured at various European Universities on his
research in Law and Psychology.

Consultant to the Office of Planning and
Evaluation in the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare; Member, Health Law
Committee of the American Public Health Association.
Vice Chairman, North Carolina General Statutes
Commission; Member, Board of Scientific Directors of the North Carolina Institute of Nutrition.
An Era of Transformation: 1979..89
THE MODERN LAW SCHOOL COMES OF AGE: Ti

KENNETH S. BROUN (1979-87)
DEANSHIP OF
JUDITH WELCH WEGNER
Judith Welch Wegner is the UNC Law School's fifteenth

dean. She is also one of the co-editors of this symposium.
Wegner was born in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1950. She
received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and her
J.D.from UCLA. She worked as an attorney with the United
States Justice Department and a special assistant to United
States Secretary of Education Shirley M. Hufstedler, before
joining the law faculty at the University of North Carolinain
1981. She followed in Albert Coates'footstepsay a teacher of

state and localgovernment law, and in Bill Aycock's footsteps
as a property teacher. Wegner served as Associate Deanfrom

1986-88, during the deanships of both Kenneth S. Broun and
Ronald C. Link. She also drafted the law school's 1984 selfstudy.
Kenneth S. Broun led the UNC School of Law during an era of
rapid evolution in the nature of legal education. He embraced the
challenge of enhancing student training in "practical skills." He
recruited and retained a diverse faculty committed to the creation and
dissemination of knowledge. He fostered a sense of mutual respect
and appreciation among faculty, students and alumni. He prepared
the school to address future challenges with the help of a more
sophisticated administrative team equipped to enhance the school's
capacity in fulidraising and financial management. When Broun left
the deanship, his successor, Acting Dean Ron Link, observed:
The next dean will almost certainly be a good one.
Why? Because Ken Broun has positioned this school for its
next step forward. Ken was truly a dean for all reasons. His
intelligence, wit, foresight, leadership, and, above all, his
[Vol. 73
decency and humanity, made this Law School one of the

very best.'
As Ron Link so rightly noted, an understanding of the law
school's development during this period can best begin with an
understanding of Ken Broun, the man. Against this backdrop, then,
it is possible to explore the important developments in the areas of
skills education, faculty development, community interaction, and
support structure that characterized Ken Broun's tenure as dean.
KEN BROUN: "DEAN FOR ALL REASONS"
Ken Broun was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1939. He attended

the Chicago city schools and the University of Illinois, where he
received his B.S. in Journalism and Communications and served as
executive editor of the Daily llini. He went on to study law at the
University and received his J.D. with honors in 1960. He was
Associate Editor of the University of Illinois Law Forum, and was
elected to the Order of the Coif.
Broun practiced law for the Chicago firm that is now Jenner &
Block from 1963-68. It was during this period that he began his life
as a legal educator. A partner at Jenner & Block invited Broun to

join him as an instructor in a civil procedure course at Loyola
University School of Law. Broun soon concluded that he would
commit himself full-time to the life of a law teacher. He left Chicago
and joined the University of North Carolina School of Law faculty in
1968.
Broun's teaching interests centered on civil procedure, evidence,
professional responsibility, and trial advocacy. In the time-honored
tradition, he was also called upon to teach a variety of other courses,
including torts, contracts, federal jurisdiction, and admiralty. Much of
his scholarship centered on the law of evidence. He became nationally
known as an evidence scholar, and is now author of Brandis & Broun
on North Carolina Evidence and co-author of McCormick on
Evidence.
A critical influence on Broun's life and deanship was his early
involvement in the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA). He
became involved with NITA early in its history. In 1972, he was
approached by John Kaplan of Stanford, Bob Keeton of Harvard, and
Prentice Marshall of Illinois to join in their initial efforts to shape a
1.
RONALD C. LINK, UNC SCHOOL OF LAW ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE SCHOOL OF
LAW, Aug. 1988, at 1.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
mechanism for effective teaching of trial skills through partnership

between legal academics and legal practitioners. In 1973, Broun set
up the methodology for NITA trial advocacy training, something that
has continued to be of importance ever since.
He began the
Southeast Regional Session of NITA in 1975. From 1976-79 he

served as National Director of NITA, and was performing those
duties and carrying a reduced teaching load when he was selected as
dean in 1979.
Broun had learned a great deal about the School of Law and its
mission during his decade on the faculty before he became dean. He
shared these insights in the introduction to his first Dean's Report to
the Chancellor:
[The School of Law] bears much in common with the law
schools of other major state universities. But there are
things here that make us different from all others. First, the
origins of the school go back to a time long before most
states were even contemplating a role in legal education. As
a result, the school has dominated the legal profession in this
state for longer, and perhaps with greater impact, than the
schools of other states. Second, it is part of a University
that has been and continues to be an intellectual leader not
only in this state and region, but in the nation as a whole.
Last, there is an intangible element. Anyone who has ever
had contact with Chapel Hill feels caught up in an institution
that is more than educational. The University and the Law
School are symbols of excellence and intellectual freedom to
many who cannot explain their devotion in tangible terms.2
In assuming the deanship, Broun brought to bear deep insights
like these, and his own deep affection for the institution and its
community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni. He brought great
expertise as a lawyer and legal educator. He also brought remarkable
human warmth. Broun became known for his wit and for his
excellence as a jazz musician. He remained a popular teacher whose
rapport with students stood him in good stead throughout these times.
His insights into human nature and his training in Chicago politics
helped him navigate the waters of institutional politics, and even highprofile espionage cases involving football spies. His spirit of
exploration and commitment to justice took him to South Africa in
2. KENNETH S. BROUN,
CHANCELLOR, 1979-80, at 1.
UN
SCHOOL OF LAW, THE DEAN'S REPORT TO THE
[Vol. 73
1986. There he developed NITA-style programs conducted through

the Black Lawyers Association of South Africa.
Happily, Broun's warmth and vitality remained intact despite the
travails of the deanship. After stepping down as dean in December
1987, Broun practiced law full time for two years with the firm of
Petree Stockton in Raleigh, North Carolina. He resumed his duties
as a member of the law faculty in 1990. In 1991 he was elected as

Mayor of the Town of Chapel Hill and was re-elected in 1993. His
talents and enthusiasm are as great as ever, and he will continue to
contribute to the evolution of the School of Law toward greater
excellence for many years to come.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE LAWYERING SKILLS CURRICULUM
One of Broun's major goals during his deanship was to

strengthen the law school's curriculum in the area of lawyering skills
and clinical education. In his first year as dean, Broun began multiple
efforts to achieve this goal. In his annual report to the Chancellor, he
described the school's existing trial advocacy program with considerable pride:
This school is particularly strong in the area of trial advocacy
training where seven sections of approximately twenty
students each work with simulated trial situations during the
year. These sections are aided by the use of video tape
review of student performances and by demonstration of
trial techniques by experienced trial lawyers. The school's
develoIment of this program is among the best in the
nation.
In 1981, the law school received the national Gumpert Award for
excellence in the teaching of trial advocacy. In ensuing years, Broun
committed the school to offering enough sections of trial advocacy to
allow all interested third-year students to enroll. He worked closely
with the practicing lawyers and judges who brought great skill and
continuing expertise to the training of UNC students in trial advocacy,
using NITA materials and teaching techniques. Before leaving the
deanship in 1987, Broun worked to revise the format of the school's
trial advocacy curriculum. This redesign significantly improved
student learning by incorporating both an intensive period of
instruction at the outset of the semester and continuing instruction on
a weekly basis thereafter. The revised format also allowed the school
3.
Id. at 7.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
to invite many more practitioners and judges to assist in teaching and

critiquing students enrolled in the course.
Broun also encouraged his colleagues to explore the potential
applicability of simulation teaching techniques in other areas.
Professor Ronald Link helped develop a course in real estate practice
that was offered in 1980 and continues to this day. Other courses,
such as business planning, were also added to the advanced curriculum during his tenure.
In Broun's first year as dean, he also identified the school's
research and writing program as one that needed improvement. He
described his concerns in his first Dean's report:
As our program is now formulated, each student is assigned
to one of his or her first-year courses in a small section. The
small-section professor is responsible for teaching not only
the substance of the course, but also the basics of legal
writing and research. Legal bibliography is taught to the
students by the first-year professor with the help of members
of the Moot Court Bench. We are concerned that this
program has often been inadequate to provide the very
important basic legal writing and research skills. ...
The
school is therefore working on a plan to revise this program

extensively... [through] creation of an additional first-year
course which would focus primarily on writing and research.4
The resulting research and writing program called upon first-year
small-section teachers to continue bearing some responsibility for
training first-year students in legal writing, but established the position
of Director of Research and Writing to ensure more consistent
training in research skills and better coordination of instruction.
During Broun's deanship, this program continued to evolve, adding
a three-unit research and writing course taught by practicing lawyers
in the spring semester of students' first year. Students were also
required to participate in a second-year writing experience, and to
enroll in a seminar requiring intensive writing (usually in their third
year).
Broun also was deeply committed to the creation of a sophis-
ticated clinical educational program that would allow students to work

with real clients under the supervision of experienced attorneys who
were members of the law faculty. He believed that this model was far
superior to the "farm-out" or "externship" model being developed in
4. Id. at 7-8.
[Vol. 73
other schools. Although faculty support for the clinical program

might have been described as "tenuous" at the outset, Broun's efforts
led to gradual progress toward creating a UNC clinical education
program that is generally viewed as among the best in the country.
Broun's interests in the linkage between law school and law practice
also led him to encourage the faculty to develop a more substantial
program of continuing legal education specifically sponsored by UNC.
By 1981, the school had implemented CLE programs dealing with
various legal topics on Saturday mornings of home football games.
The first annual Tax Institute was held, under the leadership of
Professor J. Nelson Young. A special securities law program was
established, and an intensive family law program introduced. During
Broun's deanship the law school also added CLE programs in
evidence, hosted several specialized NITA programs, and experimented with various other CLE offerings through the help of a
knowledgeable permanent CLE staff.
DEVELOPMENT OF A MORE DIVERSE FACULTY
The Broun deanship was marked by significant change and

turnover in the faculty. In Broun's first year as Dean, a number of
incumbent faculty members were promoted to full professor (including Charles Daye, Joseph Kalo, Ronald Link, and William Turnier),
or named to distinguished chairs (Robert Byrd, Donald Clifford, and
William Murphy). Several other faculty members left the school to
return to practice (John Martin and Richard Smith) or teach elsewhere (Thomas Schoenbaum). The next few years brought the
addition of a number of new colleagues, many of whom form the core
of the law faculty as it exists today, and many of whom contributed
different forms of diverse background and thought to the school.
In 1979, Caroline Nicholson Bruckel [Brown] joined the faculty
after graduating at the top of her class from the University of Miami,
clerking for Justice James G. Exum of the North Carolina Supreme
Court, and practicing in Raleigh. She brought the number of women
on the faculty to three, and contributed great expertise in the areas
of contracts and commercial law. A growing number of women
joined the tenure-track faculty during the ensuing years of Broun's
deanship, including Judith Wegner, Marianne Smythe, Patricia Bryan,
Elizabeth Gibson, Lissa Broome, and Nancy Rhoden. Others,
including Lucie White, Jean Cary, Alice Ratliff, and Michelle

Robertson, served as supervising attorneys in the clinic. Shann Tracy
succeeded Frank Parker ,as director of research and writing. Sally
Sharp became the second tenured woman on the faculty in 1982.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Professor and Library Director Mary Oliver retired in 1984, and

Professor Lolly Gasaway was recruited to take her place.
More African-American colleagues also joined the faculty during
this period. Burnele V. Powell was appointed as an assistant
professor in 1979. He had received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin and master of laws degree from Harvard. He had
previously served as Associate Regional Counsel for the United States
Department of Housing and Urban Development in Boston. Powell
became the second African-American member of the faculty.
Chauncey Brummer, who later moved to the University of ArkansasFayetteville, was the third. Henry P. Brandis, Jr. Professor Harry E.
Groves joined the faculty in 1981, bringing great expertise in the field
of comparative law, and important experience as a distinguished dean
of three law schools, including North Carolina Central University,
Texas Southern, and the University of Singapore. Charles Daye left
the law school to become dean at North Carolina Central and
returned in 1985.
The school also increased its diversity by hiring both experienced
teacher-scholars who had cut their teeth as law faculty members at
other institutions, and entry-level faculty members early in their
careers. Professor Thomas Lee Hazen came to the law school from
the University of Nebraska, where he had already distinguished
himself in the areas of corporate law and securities regulation.
Professor Larry Lawrence joined the faculty after service at the
University of Missouri at Columbia. He further strengthened the
school's commercial offerings. Professor J. Nelson Young joined the
faculty as a senior tax teacher after serving at the University of
Illinois for more than thirty-five years. More junior faculty colleagues
who joined the law school during Broun's deanship included Mark
Weisburd, Ted Haas, John Conley, Adam Broome, and Larry
Zelenak, as well as those noted above. Tom Andrews and David
Rudolf left the faculty to return to practice. John Scott, Frank
Strong, and Bill Aycock reached mandatory retirement age and
assumed emeritus status after many years of active and productive
service to the law school. Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor joined the
law faculty upon his retirement from the chancellorship, bringing
substantial experience in corporate law and outstanding gifts as a
teacher.
A number of clinical supervising attorneys also joined the faculty
as others left to return to practice. Richard Rosen began his service
as a clinic supervisor, and soon succeeded David Rudolf as clinic
director. Bill Larimer and Walter Bennett joined the faculty and
[Vol. 73
continue to serve as supervising attorneys. Patricia Lemley resigned.

Mark Olive joined the clinical faculty but subsequently departed to
return to practice, as did Jean Cary. Lucie White departed to assume
a position on the faculty of the UCLA School of Law.
During this period, the faculty devoted itself not only to teaching,
but also to significant and changing forms of scholarship. Many
members of the faculty continued to contribute significant articles on
matters of interest to legal practitioners and judges, while others
explored new approaches and emphases, in keeping with emerging
trends in national scholarship. The faculty came to focus more
intensively on the importance of legal scholarship as a way of
maintaining the flame of learning in their own lives, enhancing their
teaching, and contributing to the school's prominence within the
university, state, and nation. Faculty members accordingly contributed a growing number of major articles in the school's own journals,
as well as others around the country.
AN EVOLVING SENSE OF COMMUNITY
Reflecting Ken Broun's personal style and interpersonal skills, his

deanship was marked by efforts to increase the sense of community
between students and faculty and to enhance law alumni relations.
As his successor, Acting Dean Ronald Link observed:
Under Ken the faculty continued to be a group diverse in its
interests but singular in its civility and respect for each other.
By maintaining this great faculty tradition of goodwill and
lack of factionalism, Ken kept this a very attractive place to
work.... He reached out to our alumni. Students always
recognized him as an honest administrator with their
interests at heart.5
During his deanship, Ken and Margie Broun made special efforts
to reach out to students. They began to hold parties for incoming
students and receptions for graduates and their parents. Broun
recognized that placement success played a significant role in how
students perceived the school and sought to strengthen the law
school's career services and placement support for students. He
worked well with student organizations. He respected the Student
Bar Association as an important partner in the school's success.
Working with the Student Bar Association, and Assistant Dean for
Development Beverly Cutter [Modlin], he initiated the school's first
5. Link, supra note 1, at 1-2.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
"Law Family Day," in order to help students and their families

become more comfortable with the law school experience and its
various challenges.
Broun also sought to work closely with the school's alumni, to
involve them in the life of the school, and to help them understand
how their support could assist the school in attaining greater
excellence. He observed that he had always enjoyed working with
lawyers as peers in connection with his trial advocacy initiatives, but
nonetheless felt a bit uncertain about how he would be viewed. As a
"Jewish guy from the North," he wondered how he would be accepted
in the new role as dean. In the end, he found his interaction with law
alumni to be among the most rewarding parts of the deanship.
Broun's warm relations and partnership with law alumni have left
permanent benefits to the law school, as well as warm memories.
Broun recalled his initial meeting with Paul Johnston, his first "big
donor," who generously endowed distinguished professorships at the
law school and Institute of Government. Johnston became a fast
friend, ultimately working to make Broun play a better jazz piano.
Law Alumni Association leaders such as John Allred exercised sound
stewardship of the school's developing private funding base. When
faced with one of the chronic financial emergencies to which
subsequent deans have become accustomed, Broun had to decide how
to maintain telephones in faculty offices notwithstanding state funding
cuts. A compromise was reached which resulted in the University's
continuation of base service, while law alumni donations helped cover
long-distance costs.
Law alumni and other members of the law school community
were also charmed by Broun's emerging status as a folk hero during
this period. The most memorable event contributing to this legacy
was Broun's famous encounter with the East Carolina University
"football spy" who was caught monitoring UNC practice out the law
library window. Broun was called to the scene, reviewed the evidence
(in the form of "X"s and "O"s rather than law briefs scribbled on
lined paper), confronted the culprit, tracked the suspect's car,
identified him in a photo directory, then cooperated with Coach Dick
Crum in giving the incident maximum publicity to deter such activity
in the future. He emerged a hero to his sons, the University, and the
alumni community, and left a legacy of good will that other deans
have strived to build upon.
[Vol. 73
THE EVOLUTION OF THE DEANSHIP
A final theme evident during the period of Ken Broun's administration was the growing complexity of the deanship in American
schools of law. During Broun's tenure, the administrative structure
of the law school was significantly reconfigured to address this
phenomenon.
Among the most notable developments was his hiring of the law
school's first Assistant Dean for Development, Beverly Cutter Modlin
(who subsequently left UNC to become Vice Chancellor for Development at UNC-Asheville). With the aid of her enormous talent and
energy, Broun began more sophisticated efforts to increase the
school's private funding base. As recounted in more detail elsewhere
in this history,6 annual giving more than trebled in the following
decade, and the school subsequently embarked on a successful $12

million capital campaign, building upon the strengthened base created
during Broun's time as dean.
The school's administrative structure also evolved in a number of
other important ways. At the start of his deanship, Broun was
assisted by only two principal administrators-Morris "Maury"
Gelblum (whose responsibilities included admissions and other special
projects), and Robert Mellot (who performed staff functions on a
half-time basis). In time, Dick Baddour joined the administrative
team and assumed admissions duties as well as other administrative
responsibilities. In subsequent years, applications to the law school
mushroomed, recruitment efforts became more sophisticated, and
efforts to diversify the student applicant pool increased. Enrolled
students also desired more extensive advising, placement assistance,
and support for student organizations. Registration became more
complex with an ever-more-sophisticated curriculum and the advent
of computers. Responsibilities for oversight of the school's financial
status became more extensive as private giving increased, and
management of state funds and personnel became more sophisticated.
The dean by necessity had to become a more versatile leader and had
to make strategic judgments about how best to ensure the effective
administration of the school.
Throughout his tenure, Broun
continued his efforts to fine-tune staffing arrangements so that all
critical functions could be performed in a cost-efficient manner. In
6. See Todd T. Lindsley, The History of the UNC Law Alumni Association and UNC
Law Foundation,73 N.C. L. REV. 942 (1995).
19951
SESQUICENTENNIAL
this endeavor he was assisted by a series of talented administrative

personnel.
In the end, the changing nature of the deanship contributed to
Broun's decision to conclude his deanship after eight and one-half
years of service. He found that he was called upon to participate in
a growing number of meetings, planning efforts, and other
management initiatives at the University level. Growing demands for
time to be spent on administrative responsibilities left less time for
other concerns. While he had stayed the course with the assistance
of individuals like Dick Baddour, Beverly Cutter, and Director of
Administration Kay Wijnberg, it seemed time for a change. A trip to
South Africa to assist in a trial advocacy program for black lawyers
gave him time for reflection about what he most wanted to do. He
concluded that it was time to step away from academia for a period
and to refresh his own trial skills before returning to teaching.
Through his skill as a manager, he had brought together a strong
administrative team that could help carry the burdens of the evermore-demanding office of the deanship, and assist Acting Dean Ron
Link during his service in that position from 1988-89.
CONCLUSION
As dean, Ken Broun set out to build and transform the

traditional strengths of the UNC School of Law. He led the school
to increase dramatically its commitment to clinical and practical skills
education. He hired first-rate faculty members who have made longterm commitments to the school. He worked well with alumni in
building a stronger tradition of private financial support and establishing closer relationships between students, faculty, and alumni
of the school. He created a stronger administrative structure capable
of assisting future deans in bearing the responsibilities of an ever
more complex and demanding office. Through his stewardship, the
school moved ahead on many fronts and emerged ready to face the
challenges of its evolving mission in the era of scarce resources that
lay ahead.
A TIME OF TRANSMON: THE DEANSHIP OF RONALD C. LINK
(1988-89)
JUDITH WELCH WEGNER
Ronald C. Link was named Acting Dean of the University of

North Carolina School of Law effective January 1, 1988, while the
search continued for a permanent successor to Dean Kenneth S.
Broun. As the Law Alumni Newsletter noted at the conclusion of
Dean Link's term in the summer of 1989,
Ron... brought eloquence, insight, courage and distinction
to the School of Law. Under his stewardship, all [members
of the law school community] were able to take stock of the
progress ... made under the leadership of Ken Broun and
to begin to develop new hopes and dreams for the years
ahead.'
As was true of his predecessors in the deanship, Link's tenure as
dean reflected his personality, values, and talents. He pledged to be
as active as possible in order that the faculty not feel that the school
was treading water, and he accomplished this goal. Among his
notable achievements were his efforts to strengthen the student body
by implementing the Chancellors Scholars program, a merit scholarship program designed to fill the gap created by the decision of the
Morehead Foundation to focus Morehead Scholarship awards at the
undergraduate level. He assisted in recruiting five outstanding faculty
members, and represented his colleagues in memorial services
marking the passing of two all-time faculty greats, Albert Coates and
Henry Brandis. He articulated the law school's needs for building
improvements and a stronger financial base and paved the way for the
transition to Judith Wegner's deanship beginning in July 1989.
RONALD C.
LINK: A DEAN FOR ALL SEASONS
Link was born in Kansas and reared in Illinois. He attended high

school in Champaign-Urbana, where he met his wife Sue. He
attended the University of Illinois, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa,
1. Judith W. Wegner, A Letter from the Dean, LAW ALUMNI NEWSLETTER (UNC
School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Fall 1989, at 2.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
and received his A.B. in Chemistry in 1961. He subsequently received

an M.A., also in chemistry, from the University of California at
Berkeley. Tiring of life in the laboratory, he returned to Illinois,
enrolled in the University's law school and received his J.D. in 1965.
He was elected to membership in the Order of the Coif, and served
as Associate Editor of the University of Illinois Law Forum.
Link practiced for three years with the firm of Sidley & Austin
in Chicago, concentrating primarily in the area of wills and trusts. He
then entered teaching at the University of Georgia. Three years
later, in 1971, he joined the UNC law faculty. His teaching interests
include trusts and estates, estate planning, and property, and he is
well regarded as a teacher of clarity, wit, and humanity. He maintains
strong ties with the practicing bar, and has served in many capacities
with the American Bar Association's Section on Real Property,
Probate and Trust Law, as well as with other professional organizations. He was chosen as an academic fellow of the American
College of Trust and Estate Counsel and as chair of the North
Carolina General Statutes Commission Trusts Drafting Committee.
In recent years, he has devoted intensive energy to questions of
lawyers' fiduciary responsibilities in the context of estate planning,
issues raised in representing the elderly, and recent developments
concerning the right to die.
Link served as Associate Dean from 1982 to 1984. When the law
school needed an experienced and able steward during a time of
transition, Link unselfishly agreed to assume the dean's mantle. As
he noted, with characteristic grace, wit, and generosity of spirit, in a
farewell message to law alumni:
It was the quickest eighteen months of my life. It was the
longest eighteen months of my life.
It began with a lost soul who wrote from Los Angeles,
contending that a doctor at the UNC Medical School was
exerting mind control over her to force her to sleep with
Johnny Carson. It ended with a man who called from
Fayetteville, believing that mysterious forces had set up a
laser field around his business to repel his customers.
It was unforgettable. I learned that I had reserves of
patience which my beautiful wife, Sue, has never seen. I
found that at 2age forty-nine I could work harder than I did
in law school.
2. Ronald C. Link, From the Acting Dean, LAW ALUMNI NEWSLETrBR (UNC School
of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Summer 1989, at 2.
[Vol. 73
He commented on the quality of the law school, its faculty's high

agpirations for the school's future, and his pleasure in working with
alumni. In every respect, he was a faithful and gifted leader who
brought immense talent and enormous care to his oversight of the
lives, resources, and reputation of the school that he held in his
charge.
SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
During the late 1980s, law schools across the nation faced a
significant increase in applications from talented prospective students.
This rising tide provided opportunities for many schools to recruit
ever-more-talented students. Link seized the opportunity in important ways that will redound to the school's benefit for many years to
come.
Link recognized the need for the school to present itself more
effectively to prospective students and other external audiences. He
worked closely with Assistant Dean for Admissions Beth Furr to
improve the quality of UNC's admissions literature and encouraged
other efforts to enhance the image of the school. Because of his
relatively short tenure and scarce financial resources, many of his
ideas could not be fully implemented at the time. In ensuing years,
however, the school has developed much more impressive background
materials to assist applicants for admission, and upgraded the full
range of its publications in an effort to communicate more effectively

with the world beyond Chapel Hill.
Link was also responsible for the creation of the Chancellors
Scholars Program. This program was established in Spring 1989 to
attract students of superior character, academic achievement, and
potential. Modeled after the Morehead Fellowship program long
associated with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the
Chancellors Scholars program sought to draw talented students from
across the state and nation to Chapel Hill. Since the program's
inception, Chancellors Scholars have enriched the intellectual climate
for all students at the law school and have served as important
symbols of the excellence of legal education at Carolina.
The Chancellors Scholars program also signifies the long
association the law school has had with outstanding University
Chancellors who have been noted educators and skilled administrators. Among those honored through this program are law faculty
members and former Chancellors William B. Aycock (1957-64),
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Nelson Ferebee Taylor (1972-80), as well as incumbent Chancellor

(and future faculty colleague) Paul Hardin.
Link also led the faculty in recruiting outstanding new colleagues.
Among those joining the faculty during his tenure were Michael L.
Corrado, a former philosophy professor, who combined his enduring
interest in that field with a distinguished career in law. Louis D.
Bilionis was recruited to teach in the area of criminal law, bringing
outstanding academic credentials and significant experience in law
practice. Professor Nancy Rhoden was recruited from Ohio State
University, where she had gained national renown as a scholar in the
field of bioethics and the law. Steve Devine brought expertise in the
areas of comparative law and international business transactions,
before returning to practice in San Francisco.
The faculty also suffered a number of losses during this period.
Professor Norman Lefstein left to become dean at Indiana UniversityIndianapolis School of law. Marianne Smythe returned to Washington, D.C., to resume a distinguished career with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Ted Haas returned to practice in New York
City. Long-time and well-beloved faculty colleagues Henry Brandis
and Albert Coates died during the winter of 1989. Link delivered
eloquent eulogies at memorial services held on campus and wrote
movingly about their many contributions fo the profession and the
state.3
Link also made a considered effort to document the school's
continuing need for improved physical facilities. He sought to

educate University leaders about the remarkable, unforeseeable
changes in legal education that had occurred over the twenty years
since the construction of Van Hecke-Wettach Hall. He explored a
variety of creative options for building configuration and financing,
including possible links with the Institute of Government, and various
approaches to public-private partnerships to provide an income stream
that could help finance the project. He charged a faculty committee
to begin work on a statement of specific needs for physical facilities.
At the same time, he pursued specific initiatives designed to alleviate
particularly pressing problems relating to student computer support,
leading to the creation of a student computer laboratory located in
the law library, and renovations of the administrative suite (generously supported by the family of John Manning).
3. See Ronald C. Link, Albert Coates and Legal Research, 67 N.C. L. REv. 749-50
(1989); Ronald C. Link, Henry Brandis, 67 N.C. L. REV. 1021-22 (1989).
656
[Vol. 73
Link's deanship was thus marked by significant accomplishments

that moved the law school forward in measurable and long-lasting
ways. Link's intangible contributions are equally important, but less
easily articulated by writers less gifted than he.
Link will be
remembered for his dedication, his eloquence, his kindness, and his
integrity. He will also be remembered as remaining his own man, a
man for all seasons, throughout the challenges of the deanship-retaining his deep affection for Bruce Springstein and the
Talking Heads, his playfulness in charging the organist at the close of
commencement exercises ("Now, Mr. Organist, let's have some rock
and roll"), and his courageous grace under pressure.
Preserving and Enhancing a Legacy of Excellence

in Challenging Times: 1989-The Deanship of Judith Welch Wegnert
S. ELIZABETH GIBSON
Elizabeth Gibson was born in Raleigh in November

1950. She graduatedfrom Duke University in 1972, after
majoring in politicalscience and serving as vice-presidentof
the student government. After working for a year with the
United States Department of Justice, she returned to North
Carolina to attend law school at the University of North
Carolina School of Law. She graduated with high honors,
then went on to clerk for Judge J. Braxton Craven on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and
United States Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. She
practicedin Washington, D.C. and became a partner with the
firm of Shea & Gardner. Since returningin 1983 to teach at
her alma mater,she has become known as a respectedteacher
and scholar in the areas of civil procedure, bankruptcy, and
federal jurisdiction. Gibson has served with distinction on
numerous law school and University committees and has
emerged as a leader among both the law school's and
university'sfaculties. She was the principalauthor of the law
school's 1993 self-study.
Continuing the tradition of choosing strong leadership from
within the school, yet breaking new ground by selecting a woman, the
University of North Carolina Board of Governors confirmed the
selection of Judith Welch Wegner to become the fifteenth dean of the
University of North Carolina School of Law effective July 1, 1989.
Her confirmation ended a twenty-seven month national search and
enabled the law school to concentrate once again on moving forward
toward the fulfillment of its mission. At the time her selection was
t Most of the material for this chapter was gathered from the Dean'sReport for the
years 1990-93, the 1993-94 UNC-Law Record, the Law Alumni Newsletter and UNC-Law
Alumni News for the years 1989-94, and the 1992-93 Self-Study Report of the UNC School
of Law.
[Vol. 73
announced, Chancellor Paul Hardin remarked that "Judith Wegner is

exceptionally well prepared to be dean of this university's law school
....She is an outstanding teacher and a well published scholar....
She will be an effective and assertive dean."1 His prediction proved
correct.
Judith Wegner was born and raised in Windsor, Connecticut. She
was the oldest of four children. After graduating from the public
schools, she spent her first year of college at Mount Holyoke, where
she planned to major in astrophysics. A desire for a more open and
active campus, however, led her to transfer to the University of
Wisconsin after her freshman year. There she majored in English,
completing an honors thesis on James Agee's Let Us Now Praise
Famous Men. Selected for membership in Phi Beta Kappa, she
graduated with honors in 1972 and was the recipient of the Helen C.
White Award for the outstanding woman in the humanities.
After marrying fellow Wisconsin student Warren Wegner and
working briefly with the extension service at the University of
California at Los Angeles, Wegner enrolled in the law school at
UCLA. Combining her interests in language, rigorous analysis, public
policy, and public service, she found a home in the law. She served
as Chief Comment Editor of the UCLA Law Review, was elected to
the Order of the Coi, and received the J.D. degree in 1976.
Upon graduation, Wegner served as law clerk for United States
District Judge Warren J. Ferguson of the Central District of California. After completing her one-year clerkship in Los Angeles, she
moved to Washington, D.C., where she held several positions with the
federal government. Her first jobs were at the United States
Department of Justice, where she served as an attorney-advisor in the
Office of Legal Counsel and as an appellate attorney in the Lands and
Natural Resources Division. She then moved to the Department of
Education and served for thirteen months as a special assistant to the
Secretary, Shirley M. Hufstedler, for whom she had served as a law
clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
during a law school externship.
Encouraged by some of her law school professors to consider law
teaching as a career, and believing that such a career was where her
long-term interests lay, Wegner decided to join the teaching ranks.
As she and her husband were ready to leave Washington by that time,
1. Mark Schultz, Wegner Picked as UNC Law School Dean, CHAPEL HILL HERALD,
May 9, 1989, at A3.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
she looked broadly at teaching opportunities. During the spring

semester of 1981, she taught at the University of Iowa College of Law
as a visiting professor. She then joined the UNC law faculty as an
assistant professor in July 1981. She brought to the classroom the

expertise she had gained through government service, teaching
courses in real property, land use, the rights of disabled persons, and
local and state government law. Her research interests were as broad
as her teaching skills, ranging from inquiries about discrimination
based on disability to the financing of highway improvements.
It quickly became apparent to her colleagues that Wegner was an
extremely hard worker and an energetic pursuer of her goals. Her
rise through the law school's faculty ranks was as rapid and impressive
as that of her predecessors. In 1984 she became an associate
professor with tenure, and in 1986 she commenced a two-year term
as Dean Ken Broun's associate dean. It was in this job that her
administrative skills became apparent. In July 1988 she was promoted
to full professor, and a year later she became dean. In eight years,
she had gone from being the faculty's newcomer to its leader.
Dean Wegner's dedication to her law school duties during this
period did not preclude her active participation in a variety of
activities in the community and the University. Most notably she
served for four years as a member of the Carrboro Board of
Aldermen, maintaining her lifelong interest in local government
affairs. As an elected town official, she concentrated her energies on
resolving interjurisdictional disputes over land use and watershed
management. On campus she chaired the University's Committee on
the Status of Women. Under her leadership the committee undertook
an extensive survey of women in the Division of Health Affairs and
drafted one of the University's first maternity-leave policies.
Upon embarking on her deanship in 1989, Dean Wegner stated
that her goals included working on solutions to the law school's space
problems, fostering more ambitious faculty research efforts, improving
the students' learning experience, and increasing alumni participation
in the ongoing life of the school.2 Ambitious goals in their own right,
they became all the more challenging due to serious financial
problems that the State of North Carolina encountered in the early
years of her deanship. The resulting fiscal constraints on the law
school demanded energetic leadership, determination, and creativity
TER
2. Judith Welch Wegner Is Picked to Lead School of Law, LAW ALUMNI

(UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Summer 1989, at 1.
NEWSLET-
[Vol. 73
in the dean's office-qualities Judith Wegner quickly showed she

possessed. In her able hands, the law school not only survived but
continued to move ahead on a variety of fronts.
CHALLENGES DURING DEAN WEGNER'S FIRST TERM
As the new dean, Judith Wegner pursued the goals she had
identified, as well as addressing the law school's other needs, with
impressive energy and enthusiasm. Her efforts in the early months of
her tenure were buoyed by the announcement of what was then the
largest gift in the history of the law school-a $1 million donation by
Reef C. Ivey II, a member of the class of 1968. This money was
earmarked for the creation of a distinguished professorship in
corporate or international law, a research professorship, and a visiting
professorship; the establishment of a teaching innovation fund; and
the initiation of a new need-based scholarship program.
While efforts to increase private fundraising by the law school
were off to a strong start, shortfalls in state revenues led to the
imposition of sudden and substantial budget cutbacks on all units of
the University system beginning in 1990.
Reduction of funds for
instructional and staff positions resulted in the loss of faculty and staff
slots for the law school; noninstructional faculty support funds were
also cut, leading to the permanent loss of state funds for the Albert
Coates Law Center. Law school faculty and staff received no salary
increases from the State for the 1991-92 school year and only token
increases for 1992-93. The law library was hit especially hard: it not
only suffered similar budget cuts, but even failed to receive funding
needed to keep pace with the high rate of inflation in the publishing
world Just months into Dean Wegner's first term, and for the next
several years, the law school confronted severe financial problems that
were not fully anticipated when she accepted the deanship.
The law school responded to this challenge in a variety of ways.
Belt-tightening measures included making do without previously
available services, reorganizing staff and resources with an eye to
maximum efficiency, and eliminating class sections or even entire
courses that had previously been taught. But the reduction in state
funds also led to an increased emphasis on private fundraising, under
the able leadership of Assistant Dean Todd Lindsley. The results of
3. Law School Receives $1 Million Gift, LAW ALUMNI NEWsLETrER (UNC Chapel
Hill School of Law) Summer 1990, at 1.
4. 1992-93 Self-Study Report (UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), at 6-8.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
these efforts are described in more detail later in this history,5 but
their success is illustrated by the fact that the law school surpassed its
original Bicentennial fundraising goal of $9 million more than a year
and a half prior to the conclusion of the University-wide campaign.6
Students also played an important role in addressing the law
school's financial needs. In the spring of 1991, the Student Bar
Association spearheaded a school-wide drive that raised over $7000
for the Law Library. Thereafter, several graduating classes pledged

funds for the library as part of their class gifts. During the 1993-94
academic year, the Student Bar Association actively supported a
proposal to raise annual student fees by $500 per law student to fund
critical law school needs not covered by state funds. The student
support proved a very valuable part of a successful law school effort
to gain approval of the fee increase from the Board of Trustees and
Board of Governors.7
Despite the demands of financial matters she faced during her
first term, Dean Wegner moved forward with planning for a much
needed addition to Van Hecke-Wettach Hall. Funded with private
law school money, architects drew up plans for a 53,000 square-foot
addition and the renovation of 15,000 feet of existing space.
University trustees approved the exterior design for the project in
1993. As of this writing, construction awaits the securing of necessary
funding, which Dean Wegner is rigorously pursuing from public
sources. Significant progress toward securing the necessary funding
came in the summer of 1994, when the legislature appropriated $1
million for completion of planning for the new addition.
Another challenge of Dean Wegner's first term was to devise an
administrative structure that made the best use of the available talent
within existing financial constraints. In all of her work, Dean Wegner
was ably assisted by her administrative assistant, Ginger Morgan, who
joined the law school staff in 1992. A number of administrative
positions were reorganized and new positions were created in an
effort to improve service and to meet increased demands on administrators and staff. The administration of the school's student-related
programs was reorganized by separating the admissions and student
5. See Todd T. Lindsley, The History of the UNC Law Alumni Associationand UNC
Law Foundation,73 N.C. L. REv. 942 (1995).
6. Bicentennial Goal Raisedto $400 Million, UNC-LAW ALUMNI NEWS (UNC School
of Law) Winter 1994, at 7.
7. See Law Students, UNC BoardApprove Fee Increase, UNC-LAW ALUMNI NEWS
(UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Winter 1994, at 10.
[Vol. 7:3
affairs functions. Elizabeth Furr continued as Assistant Dean for

Admissions and International Programs, and Winston Crisp filled the
new position of Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. The creation of
a second faculty-staffed associate dean position strengthened the
administration of academic programs. The previously existing
associate dean's position became that of Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Professor Burnele Powell, followed by Professor Lissa
Broome, filled this position. The new position of Associate Dean for
Faculty Affairs was created to provide additional leadership for
faculty development and research. This position was held successively
by faculty members William Turnier, John Conley, and Donald
Hornstein. Additional administrative support was also provided in
the area of the law school's external relations. These functions were
carried out not only by Assistant Dean for Development and Alumni
Affairs Todd Lindsley, but also by a Director of Alumni Affairs and
Annual Fund, a position first held by Mary Edgerton and then by
Peggy Myers; a Director of Public Information, Ellen Smith; and their
assistants, Stephanie Thurman and Helga Sonner.
FACULTY
During Dean Wegner's first term as dean, the size of the faculty
remained relatively stable. While eight new faculty members were
hired during the 1989-94 period, the school lost seven others due to
retirement or other causes. Those joining the faculty were John
Charles Boger, Jerry Markham, Molly McUsic, Michael Selmi,
Marilyn Yarbrough, Ruth McKinney, Melissa Saunders, and Associate
Director of the Law Library Thomas French. These new colleagues
brought with them impressive academic credentials, as well as
valuable experience in the practice of law. Two of the new faculty
members, Professors McUsic and Saunders, were former United
States Supreme Court law clerks. Professor Yarbrough came with
significant experience in academic administration, which the University quickly tapped. In 1994, Yarbrough became Associate Provost, a
post that required her to divide her time between the law school and
the Provost's office.
Despite the excitement over the school's ability to attract these
new, talented faculty members, the law school regretted the departure
of other cherished colleagues. In 1989 all mourned the untimely
death of Professor Nancy Rhoden, a gifted scholar and teacher, who
had been at the law school for only two years. A scholarship fund at
the law school was established in her memory.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Three of the law school's most beloved faculty members left the
teaching ranks due to the University's mandatory retirement policy.
Bill Murphy retired in 1990, at the end of his nineteenth year at the
law school. The winner of the McCall Teaching Award in 1977 and
1990, he was honored by the school with a special "Bill Murphy Day"
and the establishment of a William P. Murphy Distinguished Speaker
Program designed to bring to the school prominent authorities in the
areas of Professor Murphy's expertise: constitutional law, labor law,
employment discrimination, and dispute resolution. The following
year another McCall Award winner, Professor Ferebee Taylor,
retired. University Chancellor for eight years, he was a member of
the law school faculty for more than a decade. The creation of the
Nelson Ferebee Taylor Prize for Excellence in Corporate Law marked
his retirement. This award goes annually to the member of the
graduating class "who has sustained the strongest record of achievement in the area of corporate law."8 In 1992 Professor Dan Pollitt
retired after thirty-five years at the law school. To honor him,
students and alumni arranged a "roast" attended by numerous friends
and colleagues, including Chancellor Paul Hardin and basketball
Coach Dean Smith. In addition, the North Carolina Law Review
dedicated its September 1992 issue to Professor Pollitt, and a
fellowship was created in his honor to fund civil rights and civil
liberties work by law students. Fortunately for the law school, each
of these outstanding teachers continued to teach an occasional course
at the law school in retirement, thus permitting subsequent classes of
students to learn from them.
From 1989 to 1994, several faculty members were named to
distinguished professorships in recognition of their significant
accomplishments. In 1990 former dean Kenneth S. Broun, returning
to the law school from a two-year leave of absence in private practice,
was named to one of the two Henry P. Brandis, Jr., professorships.
In 1991 Charles Edward Daye was also named a Henry P. Brandis,
Jr., Professor. The same year the following distinguished professorships were awarded: Paul G. Haskell, William Rand Kenan, Jr.,
Professor; Thomas Lee Hazen, Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished
Professor; Arnold H. Loewy, Graham Kenan Professor; and William
J.Thrnier, Willie Person Mangum Professor. In 1992 John V. Orth
became a Graham Kenan Professor, which honor was replaced the
8. Professor Taylor Retires After 21 Years of Service, LAW ALUMNI NEWSLETTER
(UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Summer 1991, at 6.
[Vol. 73
following year when he was named William Rand Kenan, Jr.,

Professor. John Martin Conley was also named a William Rand
Kenan, Jr., Professor in 1993, and in the same year Joseph J. Kalo
became a Graham Kenan Professor and S. Elizabeth Gibson became
Burton Craige Professor. Reef C. Ivey II Research Professorships
were held first by John Conley and John Orth, and later by Donald
Thomas Hornstein and Lawrence Zelenak.
Just as in earlier decades, faculty members worked hard at
becoming effective, challenging teachers in the classroom. Some
introduced into their courses new ways of presenting material or

involving students more actively in the class discussion. Others
attempted to provide greater linkages between law school education
and the actual practice of law, while still others introduced methodologies and insights obtained from other academic disciplines. Clinical
and trial advocacy courses continued to enroll large numbers of
students, thereby providing practical skills training under the close
supervision of full-time and adjunct faculty members. As discussed
elsewhere in the chapter, the faculty adopted curricular changes
designed to increase the effectiveness of instruction, particularly in the
second and third years.
The graduating classes of 1990-94 recognized the following faculty
members for excellence in the classroom: Bill Murphy (1990),
Elizabeth Gibson (1991), Lissa Broome (1992), Rich Rosen (1993),
and Jack Boger (1994). Although only one faculty member was
selected to receive the McCall Teaching Award for Excellence each
year, third-year students nominated many other faculty members for
this award during these years in recognition of the strength of their
teaching skills. Evidence of the students' high regard for the quality
of instruction throughout the law school appeared in their responses
to a survey conducted in 1992 as part of the law school's self-study.
With over seventy-five percent of the student body responding,
approximately ninety percent of the students indicated that the quality
of instruction at the law school was good or excellent. 9
During Dean Wegner's first term, the law school increased its
efforts to provide institutional support for and encouragement of the
faculty's scholarship. A research and study assignment policy was
adopted, which allowed four to six faculty members each year to be
relieved of teaching duties for one semester in order to engage in
research and professional development activities. Summer research
9. 1992-93 Self-Study Report, (UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C), at App. 1-2.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
grant funds were also increased. The Associate Dlean for Faculty
Affairs organized faculty speaker and discussion series and assisted
individual faculty members in achieving their research goals.
During this period, faculty members produced an impressive
array of scholarly publications. Several wrote or co-authored new or
revised editions of legal casebooks, anthologies, treatises, or other
scholarly books. Virtually every member of the faculty published one
or more law review articles; among the distinguished journals in which
these articles appeared were the North Carolina Law Review, the
Columbia Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the Michigan Law
Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Southern
California Law Review, and the University of Illinois Law Review.
Several faculty members also produced significant professional
manuscripts for continuing education programs for lawyers or judges.
Besides engaging in valuable scholarship, faculty members also
provided service to the University, the profession, and the public in
ways too numerous to recount fully. Dean Wegner provided special
encouragement and support for the faculty's public service activities
through her own personal example of active involvement in professional and University affairs. Long active in the Association of
American Law Schools as a member of the Executive and Accreditation Committees, in 1994 Dean Wegner became president-elect
of the Association. She thus followed in the footsteps of former
Dean Maurice T. Van Hecke, who served as AALS president in 1956.
Closer to home, Dean Wegner continued to serve on numerous
campus-wide committees during her first term as dean. This
University service included chairing or co-chairing the Public Service
Roundtable, the Academic Affairs New Faculty Professional
Development Committee, and the Committee on Community and
Diversity, as well as serving as a member of the Provost Search
Committee.
Other faculty members also held significant positions in national
professional organizations. Charles Daye served from 1991-93 as
president of the Law School Admissions Council, and Ken Broun
served in 1991 as chair of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.
Professor Broun also served as a member of the Advisory Committee
on the Federal Rules of Evidence. Several members of the faculty,
including Laura Gasaway, Marilyn Yarbrough, Burnele Powell,
10. Dean Reappointed; Elected AALS President,UNC-LAW ALUMNI NEWS

School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Winter 1994, at 3.
(UNC
[Vol. 73
William Turnier, Ronald Link, and Lissa Broome, played active roles
on various American Bar Association committees.
Professor Jack Boger provided exceptional service to the public
through his key involvement with two important conferences
sponsored by the law school. In 1992 Boger spearheaded a panuniversity conference on the education of minority and disadvantaged
children in North Carolina. Collaborating with colleagues from the
UNC Schools of Education and Social Work and from North Carolina
Central University, Professor Boger brought together nationally
recognized scholars and a broad group of educators, parents, and
advocates interested in education policy reform in the state. The next
year Professor Boger and Dean Wegner, along with faculty members
in the UNC Department of City and Regional Planning, organized a
major symposium on "Race, Poverty, and the American City: The
Kerner Commission Revisited." This symposium allowed scholars in
various disciplines from throughout the University and nation to share
insights on critical urban policy issues. Papers presented at the
symposium later appeared in the North CarolinaLaw Review. 1
Many faculty members continued the fine tradition, which their
predecessors began, of playing active roles in the North Carolina Bar
Association or by serving in advisory positions to legislative committees or courts within the state. Two notable examples are Professor
Ken Broun's service as vice-president of the Bar Association and
Professor Bob Byrd's continued distinguished service on the North
Carolina General Statutes Commission. Professor Broun also
provided service to the local community as Mayor of Chapel Hill.
Law school faculty members continued to play important
leadership roles throughout the campus, as they chaired and sat upon
various elective and appointive University committees and task forces
and filled positions of leadership in University organizations. Three
faculty members and one administrator received University-wide
recognition of their significant contributions to the University. In
1992 Laura Gasaway, like Dean Wegner before her, received the
Mary Thrner Lane Award in recognition of her important contributions to women on campus, and in 1994 Dean Wegner herself was
named a finalist for the inaugural Cornelia Phillips Spencer Award,
which was established to recognize the woman who had made the
greatest contributions to the University in recent years. Director of
11. See Symposium, The Urban Crisis: The Kerner Commission Report Revisited, 71
N.C. L. REv. 1283 (1993).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Administration Kay Wijnberg, who served as the first chair of the

University's Employee Forum, was also named as a finalist for the
Spencer Award. In 1992 the University bestowed upon Esphur
Foster, the law school receptionist, the C. Knox Massey Award, which
recognizes employees who have given distinguished service to the
University. Professor Bob Byrd's many years of service to the
University's student judicial system were recognized in 1994 by the
establishment of a University award in his honor, the Robert G. Byrd
Award for Academic Integrity. This award will go annually to a
faculty or staff member who has worked to promote the ideal of
academic integrity.
Finally, several faculty members engaged in valuable service to
the public by performing important pro bono work. Among those
providing their legal services to indigent clients were Professors
Bennett, Bilionis, Boger, Broome, Broun, Corrado, Rosen, Larimer,
Nakell, Pollitt, and Robertson.
STUDENTS
During Dean Wegner's first term, the enrollment of the law

school remained relatively stable, even as the number of applicants,
following national trends, rose and then tapered off slightly.
Retaining 235 as a target figure for the entering class, the law school
during the 1989-93 period welcomed first-year classes ranging in size
from 223 to 253. The number of applications submitted to the school
during this period ranged from a high of 3419 in 1990 to a low of 3113
in 1993. Throughout this period, the quality of the incoming students
remained strong, with the median LSAT score being at approximately
the 90th percentile and the median undergraduate grade point
average hovering around 3.5.
The law school continued to seek a diverse student body.
Minority student presence increased from 13% of the 1989 entering
class to 16.8% of the class entering in 1993, and the percentage of
women in the entering class ranged from 41% to 47%. The law
school also continued to attract a number of older students, who were
turning to the study of law after pursuing other careers. Interest in
the law school by those outside the state remained high, although the
school continued the tradition of limiting nonresident enrollment to
approximately a quarter of the incoming class.
Under Dean Wegner's leadership, the law school strengthened its
efforts to recruit excellent students. The Chancellors Scholars
program, initiated in 1988, continued to attract to the school
applicants who were being actively recruited by several of the top law
[Vol. 73
schools in the country. Minority Law Day and the High School
Symposium, both held annually, attracted large numbers of potential
law students and encouraged them to consider law as a career and the
study of law at this school in particular. Assistant Dean for Admissions Elizabeth Furr visited numerous undergraduate campuses and
large recruitment forums in order to spread the word about the
school. She took with her copies of a new "viewbook," attractively
designed to present information about the school's academic program,
its community, and the flavor of life for students here. In various of
these recruitment efforts, the law school staff was ably assisted by
enthusiastic students and alumni.
As in past years students at the School of Law were engaged in
a wide variety of activities during the 1989-94 period. Whether
sponsoring speakers and symposiums for the benefit of the entire
community or providing programming and support for law students
with particular interests or needs, student organizations helped to
enrich life at the law school. The Student Bar Association remained
in the forefront of student activities, providing oversight and funding
of law school organizations, as well as providing a voice for student
opinions on issues as diverse as the need for increased financial
support for the school and the placement in the building of a
controversial Pepsi machine. Presidents of the Student Bar Association during this period were Jonathan Williams (1989-90), Lauren
Burnham (1990-91), Eric Levinson (1991-92), Timothy Woodland
(1992-93), Paul Koutouzakis (1993-94), and Corinne Harrah (1994-95).
A new Dean's Advisory Committee was formed to increase communication between Dean Wegner and student leaders.
12
As other chapters describe, the North Carolina Law Review
and the North CarolinaJournalof InternationalLaw and Commercial
Regulation,13 both long-standing journals, continued to provide
excellent opportunities for students to increase their analytical,
research, and writing skills, while at the same time providing useful
and provocative legal commentary for both practitioners and scholars.
The Holderness Moot Court was especially successful during this
period. In the 1989-90 academic year, the UNC National Team
advanced to the national competition in New York City and placed
fifth in the nation, while the Jessup Cup team won its regionals and
12. See Martin M. Brinkley, The North Carolina Law Review at Threescoreand Ten,
73 N.C. L. REV. 775 (1985).
13. See Jerry W. Markham, The North Carolina Journal of International Law and
Commercial Regulation and International Course Offerings, 73 N.C. L. REV. 807 (1995).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
also advanced to the national round of this international law

competition. The following year the National Team also advanced to
the national finals in New York, this time placing second out of all
250 teams that participated in some phase of the competition. Team
member Seth Cohen ('91) was named runner-up for best oralist in the
competition. During the 1990-91, 1991-92, and 1992-93 school years,
the school's Client Counseling Team won its regional competition and
advanced to the national competition.
The early 1990s saw law students develop an increased interest
in public service activities. One group, working to support the Public
Interest Law Fellowships, was especially creative in its efforts to raise
funds to support public service summer grants for students. For
several years it held an auction of faculty and staff donations,
producing several thousand dollars to assist students in low or nonpaying summer public interest jobs. A number of new student
organizations were formed during this period, and several of them
provided additional opportunities for law students to help persons
outside the law school. The new student organizations included the
Wills Assistance and Referral Project, the Carolina AIDS Wills
Project, the Death Penalty Project, the UNC Trial Lawyer's Academy,
the International Law Club, and the Lambda Law Students Association.
Several graduating students were honored each spring by
inclusion in the James E. and Carolyn B. Davis Society. This high
honor was granted in recognition of the exemplary character of the
new members and their outstanding contributions to the school. In
addition, the School of Law continued to recognize high academic
achievement by students. Each year the top ten percent of each
graduating class was inducted into the Order of the CoiL The faculty
on occasion recognized truly superior academic performance by
awarding the J.D. degree with highest honors. Those receiving their
degree with highest honors were Steven Bruce Epstein and Dinita
LeAnne James (1990), Seth Ray Cohen (1991), Elizabeth Eggleston
Drigotas and Paul Howard Schwartz (1992), and Amy K. Johnson
(1994).
CURRICULUM
During Dean Wegner's first term, the faculty engaged in a twoyear review of the curriculum, which resulted in the adoption of
several changes designed to strengthen the upper-division curriculum
and the teaching of research and writing. Beginning with the 1992-93
academic year, all second-year students were required to take one
[Vol. 73
course in a small-section format. Limited to an enrollment of no

more than 25 students, these core and elective courses were designed
to keep second-year students actively engaged in their legal education
and to provide additional training and feedback in legal writing. An
essential component of each of these courses was a series of writing
assignments relating to the course content.
The faculty also implemented changes in the professional
responsibility requirement. The course was moved from the third to
the second year in order to provide students with insights into the
ethical and professional obligations of lawyers earlier in their studies.
In order to facilitate greater class discussion and student-faculty
interaction, the faculty set a class enrollment goal for each professional responsibility course at 35. Faculty were also encouraged to
develop alternatives to the traditional professional responsibility
course. Among the new professional responsibility offerings were
courses in Professionalism and Morality, Professional Responsibility
of the Litigator, and Ethics in Criminal Practice.
In order to facilitate the offering of second-year small section
courses, the faculty voted to eliminate the second semester of the
first-year small section program. As a result, two or three fall small
sections of a first-year course were combined into one large section
in the spring semester. The first-year research and writing program
also underwent changes. Placed under the administrative control of
the director of research and writing, Ruth McKinney, the fall portion
of the course was taught by the director and three adjunct instructors
and several library staff members. This eliminated involvement of the
small-section faculty in the teaching of the research and writing
course.
Recognizing the increasing international nature of the practice of

law, the school under Dean Wegner's leadership expanded its course
offerings in the international area. In addition to the traditional
courses in international and comparative law, the school offered
courses in international business transactions, international litigation,
international human rights, Russian law, and a seminar on the
European Economic Community. The faculty also initiated an
exchange program with the Universite Jean Moulin-Lyon III, a law
school in Lyon, France. Under the program students and faculty of
the two schools were able to visit at the other school for study and
teaching. Professors Jerry Markham and Joe Kalo visited at Lyon in
the spring of 1994. The school also created ties with law schools in
other countries, including the Netherlands, England, Costa Rica,
Eritrea, and the former Soviet Union.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
The faculty continued to offer new c6urses' throughout the

curriculum. Additional offerings in existing subject areas included
advanced family law, advanced bankruptcy, advanced environmental
law, advanced legal research, and federal civil rights litigation. New
subject matters added to the curriculum included immigration law,
judging, sports law, state constitutional law, and national security law.
The faculty also added courses in innovative areas, such as law and
literature, oral history of lawyers and judges, race and gender, and
race and poverty.
PLACEMENT
By the time Dean Wegner commenced her deanship, the days in
which placement services for students were handled by the dean's
office on a part-time basis were long gone. By the early 1990s, the
Office of Career Development and Services ("CD&S"), headed by
Amanda Harding, operated with a staff of three full-time employees,
one part-time employee, several student assistants, and many student
volunteers. Because students now faced a highly competitive job
market, substantial debt burdens, and increasing tensions between the
demands of law practice and the maintenance of a satisfactory
personal life, CD&S continued to expand the scope of services it
provided. Besides the traditional job of putting students in touch with
potential employers of summer clerks and recent graduates, CD&S
provided employment services and advice for alumni seeking new
positions, provided employment-related and personal counseling,
published a biweekly employment bulletin advertising positions for
recent graduates and experienced lawyers, and offered thirty to forty
workshops each year on areas of traditional and nontraditional
practice, skills training, and quality of life issues.
In 1990 major renovations to the ground floor of Van HeckeWettach Hall enabled CD&S to move into expanded quarters. The
renovated space, though still not fully adequate, provided additional
interview rooms, space for the office's resource library, and private
space for confidential counseling sessions.
With the downturn in the economy in the early 1990s came a
tighter job market for lawyers. Law students felt the pressure acutely.
A look at the hiring statistics for the classes of 1990-93 shows that the
students' concerns were not unfounded. Six months after graduation,
91% of the class of 1990 was either employed or in graduate school.
For the class of 1991 this figure was 89%. Then for the class of 1992
it dropped to 86%, and for the class of 1993 it was 78%. For several
years there was a substantial drop in the percentage of graduating
[Vol. 73
students going into private practice:

1990-70%; 1991-65%;
1992-54%. For the class of 1993, however, the figure was back up
to 75%. As the job market tightened up, more students chose to
remain in North Carolina. While only 50% of the class of 1990
remained in the state, 66% of the class of 1992 did so. Starting
salaries also fell during this period. The median starting salary for the
class of 1990 was $40,000; for the class of 1991 it was $36,000, and by
1992 it was $32,000, perhaps reflecting the decline in the percentages
of students going into private practice and leaving the state. For the
class of 1993, however, the median starting salary was back up to
$40,000.
During this period employment was naturally at the forefront of
students' minds while they were in law school. CD&S faced the
challenges that the job market presented by encouraging students to
be more creative in their employment searches, to take greater
initiative in seeking employment opportunities, and to consider a
wider range of employment possibilities. Bolstering students'
confidence, providing them with information, and equipping them
with the necessary employment-seeking skills, Amanda Harding and
her staff enabled the overwhelming majority of each graduating class
to find satisfying legal employment.
ALUMNI ACTIVITIES
Under Dean Wegner's leadership the School of Law strengthened

the ties with its almost 7000 alumni by improving communications
with them, sponsoring more alumni gatherings, and encouraging their
more active involvement with the school. An executive committee of
the Law Alumni Association was also created. This group worked
closely with the dean, providing advice in such areas as special
projects, continuing legal education, and alumni outreach.
Alumni were involved with the school in a variety of paid and
volunteer capacities. Some participated in the Alumni Admissions
Network, which was established to encourage accepted students to
enroll at the law school. Others served as mentors for current
students or volunteered to serve as judges in the school's moot court
competitions. Still other alumni were employed as adjunct instructors
in various courses including trial advocacy, research and writing, and
seminars drawing on their special expertise. The school established
an additional opportunity for student-alumni contact in the fall of
1993 when it hosted the initial Professionalism Roundtable. Funded
by a generous gift from Raymond Witt ('39), this dinner brought
together thirty-two second- and third-year students and an equal
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
number of alumni for discussion of a hypothetical practice situation

requiring ethical decision-making and sound judgment. Both students
and alumni found it to be a challenging and thought-provoking
evening. 4
Alumni not living in proximity to Chapel Hill maintained ties
with the school by attending alumni events in their area, by socializing
with other alumni and law school representatives at school-sponsored
events at the North Carolina Bar Association or the North Carolina
Academy of Trial Lawyers annual meetings, or by returning to the

school for Law Alumni Weekends in the fall. The Law Alumni
Weekend also provided the occasion for class reunions for those
returning forty, twenty-five, ten, or five years after graduation.
Dean Wegner had the privilege of presenting two alumni with
Alumni Leadership Awards during her first term. Reef C. Ivey, II
('68) and Marion A. Cowell, Jr., ('64) were honored for their
outstanding volunteer and philanthropic leadership at the law school.
Two other alumni, Kathrine R. Everett ('20) and William B. Aycock
('48), were honored in 1990 with the presentation of Lifetime
Achievement Awards in recognition of their distinguished careers in
the law.
As previously noted, restrictions on state funding during Dean
Wegner's first term led to an increased emphasis on private
fundraising. As part of the University's Bicentennial Campaign, the
law school by the middle of 1994 had surpassed its original fundraising
goal of $9 million and was well on its way toward meeting its
increased goal of $12 million. The largest gift received during the
campaign, and the largest in the school's history, was a bequest from
Kathrine Everett, J.D. 1920, and the UNC law library was renamed
in her honor. As a result of these and other generous contributions
by alumni and friends over the years, the law school's endowment had
grown to a value of just over $13 million by 1994. Annual giving also
continued to grow. During the 1993-94 fiscal year, alumni, -parents,
and friends contributed $1.4 million, an increase of 15% over the
previous record-setting year. Approximately 30% of the school's
alumni participated.
Another way in which the law school continued to reach out to
alumni, as well as to other practicing attorneys in North Carolina, was
its sponsorship of continuing legal education programs. The school
14. Generous Gift Funds Professionalism Dinner, UNC-LAW ALUMNI NEWS (UNC
School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Winter 1994, at 2.
[Vol. 73
annually offered its well-established programs in evidence, tax, trial

advocacy, depositions practice, and negotiation, the latter three being
conducted as part of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. It also
began two new continuing legal education programs during Dean
Wegner's first term. The Festival of Legal Learning, a means of
raising funds for the library, offered a selection of programs on a wide
range of legal topics presented by some forty members of the faculty
and librarians of the law school and the Institute of Government.
Another new CLE offering during this period was the Dan K. Moore
Program in Ethics, which, starting in 1991, became an annual offering
as part of the Law Alumni Weekend. This program enabled legal
scholars, judges, and practitioners to come together to consider varied
topics involving the ethics of legal practice. The School of Law also
sponsored one-time programs on environmental law, white collar
crime, the North Carolina Constitution, and other current issues.
CONCLUSION
As Dean Wegner began her second term on July 1, 1994, the law
school community felt a sense of optimism as it looked toward the
future. With the upturn in the North Carolina economy and resulting
increase in state revenues, the school seemed to be emerging from the
most severe financial conditions of the previous few years. More
generous state funding of the University was expected, although the
continued importance of private support was understood. Fortunately, the School of Law's private fundraising efforts were not only
strong, but growing.
Dean Wegner's first term brought to a close the first 150 years of
the UNC School of Law-a century and a half of progress and
accomplishment. With a strong and stable faculty and staff, talented
students, and loyal alumni supporting her, Dean Wegner's second
term was sure to establish a successful beginning of the next 150
years.
III. THE EVOLUTION OF THE

MODERN LAW SCHOOL: CRUCIAL TRENDS
THAT BRIDGE PAST AND FUTURE
People
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
AND OTHER MINORITY STUDENTS AND ALUMNI
CHARLES E. DAYE
Charles E. Daye was the first African-American to join

the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of
Law. He was born on May 4, 1944, in Durham, North
Carolina. He attended public schools in Durham County,
and subsequently received a B.A. magna cum laude from
North Carolina Central University, where he was a leader in
student government. After college, he enrolled in Columbia
University School of Law, where he was a HarlanFiske Stone
Scholar. He received his J.D. degree cum laude in 1969,
clerked for Judge Harry Phillips on the United States Court
of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit,and practiced law with firms
in New York City and Washington, D.C.
Daye joined the law faculty at UNC in 1972. In 1981, he
became dean of the the North Carolina Central University
School of Law. He returnedto the UNC law faculty in 1985
and was named Henry Brandis Distinguished Professor in
Daye teaches torts, housing and community

1991.
development, and administrativeadvocacy, and has authored
major books and articles in these fields. He has been active
in professional,pro bono, and civil activities. He served as
Presidentof the Law School Admission Councilfrom 1991 to
1993, a member of the American Bar Association's
Commission on Minoritiesin the Profession, and chairof the
Association of American Law School's Committee on
Academic Freedom and Tenure. He has served as Executive
Secretaryof the North CarolinaAssociationof Black Lawyers
since 1979. Daye has been a key participant in efforts to
ensure that both the UNC School of Law and national legal
education serve a diverse community, including ethnic and
racial minorities.
676
[Vol. 73
INTRODUCTION
From the beginning of their association with the University of

North Carolina School of Law, minority students1 have understood
that their enrollment in the law school of the state's oldest, and in
many ways most prestigious, university campus required a maximum
commitment to academic success because their performance might be
used to determine the opportunities available to minority students
who followed them. Because of that commitment, minority students
have succeeded academically while enrolled in the law school and
professionally after graduation.'
Some minority students excelled spectacularly in the law school:
two served as editor-in-chief of the North CarolinaLaw Review; one
was editor-in-chief and two were editors of the North Carolina
Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation; and two
served as Chief Justice of the Holderness Moot Court Bench.3
Virtually from the beginning, minority students also have served the
law school in many capacities, including recruiting other minority
students and organizing academic support systems. They have
excelled in many co-curricular endeavors, such as the Student Bar Association-including election as President-and a variety of other
student organizations.
The performance of minority students after graduation, like that
of many nonminority students, has been a credit to the law school and
1. The ethnic-minority students discussed in this chapter are members of minority
groups that historically were discriminated against or are currently underrepresented in
legal education and in the legal profession. For purposes of the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, minorities that have been tracked in University
records are those who identify themselves as Native American, Asian/Pacific, black or
African-American (designations used interchangably), and Hispanic.
As can be expected, most minority students over the years have been AfricanAmerican. Because of this fact, in this chapter when a minority student or graduate
named is African-American, the name will be stated without ethnic designation. In order
to ensure that it is clear to readers that members of all minority groups have played
significant roles in the story of, and made achievements that bring credit to, the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, when a member of a minority group other than AfricanAmerican is identified by name, that person's ethnic group will be identified.
2. From time to time, one or more minority students has failed to graduate or upon
graduating has failed to pass the bar exam. But that group has been a very small
proportion of the students who enrolled. Some students graduated or passed the bar only
after the mightiest, most sustained struggle. But considering the historically small numbers
and the challenges many faced, that so many did succeed and that so few did not is a point
worthy of focus and emphasis.
3. These students are specifically discussed in this chapter. See infra notes 33-35, 42
and accompanying text.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
vindicated the judgments of those who admitted them. As they had

done while in school, many minority graduates continued making
breakthrough achievements after graduation. Beginning with the very
first graduates, minority alumni have made contributions in a wide
range of legal endeavors: they have served as judges, administrative
agency commissioners, federal prosecutors, assistant public defenders,
state district attorneys and assistant district attorneys, private
practitioners, assistant state attorney generals, United States
Department of Justice lawyers, law school teachers, members of the
state legislature, high-level governmental officials, law clerks to a
United States Supreme Court Justice, federal appeals and local judges,
and to justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court, lawyers
representing the poor with legal services and public interest legal
entities, staff members of the state legislative research service,
assistant city attorneys, and in virtually every other walk of professional life. Yet African-American lawyers in particular, and other
minority lawyers as well, have not been able to make substantial
inroads in two important areas in North Carolina: in white law firms
and in corporations as corporate attorneys. It cannot be a matter of
qualification because they have been offered and have taken positions
in major law firms and in corporations outside of North Carolina.
These places outside of North Carolina include Birmingham,
Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia; New York, New York; the District of
Columbia; Los Angeles, California; Seattle, Washington; Minneapolis,
Minnesota; Baltimore, Maryland, and other states near and far.
But the full story begins before the first black students enrolled
in the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
AN INAUSPICIOUS BEGINNING: A DIFFERENCE IN CIRCUMSTANCE
BUT NOT IN PRINCIPLE
The University of North Carolina School of Law did not exist
apart from the times in which it found itself 4 For the first 106 years
after a law professor was appointed at the University of North
Carolina,' the University of North Carolina School of Law, like those
in other southern states at the time, did not admit black students, and
4. Many of the facts in this brief historical background stated in this and the next
paragraph are related by the court in McKissick v. Carmichael, 187 F.2d 949 (4th Cir.),
cert. denied, 341 U.S. 951 (1951).
5. William Home Battle was appointed professor of law in 1845. Albert Coates, The
Story of the Law School of the University of North Carolina,47 N.C. L. RaV., Oct. 1968
Special Issue, at 1, 13.
678
[Vol. 73
for all that the record shows, also did not admit members of any other
minority groups.
But the leaders could not shield the state or the University from
the quest by African-Americans to end state-imposed exclusion from
public educational opportunities. In North Carolina, as they did
nationally, the strategists at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) made their first thrust for black
uplift in an ultimately futile attempt to implement the "separate but
equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson.6 If there was no law school
for minorities at all, even the, doctrine of Plessy could be offended.
Thus, the NAACP filed suit against the State of Missouri, which had
no publicly funded law school that would admit blacks. The United
States Supreme Court's 1938 decision in Missouri ex reL Gaines v.
Canada' vindicated this strategy when the Court ordered the
admission of Lloyd Gaines, an African-American, to the law school
of the University of Missouri. In 1939, undoubtedly in anticipation of
a Gaines-basedsuit, educational leaders in North Carolina established
a law school as part of what was then known as the North Carolina
College for Negroes at Durham. That law school was created for
black students in an unabashed attempt to avoid the admission of
blacks to the law school at Chapel Hill. Apparently the state's
educational leaders thought that the basis for the United States
Supreme Court's decision in Gaines turned on the complete absence
of a law school that admitted blacks in Missouri.

The NAACP and its strategists, for the time being, were still
attempting to implement the "equal" educational opportunity part of
the "separate but equal" theorem of Plessy in this pre-Brown v.
Board of Education9 era.
The NAACP supported additional
0 challenging the equality of the legal
litigation in Sweatt v. Painter,"
education available to blacks in Texas, which had founded a law
school for blacks and still excluded blacks from the law school at the
6. 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

7. 305 U.S. 337 (1938). Counsel for the Petitioner were Charles H. Houston and
Sidney R. Redmond, with Leon A. Ransom on the brief.
8. See Maurice T. Van Hecke, Racial Desegregationin the Law Schools, 9 J. LEGAL
EDUc. 283,286 (1956) (reprint of former UNC law school Dean Van Hecke's Presidential
Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools,
Chicago, Ill., December 29, 1956.) The school's name was officially changed to the North
Carolina College at Durham in 1947.
9. 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
10. 210 S.W.2d 442 (Tex. 1948), rev'd, 339 U.S. 629 (1950). Counsel for the plaintiffs
were Thurgood Marshall and W. J. Durham.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
University of Texas. That case, too, ended up in the United States

Supreme Court." In Sweatt, on June 5, 1950, the Court held that the
legal education at a start-up, makeshift state law school provided by
Texas to Heman Marion Sweatt was not "substantially equal to that
which he would receive if admitted to the University of Texas Law
School," and ordered his admission to the University of Texas.
Therefore, Sweatt became the basis for the lawsuit brought by
Floyd B. McKissick and other black students13 challenging the
inequality of the education available at the North Carolina College

Law School when compared to the education they could get at the
law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Following a trial in the United States District Court for the
Middle District of North Carolina, 4 Judge Hayes dismissed the
complaint on the grounds that the legal education the state offered
blacks at North Carolina College was "substantially equivalent" to
that which it offered to whites at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill.'5 He did so, in spite of the fact that Dean Henry P.
Brandis of the law school at Chapel Hill was called as a witness and
steadfastly refused to offer an opinion that would support a conclusion that an education at the College's law school was "substantially
equivalent" to one at the University. 6 His colleagues on the faculty
were not surprised. As they well knew, Dean Brandis understood and
candidly acknowledged that the Chapel Hill law school had had the
advantage of a long and illustrious headstart that could not be
reckoned merely by comparing quantifiable items, such as physical
space, book count in the library, and the like. Dean Brandis knew
that intangible advantages made a difference, and he would not be
pressured into testifying otherwise. Such was his character.'
11. Sweatt v. Painter, 338 U.S. 865 (1949) (granting certiorari).
12. Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, 634 (1950).

13. The lawsuit was filed in 1950 by Harold Epps and Robert Glass. When Epps
graduated from the North Carolina College School of Law and it was determined that
Glass was not a legal resident of North Carolina, McKissick, Sol Revis, James L. Lassiter,
and J. Kenneth Lee replaced them as plaintiffs. See ALBERT COATES & GLADYS HALL
COATES, THE STORY OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT IN THE UNIv EasrrY OF NORTH
CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL 269-71 (1985).
14. Epps v. Carmichael, 93 F. Supp. 327 (M.D.N.C. 1950), rev'd sub nom, McKissick
v. Carmichael, 187 F.2d 949 (4th Cir.), cert denied, 341 U.S. 951 (1951).
15. Coates, supra note 5, at 87.
16. Id.
17. Id. He had, as one reporter has described it, "a precise conscience." Id.
[Vol. 73
In its decision in McKissick v. Carmichael,8 on March 15, 1951,

less than one year after Sweatt, the United States Court of Appeals
for the Fourth Circuit recited comparison factors that showed a
disparity between the institutions. Tangible factors that the court
cited as making legal education at the start-up law school not
"substantially equivalent" included less funding, a very small number
of faculty members with limited experience and lower compensation
carrying a heavier teaching load, the lack of a law review, the absence
of national accreditation, and the limited number of courses offered
at the College's law school." The court's opinion cited important
intangible factors, undoubtedly supported by Dean Brandis's
testimony, that favored the education offered at the University's law
school.2" These intangibles at the University's law school included
the opportunity to be exposed to a wider degree of "competition of
minds of diverse types [through which] his mental processes will be
stimulated and his outlook broadened."'" Also of concern was the
value of forming acquaintances with a larger number of persons who
would later occupy positions of influence and power in the profession
and in the public life of the state.' Accordingly, the Fourth Circuit
reversed the district court's finding of substantial equivalence.'
Judge Morris A. Soper's opinion found that, despite the effort put
forth by the state, the "situation differs in circumstance but not in
2'
principle" from the decision in Sweatt v. Painter.
The Fourth
Circuit remanded the case to the district court for entry of an
18. McKissick v. Carmichael, 187 F.2d 949 (4th Cir.), cert. denied,341 U.S. 951 (1951).
Counsel for the plaintiffs were Thurgood Marshall and Robert L. Carter, with Conrad 0.
Pearson of Durham, N.C. on the brief.
19. Id. at 951-52.
20. Id. at 952-53.
21. Id. at 952.
22. Id.
23. Id. at 954.
24. Id.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
injunction prohibiting the University and the law school from denying
admission to the plaintiffsO5
FIRST FIVE
THE SUMMER OF 1951-THE DOOR OPENERS: 2THE
6
AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENTS
Relief in McKissick came in time for Floyd McKissick and four
other African-Americans to enroll in the law school's summer session
for 1951. These five men thus became the first African-Americans to
attend the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. McKissick enrolled in the summer session and took one course,
but he had already received his LL.B. degree from the North Carolina
College School of Law. It was at the very least ironic that he was the
named plaintiff in the door-opening litigation, but did not receive a
law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Harvey Beech, J. Kenneth Lee, and James Robert Walker, Jr.,
concluded their third year of law school at the University and were
each awarded the LL.B. degree in 1952, thus becoming the first three
African-Americans to earn law degrees at the University of North
Carolina.27 A fifth enrollee in the 1951 summer session, James L.
Lassiter, later earned his degree at another institution.
McKissick went on to become a major national civil rights
figure.' He was a signal player in the civil rights struggles during
the 1950s and 1960s in Durham, in North Carolina, and throughout
the nation.
McKissick represented civil-rights demonstrators,
organized anti-segregation strategies, filed lawsuits, made important
educational and motivational speeches, and inspired many in his
25. Id.
26. The early records of minority students had to be reconstructed from the memories
of principals involved at the time who are still alive. It is recalled by one of them that
following the McKissick decision it was decided by Dean Brandis and others that academic
records would not be kept by race. Thus, the official records cannot be consulted with
confidence to verify the race of the students enrolled prior to the mid-1960s when records
first officially included race, as then required for statistical purposes by the Federal
Government. Nevertheless, it is believed that the reconstruction in this chapter is

substantially accurate.
27. Beech and Lee earned their degrees at the end of the spring term and the records
list their date of degree as June 1952. Walker's degree date is listed as August 1952. Thus,
the inference is that he completed his work at the end of the summer session in 1952.
28. Much of this historical sketch on Floyd B. McKissick is excerpted, with permission,
from North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers, 2 CHRONICLE OF BLACK LAWYERS
IN NORTH CAROLINA 13-14 (Brenda M. Foreman & Victor J. Boone, eds. 1984)
[hereinafter
CHRONICLE].
[Vol. 73
children's generation. 9 McKissick later became the National

Director of the Congress of Racial Equality in 1966. His book, Three
Fifths of a Man, sets forth McKissick's ideal of political and economic
power for African-Americans. He was the founder of the pioneering
freestanding new town concept he called Soul City in rural northeastern North Carolina. The project ultimately did not flourish as a
new city, but was instrumental in getting a regional water supply, an
advanced medical facility, and other projects underway in northeastern North Carolina that have continued. In 1979 McKissick
became an ordained Baptist minister. He died in 1991.
Harvey Beech became a successful private practitioner in Kinston
and other parts of eastern North Carolina. By personal and professional reputation he is regarded as an outstanding citizen and lawyer.
He is now retired.
J. Kenneth Lee opened a law practice in Greensboro, North
Carolina. He handled numerous civil rights cases, and it is reported that at one time he had an active "sit-in" demonstrator case load
numbering over 1700 cases. Working with the NAACP, he was cocounsel in the first lawsuit brought in North Carolina challenging
segregation in public schools. Not only was his law practice successful, but he also was a pioneer in business. He was a founder of
American Federal Savings and Loan Association and of the Vanguard
Investment Company. He was the first African-American appointed
to the State Banking Commission. Like his classmates, he too is
highly regarded as an outstanding citizen and lawyer by all who know
him.
James R. Walker, Jr., prior to enrolling in the UNC School of
Law, attended North Carolina College Law School for the 1947-48
and the 1950-51 academic years. He attended some classes at Boston
University School of Law during the 1950-51 time period. After
receiving his degree in August 1952 from the School of Law and his
admission to the North Carolina Bar in 1953, Walker moved to the
eastern part of the State. In 1988 he was still active, serving as
Executive Director of the United Voters League of Halifax County.
He also had become a minister by that time.
29. Indeed, the first time I considered becoming a lawyer was in 1958, when I was in
the eighth grade, following a speech by Floyd McKissick to the Parents and Teachers
Association of what was then Pearsontown School No. 2. On the night of McKissick's
speech, I decided to become a lawyer and, for better or worse, never considered any other
career.
30. Much of this historical sketch on J. Kenneth Lee is excerpted, with permission,
from Chronicle, supra note 28, at 7-8.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Upon graduation from another law school, James L. Lassiter

practiced briefly in Durham. Later, in 1969, he was the first AfricanAmerican to be a field agent for the United States Department of
Commerce, where his work consisted of encouraging and assisting the
development of minority business enterprises. In 1972 he became
Equal Opportunity Officer in the Regional Office of the United States
Following
Department of Housing and Urban Development.
retirement from the latter position, he went into private practice in
Greensboro, North Carolina.
THE EARLY PIONEERS: THE REMAINDER OF THE 1950s
For the remainder of the decade of the 1950s, four AfricanAmerican students followed the door openers. First, Major S. High,
who enrolled in the fall term of 1952, earned his LL.B degree in 1953.
High, like the other door openers, was a transfer student from the
North Carolina College Law School who concluded his third year of
law study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. High
practiced law in Greensboro, North Carolina. At various times he
was in practice with J. Kenneth Lee and Alvis A. Lee in a firm known
as Lee, High, Taylor, Dansby & Stanback.
Romallus 0. Murphy was the next African-American to enroll
and graduate. He transferred from Howard University Law School,

entered in the fall of 1954, and received his degree two years later, in
the spring of 1956. He recalls the period of his enrollment as "a
really interesting time" and notes that some of his white classmates
attempted to shield him from the "indignities" that had been visited
upon some of the minority students who attended the law school
earlier. He has been a major figure in civil rights litigation and has
served as General Counsel to the North Carolina NAACP.
George R. Greene was the first black student to enter as a firstyear student and to proceed to graduation. Greene enrolled in the
fall of 1953. After taking a year off, he returned and was awarded his
LL.B. degree in 1957. Greene, who started a practice in Raleigh,
North Carolina, would go on to a distinguished career, first as a
district court judge in Wake County and later as a superior court
judge in the Tenth Judicial District, a position he currently holds.
Henry E. Frye was the first African-American to enter the School
of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and finish
in the standard three-year period. He entered in the fall of 1956 and
graduated in June 1959. His career has been a particularly distinguished one, with a number of firsts to his credit:- first AfricanAmerican to be a member of the North Carolina Law Review; first
[Vol. 73
African-American to be appointed an Assistant United States

Attorney in North Carolina; first African-American in the twentieth
century to be a member of the North Carolina General Assembly;
and first (and only) African-American justice of the North Carolina
Supreme Court, appointed in 1983 to fill an unexpired term. Justice
Frye was elected to a full term in 1984 and remains in office today.
THE MINIMALIST PERIOD-1960-69-AND THE SECOND WAVE OF
PIONEERS
The number of minority students who earned degrees from the
School of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
remained small throughout the 1960s. From 1960 to 1970, only eight
degrees were awarded to African-Americans." Undoubtedly this
group was no less determined, well-motivated, and challenged than
the door openers and the early pioneers had been to enroll in the law
school of the state's flagship public university.
Calvin L. Brown enrolled in the fall of 1958 and graduated in
June 1961. He began a private practice in Charlotte, North Carolina.
During the early years of practice, in particular, he noted that the
black lawyers, whether practicing together or not, all supported one
another and helped in each other's cases, especially civil rights
cases-which were then a natural part of all black lawyers' practices.
He is still engaged in the active practice of law today and concentrates
on a wide variety of civil matters. He recalls that when one or two
black students in the dining hall would sit at a table designed for ten,
any white students already seated at that table would ceremoniously
leave. While there was "some hostility" and virtually no social
interactions, he points out that some of the white students became his
close friends and remain so more than thirty years later.
Sylvia X. Allen also enrolled in the law school in 1958.32 She
started law school shortly after the birth of her sixth child and
commuted from Fayetteville contrary to the advice of Dean Brandis,
She has said: "Law school was something I wanted; but taking care
of my children was something I had to do." She drove from
Fayetteville each day, leaving home at 5:30 A.M. to meet 8:00 A.M.
31. No degrees were awarded to minorities in 1960, 1965, 1966, 1969. The eight
degrees were awarded to African-Americans as follows: 1961-1; 1962-4; 1963-1;
1964-1; 1967-1.
32. Much of this historical sketch on Sylvia X. Allen is excerpted, with permission,
from NORTH CAROLINA ASSOCIATION OF BLACK LAWYERS, 3 CHRONICLE
LAWYERS IN NORTH CAROLINA, (Robin N. Michael et al. eds. 1990).
OF BLACK
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
classes. Serious injuries she sustained in an automobile accident

delayed her graduation a year until the spring of 1962. Her life, like
that of many of the pioneers, is filled with firsts: She was the first
African-American female graduate of the law school; first AfricanAmerican female practitioner in the Fayetteville/Cumberland County
area, where she was in private practice until she was appointed
Assistant District Attorney; and first woman and first AfricanAmerican to become an Assistant District Attorney in North
Carolina. She has been and remains an activist for causes in her
home area including fair housing, improved human services, relief
from homelessness and poverty, and is involved in a broad range of
civic affairs.
Julius LeVonne Chambers was also a member of the graduating
class of 1962. He distinguished himself by ranking at the top of his
class and being elected editor-in-chief of the North Carolina Law
Review; he was, of course, the first African-American to hold that
position.33 After earning an LL.M. at Columbia University, Chambers became an NAACP cooperating attorney handling civil rights
cases in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama. Among the
most significant and well-known cases he litigated are Swann v.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education' (approving school
busing as a remedy for school segregation) and Griggs v. Duke Power
Co. " (approving a disparate-impact methodology as proof of
employment discrimination). He served as a member of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors and eventually resigned in
a policy dispute over the direction in which the General Administration and the Board leaders were taking the University system. In
1984 he left law practice with the law firm he founded to become
Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund,
Inc. He served there until 1993 when he returned to North Carolina
to become chancellor of his undergraduate alma mater, North
Carolina Central University.
Alvis A. Lee was also a member of the class of 1962. He
practiced law for a time with J. Kenneth Lee in Greensboro, North
Carolina. Thereafter he retired from the practice and moved to
Florida. '
33. Much of this historical sketch on Julius L. Chambers is excerpted, with permission,
supra note 28, at 5-6.
34. 402 U.S. 1 (1971).
35. 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
from CHRONICLE,
[Vol. 73
Donald D. Pollock was the final African-American member of

the class of 1962. Pollock, a physically imposing man, joined in the
private practice of law with Harvey Beech. By personal and
professional reputation, Pollock is well regarded as a caring, skilled
advocate and an outstanding citizen, along with his law partner,
Harvey Beech. Although Beech and Pollock were the only two
lawyers in their firm, with Beech a person of substantial size and
Pollock imposingly tall and large, sometimes it has been said fondly,
with only slight exaggeration, that Beech and Pollock had the largest
law firm in Eastern North Carolina.
The only African-American member of the class of 1963 was
Albert St. Clair Morgan, about whom very little has been discovered.
He lived in Raleigh, North Carolina, and reportedly died in 1976.
David M. Dansby, Jr., was the only minority graduate in the class
of 1964. He was the first minority student to earn both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. He practiced for many years with other lawyers as a
member of a minority law firm in Greensboro engaged in the private
practice of law. As of this writing, he is a solo practitioner in the
general practice of law in Greensboro, North Carolina.
James R. Robinson graduated in 1967 as the only minority
member of the class. Shortly after graduation Robinson became an
attorney with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington,
D.C., where he was last known to be employed as a senior lawyer.
THE EARLY INCLUSIONARY PERIOD: 1970-79-ESTABLISHING A
LEGACY
For minorities at the law school, the 1970s were characterized by
two distinct parts. The early '70s were in some ways a continuation
of the minimalist '60s. But groundwork was being laid that would
yield new results in the second half of the decade.
The Early 1970s
The early 1970s opened a new era in the law school. A visit by
Professor Harry Groves to teach in the summer session of 1970,
making him the first African-American to teach at the Chapel Hill
law school, and the hiring of the author of this essay in the fall of
1972 as the first African-American permanent faculty member,
signalled a commitment by the dean and the faculty to create a more
diverse law school. Assistant Dean Morris Gelblum possessed an
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
uncommon commitment to make the law school more inclusive, and

his efforts helped immeasurably to bring that about. The effort was
also materially advanced by the commitment of leaders in the Student
Bar Association (SBA). The Law School Recruitment Committee, an
arm of the SBA devoted to attracting top law students to Chapel Hill,
decided in 1969 to place its primary emphasis on recruiting black
students. 6 Members of the Recruitment Committee, under the
leadership of Clint Eudy and Ken Essex, visited the eleven historically
black colleges and universities in North Carolina to promote interest
in the University of North Carolina School of Law.37
Minority Law Day-initiated by black law students, encouraged
by Dean Gelblum, and supported by the SBA, the faculty, and Dean
J. Dickson Phillips, Jr.-was also established during the early 1970s.
Swiftly, diversity at the law school began to improve. By the mid1970s, for the first time in its history, the law school admitted more
than a token number of minority students. In addition, the rudiments
of an institutionally fostered academic support effort to reduce
attrition and to enhance performance can be traced to this time.
Because of the three-year lead time to reach graduation, the
graduation of minorities in the decade of the 1970s, of course, started
slowly. Only one minority student graduated in the class of 1970, two
in 1971, three in 1972, two in 1973, and three in 1974. The earlier
work began to pay off in 1975 when six minorities graduated. In 1976
a quantum leap of sixteen minority students graduated. In 1977, ten
minorities graduated. But numbered among the class of 1978 were
twenty-three minority graduates-a record exceeded only once in the
entire decade of the 1980s and thereafter surpassed only as recently
as 1992.
Kenneth B. Spaulding graduated in the class of 1970 as the only
minority member of the class. He hailed from a very prominent
family in Durham, North Carolina. He opened a general practice,
and has since served as a member of the North Carolina General
Assembly. At the time of this writing he serves as the chair of the
Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, one of the most
long-lived and powerful political organizations in North Carolina,
perhaps in the nation.
Kenneth Ross Johnson and Thomas Gatewood Sampson were the
only two minority members of the class of 1971. Little has been
36. Bill Trott, Black Students Sought by Committee, N.C. L. Rec. Nov. 1969, at 3.
37. Id.
688
[Vol. 73
discovered about Johnson, but Sampson is a member of a prominent

African-American law firm in Atlanta, successfully engaged in the
private practice of law.
There were three minority members of the class of 1972. Robert
L. Anderson has for a long time maintained a successful private
practice in Smithfield, North Carolina. Harvey D. Harkness, the first
graduate listed in the records as being of Hispanic origin, went into
private practice in Atlanta, Georgia. Herbert D. Williams, III has
served as Legal Advisor to the Inspector General of the United States
Army in Washington, D. C.
The class of 1973 had two minority members: David Bernard
Smith, who shortly after graduation became and has remained an
Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of North
Carolina; and Leroy W. Upperman, Jr., now deceased, who moved to
California shortly after graduating from law school.
Two of the three minority members of the class of 1974 are
judges. James A. Beaty, Jr., entered private practice in WinstonSalem, North Carolina after graduation. He was appointed a North
Carolina Superior Court Judge in 1981, and was reelected to that
position until his appointment as a United States District Judge for
the Middle District of North Carolina in November 1994. Carole Y.
Taylor was the second African-American female graduate of the UNC
law school (twelve years after Sylvia X. Allen, the first AfricanAmerican female graduate). After serving as a legal services attorney
in North Carolina immediately following graduation, she moved to
Florida and served, successively, as Assistant University Attorney for
the University of Florida, Assistant Public Defender, Assistant United
States Attorney, and then entered private practice for eight years. In
1991 she was appointed as judge of the Broward County Court, and
in 1992 was elected to a four-year term. Kenneth McArthur Johnson,
the final minority member of the class, has maintained a successful
private practice in Greensboro, North Carolina, since graduation.
The class of 1975 had six minority members. Beverly Jean Lucas
is a member of the Pennsylvania bar and is in private practice in
Philadelphia. Pinkney J. Moses is a private practitioner in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ella Quick Thomas is manager with a major
corporation in Birmingham, Alabama. Sidney Verbal, III, was, for a
time, in the private practice of law in Charlotte, North Carolina;
thereafter contact with him was lost.
Two members of the class of 1975 are deceased: Wayne C.
Alexander (1989) who practiced law in Charlotte, North Carolina, and
Sylvia E. Mathis (1983) who moved to Florida following graduation.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
The Mid-1970s to 1979

Beginning with the class of 1976, which had a complement of
sixteen minority members, the minority members of the classes
become too numerous to discuss each one individually. Accordingly,
individuals to highlight were selected to illustrate the range of
activities in which minority students at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill have engaged and excelled, while in law
school in some cases, after graduation in others, or in both." The
main burden undertaken in the remainder of this essay will be to
illustrate that, like their white counterparts in all of the classes, the
African-Americans and other minorities are making distinguished
contributions to their profession, to the law, to the states in which
they reside, and to the nation. Unlike their nonminority colleagues,
minorities in North Carolina and in the nation have been compelled
to make their contributions despite a legacy of discrimination they
have had to face. Those highlighted, like all of the minority graduates, are examples of achievers who refused to accept limitations on
their aspirations or barriers to their goals. Rather, they faced
squarely whatever disadvantages they confronted, and overcame them.
Thrning to the class of 1976,' 9 Dexter Brooks was the first
Native American from North Carolina to graduate from the law
school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He hailed
from Pembroke, in Robeson County, North Carolina, and upon
graduation returned to his home community to practice law. He later
was tapped to become a judge of the Superior Court and still serves
in that position. Mari-Jo Florio, of Connecticut, and Dean B. Suagee,
of Maryland, were also in the class of 1976 and comprised, with
Brooks, the first three Native American graduates of the law school.
38. The author regrets that time does not permit the collection of data and
information on every minority student and graduate. Such an effort would likely be futile
in any event. Moreover, space would not permit a detailed statement of the myriad
activities and professional successes minority graduates have experienced.
39. Minority members of the class of 1976 were Dexter Brooks (Native American);
Freeman Douglas Canty; Humphrey Sherrill Cummings; Sandra Upperman Cummings
(formerly Sandra Lousie Upperman); Willie Carroll Dawson; Angela Bryant Ellis
(formerly Angela Rebecca Bryant); Mari-Jo Florio (Native American); Brenda Maria
Foreman; Edward Garner Jr, Thomas Hilliard, III; Lee Andrew House, Jr, Irene Bartlett
Lape (Asian/Pacific); Dean Benton Suagee (Native American); Reginald Leander Watkins;
Fred James William; and Otha Ray Wilson.
[Vol. 73
Irene Bartlett Lape, of New York, also of the class of 1976, is the
first graduate of the law school identified in the records as being of
Asian/Pacific background.
Angela R. Bryant Ellis engaged in private practice immediately
after graduation. Thereafter, she served as a Deputy Commissioner
of the North Carolina Industrial Commission (1979-85) and as an Administrative Law Judge (1986-89) with the newly created Office of
Administrative Hearings. She was named "Lawyer of the Year" in
1983 by the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers, in part for
4
her work as a co-founder of the Land Loss Prevention Project, Inc. 1
She served on the Law School's Board of Visitors from 1985-89 and
has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 1991. Fred Williams, also of that
class, now a law professor at the North Carolina Central University
School of Law, served by appointment of the Governor as a special
superior court judge in the 1980s.
The class of 1977 had ten minority members.4" Jerry Braswell
entered the private practice of law in eastern North Carolina. He
maintained both a successful law practice and an extensive community
involvement in the Goldsboro, North Carolina area. He was elected
in 1993 as a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives.
He also served as the elected President of Legal Services of North
Carolina. Edwina Link Charlemagne became an attorney in the
Greensboro office of the United States Internal Revenue Service,
where she is now a senior attorney. Arlie Jacobs, the fourth Native
American graduate of the law school, maintains a private practice in
Pembroke, North Carolina. Gregory A. Weeks, following an
acclaimed practice as a defense attorney, became a state superior
court judge in 1989, a position he still holds.
The class of 1978, as mentioned above, was a numerical pacesetter in the number of minorities, with twenty-three minority members.4" Those students, in turn, were pacesetters while enrolled as
40. For further discusssion of the Land Loss Prevention Project, Inc., see the
discussion of David H. Harris of the class of 1981, infra note 55 and accompanying text.
41. Minority members of the class of 1977 were Waylon Arnold; Alvin Quentin
Arrington; Jerry Braswell; Edwina Link Charlemagne; Gary Robert Correll (Native
American); Roscoe Cecil Hood Jr; Arlie Jacobs (Native American); Philemina Oneida
McNeill; Gregory Arthur Weeks; and Theodore Ra Von Williams.
42. Minority members of the class of 1978 were Owen Hunter Black; Evelyn Dove
Coleman; Donald Stephen Cooper; Earlene Hardie Cox; Desiree White Crawford; Patrice
Henrika Fields; Carl Raynard Fox; Ronald Lavonne Gibson; R. Darrell Hancock; Reginald
Michael Harding; Thelma Marie Hill; Orlando Frank Hudson. Jr.; Carolyn Irene Ingram;
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
well as pacesetters in a wide range of professional achievements.

Desiree White Crawford served as Chief Justice of the Holderness
Moot Court Bench. She remains the first and only African-American
female to have held that position. Five members of the class of 1978
are or have been in some aspect of corporate practice or endeavor:
Earlene Hardie Cox as Director of Taxation with IBM in New York;
Ronald L. Gibson as Vice President of Customer Planning with Duke
Power Company in Charlotte, North Carolina; Wayne B. McLurkin
with the Federal National Mortgage Corporation in Washington;
Moses Luski (Hispanic) as a partner in a Charlotte law firm; and
Randall E. Robertson with Nissan Motor Corporation as Associate
General Counsel in Tennessee.
Nine others are serving or have served in a capacity to render
public service: Patrice H. Fields, Thelma M. Hill, and Carolyn I.
Ingram, with the North Carolina Employment Security Commission;
Carl R. Fox as the first ever African-American District Attorney for
Orange and Chatham counties in North Carolina; Reginald M.
Harding as Assistant Commonwealth Attorney in Virginia; Orlando
F. Hudson as a Superior Court Judge in the Fourteenth Judicial
District (Durham County, North Carolina); Henry F. Mebane, Jr., as
a Criminal Magistrate in the Eighteenth Judicial District (Guilford
County, North Carolina); Regan Miller with the United States Equal
Opportunity Employment Commission in Charlotte, North Carolina;
and Ronald G. Penny as Director of the Office of State Personnel in
Raleigh, North Carolina.
The class of 1979 had nineteen minority members.43 W. Steven
Allen, after beginning in private practice, became a superior court
judge in 1989. Brenda Ford McGhee has been a public interest
advocate since graduation, having served as a legal services lawyer in
many capacities, including her current service as Executive Director
of the North State Legal Services program in Hillsborough, North
Carolina. Patricia Timmons-Goodson became a district court judge
M. Christopher Kemp, Sr.; Moses Luski (Hispanic); Wayne Bertran McLurkin; Henry
Franklin Mebane, Jr.; Regan Anthony Miller; Ronald Gerard Penny; Willie Roy Perry, Jr.;
Charles Arthur Ray, Jr.; Randall Elbert Robertson; and Linda Ruiz Sedivec (Hispanic).
43. Minority members of the class of 1979 were W. Steven Allen; Thomas Auzenne
Armstrong; Elwood Becton; Anthony Waldo Brown; Josie Knowlin Claiborne; Walter
Deloatch, Jr.; Milton Glendell Harris; W. Fred Harrison; Nay Malloy Howell; Wanda Pate
Jones; Gary Lynn Locklear (Native American); Sidney Thomas Marable; Brenda Ford
McGhee; Terry Bernard Richardson; Joseph Michael Smith (Native American); Patricia
Timmons-Goodson; Reynauld Merrimon Williams; Claudia Annette Withers; and Delores
Ann Young.
[Vol. 73
in 1.984 and was the UNC Distinguished Young Alumnus Award

Recipient in 1992. She was elected a Director of the University's
General Alumni Association in 1994. Similarly, Gary Lynn Locklear
(Native American) became a District Court Judge in 1988.
Claudia A. Withers and Delores A. Young conclude representative examples of minority students from the class of 1979. Claudia
Withers is Deputy Director for Employment Programs of the

Women's Legal Defense Fund in Washington, where she regularly has
an impact on womens' issues of national significance. Delores Young,

a former registered nurse prior to going to law school, practices law
in Washington, D.C. and received favorable notice in 1988 in the
ATLA ADVOCATE, a publication of the Association of Trial
Lawyers of America, for her successful handling of a medical
malpractice case.' She achieved a "substantial settlement" against
what the article described as "three high-powered defense firms"
representing a hospital, a surgeon, and an anesthetist.

1980-89: To SusTAIN DIVERSITY AND BUILD ON A LEGACY
The mid- to late 1970s saw the intensification of a counter-attack
by opponents of progress and advancement of blacks and minorities
that posed a significant threat to sustaining the fledgling diversity, not
only at the law school, but throughout the nation. It is hard to
believe that this attack on the modest advances that only recently had
stopped the exclusion of African-Americans and other minorities from
educational and other opportunities was launched because the
egalitarian thrust had succeeded too well. The motivations seem
more complex than that.4'
First, it seems that the motivations included a racial animus on
the part of some opponents. Second, nonracists who, on principle,
might have mounted a constitutional challenge to any of the nonracial
factors in the smorgasbord of admissions criteria considered by state
educational institutions had no basis for doing so. They were
hindered by the futility of challenging virtually any of the nonracial
admissions factors under the Constitution because of the limited
scrutiny available to nonracial factors under the Supreme Court's
44. ASSOCIATION OF TRIAL LAWYERS OF AMERICA, 14 ATLA ADVOCATE, June

1988, at 3.
45. See Charles E. Daye, JusticeByron R. White, 12 N.C. CENT. L. REv. 272-76 (1981).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
rational basis equal protection analysis. This analysis, of course, left

only racial factors effectively vulnerable.
The third reason is profoundly ironic: the legal doctrine and the
analytical methodology that served as the liberating formulation
advanced by African-Americans were readily pressed into service by
the forces mounting the counter-attack.'
The methodology for
attacking the subjugation of African-Americans treated racial
classifications as "inherently" suspect. This methodology was
extended or believed to be extendable by those leading the counterattack to cover any forms of racial classification for any purpose. This
position turned out to be essentially the one the United States
Supreme Court would later affirm.47 The sanctioning of broad attack
grounds is doubly ironic because the only kinds of racial classifications
the nation had ever known prior to or in the years when the legal
doctrine and analytical methodology were being developed were the
oppressive, subjugative kinds historically used to burden, deny, and
discriminate against former slaves and descendents of former slaves.
Again the law school at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill could not isolate itself from portentious national events.
The major event was the United States Supreme Court's decision in
the first "reverse discrimination" case in which the Court reached the
merits, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,' handed
down in 1978. A divided Court held that certain aspects of a
California medical school's admission procedure violated the equal
protection rights of a white applicant who had been denied admission,
but affirmed that race could be used as a factor along with other
permissible factors. Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., whose position was
the critical "swing" vote that made a majority for the Court's decision,
wrote a concurring opinion that was the focus of much attention and
analysis. In the 1978-79 academic year, an Ad Hoe Committee and
the Admission Policy Committee49 were charged with considering the
meaning of the Bakke case for the law school. In a nutshell, some
analysts suggested that given a prior history of de jure exclusion at the
University of North Carolina School of Law, Bakke was not applicable at Chapel Hill, since no such history at the California medical
school involved in Bakke had been asserted or proved. Others
thought that abundant caution meant that the factors set forth in
46. Id. at 274-75.
47. See, e.g., City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989).
48. 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
49. I was a member of the Admission Policy Committee for 1978-79.
[Vol. 73
Bakke by Justice Powell should be used to guide the admission policy

of the law school, since Powell's concurrence had been necessary to
make a majority for the Court's decision. Still others believed a
departure from the traditional criteria and the adoption of any steps
to ensure diversity established an indefensible principle. Yet others
believed that the Bakke case should be taken as an opportunity to
discard prior "rigid" criteria in favor of more "flexible" discretionary
criteria for at least a significant portion of the classes admitted.
The Admission Policy Committee recommended and, on
November 22, 1978, the law school faculty approved, a policy that
based admissions on undergraduate grade-point averages and scores
on the Law School Admission Test in combination with factors such
as those set forth by Justice Powell in his concurring opinion.
Discussion of the implementational refinements continued with the
Admission Committee appointed for the 1979-80 academic year."
With minor Modifications, that policy is the one still in effect today.
It mandates that, in making admission decisions, factors that
contribute diversity to the law school educational experience will be
considered." These factors include extracurricular activities, unique
work or service experience, leadership potential, maturity, demonstrated compassion, a history of overcoming disadvantage, including
physical disability, ability to communicate with the poor, exceptional
talents, race or ethnic origin, trends or developments in academic
program, writing skills, demonstrated 'analytical skills, strength of
undergraduate program, and graduate school performance.
In mid- to late 1980, a group of faculty members proposed an
augmented academic support system for students, minority or not,
who they thought might benefit from a more structured study system
shortly before entering and during the first year of law school. That
program was approved by the faculty and was implemented in the fall
of 1986.52 I served as the first Director of that Program, Professor
Barry Nakell succeeded me, and the current Director, Clinical
50. I was named to chair the Admission Policy Committee for 1979-80.
51. Justice Powell's opinion, relying on a "diversity" rationale to support the use of
race as one factor that could be considered in making admissions decisions, was clearly
anticipated by Judge Soper of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the list
of intangible factors he cited in evaluating the College's law school and the Univerity's law
school in McKissick, over a quarter century earlier. See supra note 13 and accompanying
text.
52. The program was called Legal Education Advancement Program, or "LEAP" for
short.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Associate Professor Ruth McKinney, has directed the program since

the fall of 1991.
Notwithstanding the development of the revised admissions
factors, the 1980s actually saw a leveling off in the improved diversity
the law school had achieved in the latter part of the 1970s. Ten
minority students graduated in 1980, fifteen in 1981, twenty-one in
1982, eighteen in 1983, fourteen in 1984, sixteen in 1985 and in 1986,
nineteen in 1987, twenty-eight in 1988, and twenty-three in 1989.
The minority students who enrolled, graduated, and became
members of the bar during this period continued to make contributions in a wide spectrum of activities.
From the class of 1980, which had ten minority graduates, John
A. Dusenbury and T. Diane Phillips are representative."3 Dusenbury
was one of a small group of minority law graduates in the history of
the law school who achieved a position with a previously all-white law
firm when he became an associate with Smith, Patterson, Follin and
Curtis in Greensboro, North Carolina. Phillips continued the tradition
of UNC minority graduates who went into the public-service arena.
After serving for several years with legal services, she became an
Assistant Public Defender with the Robeson County Public Defender,
where she remains at this writing.
From the class of 1981, from which fifteen minority students
graduated,54 David H. Harris, Jr., must be noted for his singularly
successful effort as Executive Director of the Land Loss Prevention
Project, Inc. (LLPP)Y Harris took the LLPP from a two-lawyer
office located at the North Carolina Central University School of
Law, to a three-office, five-lawyer, essentially public-interest law firm
representing limited-resource land owners, fostering community
economic development, developing markets for farmers, fighting racial
and other discrimination, and attempting to stop environmental
racism. The Project has a national reputation and it receives requests
53. Minority members of the class of 1980 were Emma O'Neal Andrews; Richard Earl
Batts; John Archibald Dusenbury; Angela Denise Lee; Cedric Reginald Perry; T. Diane
Phillips; George Scott Sampson; W. Terry Sherrill; Mittie Moore Smith; and Geraldine
Turner.
54. Minority members of the class of 1981 were Anthony Vincent Baker; Leslie
Brown; Montague Brown (Native American); Grover Cleveland Burthey, Jr.; Brenda Joyce
Carter; David S. DeLugas (Asian/Pacific); James Rufus Farrior, Jr.; William Aubrey
Gerald; David Herman Harris, Jr.; Hada DeVarona Haulsee (Hispanic); Darnell Felix
Hawkins; Lorinzo Little Joyner; Scott Meza (Hispanic); Vernon Alexis Russell; and Otis
Wall, Jr.
55. See discussion of Angela R. Bryant Ellis, supra note 40 and accompanying text.
[Vol. 73
for help and consultation from all over the country. Lorinzo Joyner,
also of the class of 1981, is also a good representative of the work
members of the class are performing. Joyner has served as a lawyer
on the staff of the North Carolina Appellate Defender. Currently, she
is an Assistant Attorney General for the State of North Carolina.
TWenty-one minorities graduated in the class of 1982.6 Frank

E. Emory, Jr., made a transition few, if any, other African-Americans
in North Carolina law practice have made at any time. He practiced
for several years with Ferguson, Stein, Wallas, Adldns, Gresham &
Sumter, the premier integrated law firm founded by Julius Chambers,
and then made a lateral move, as a partner, to Robinson & Bradshaw,
a major, formerly white law firm in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Barry Stanback, who currently serves as Deputy Director of the
North Carolina Department of Human Resources after being in
private practice in Greensboro, North Carolina, is another strong
example of the success of the members of the class of 1982.
From the class of 1983, which had eighteen minority members,57
Kathryn Jones Cooper and Addie Wright are representative. Kathryn
Cooper is another Carolina minority graduate serving the State as an
Assistant Attorney General. Addie Wright served as Chief of
Employee Relations with the North Carolina Administrative Office
of the Courts from 1984-87. Thereafter, until 1990, she was Personnel
Director for Orange County, North Carolina. She is currrently a
West Publishing Company academic representative.
56. Minority members of the class of 1982 were Angela Johnson Colbert; Arnald
Byron Crews; Frank Edward Emory, Jr.; Bertha Lee Fields; Mark Van Lanier Gray;
Thomas Matthew Harvey; Larry Sylvester Height; Barbara Elaine Jones (Native
American); Randy Kane Jones; Richard Jeffrey Kania (Native American); Milton Lewis;
Linda Walke Lilly; George Lyons, Jr; W.Andrew Marsh, III; Phyllis Beatrice Pickett;
Edward Alexander Pone; Wanda Hannon Price; Michael Anthony Robinson; Barry
Stephen Stanback; Tanita Goodwin Toliver, and Sylvia Delores Yancey.
57. Minority members of the class of 1983 were James Gregory Bell (Native
American); Brenda Byers Collins; Kathryn Jones Cooper, James Walter Crawford, Jr.;
James Curtis Dockery; Russell Harris; James Edward Holloway; Stella Dorlene Jones;
Camilla Florence McClain; Martha Denning Moore; Anita Davis Pearson; Catherine Perry;
Robert Thomas Perry; Kenneth Ericson Ransom (Native American); Vicki Ballou Watts;
Gregory Leon Woods; Addie Odette Wright; and Debbie Kay Wright.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
The graduating class of 1984 had fourteen minority members. 8
Representative of that class are D. Bernard Alston, who established

a private, solo practice in Henderson, North Carolina, and Rickye
McKoy Mitchell, who works as an attorney with the United States
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Charlotte, North
Carolina.
Sixteen minorities graduated in the class of 1985. 59 Belinda
Foster is the first female African-American District Attorney in North
Carolina history, having been appointed as the District Attorney in

Judicial District 17A (Rockingham and Caswell Counties) in 1993
and, subsequently, re-elected without opposition in 1994. David T.
McCoy, a Native American, worked as Assistant Director of the
North Carolina Commission on Indian Affairs and, since 1989, has
been General Counsel for the North Carolina Department of
Administration.
The class of 1986, like the class of 1985, had sixteen minority
graduates.' Deborah Graves, who was a very effective leader of the
Black Law Students Association during her enrollment, has become
a prosecutor of criminal offenders as an Associate Attorney General
for the State of North Carolina. Erma L. Johnson, upon graduation,

took a position with the Los Angeles law firm of Paul, Hastings,
Janofsky & Walker. Robert J. Lopez, of Hispanic background, is a
principal in the firm of Hyler & Lopez in Asheville, North Carolina.

One of the law school's most illustrious graduates, Teresa Wynn
Roseborough, was a member of the class of 1986. While enrolled she

excelled academically and was elected editor-in-chief of the North
58. Minority members of the class of 1984 were D. Bernard Alston; Gary William
Bigelow (Asian/Pacific); Manuel Louis Costa (Hispanic); Bonnie Brade Crawford; Judith
Milsap Daniels; Margaret Ekwutozia Edozien; Lilo Alfreida Hester; Clinton Carnell Hicks;
Sheila P. Hochhauser (Hispanic); LaVerne Crocker Jordan; Rickye McKoy-Mitchell;
Deborah Ann Nance; Frederick Glenn Sawyer (Asian/Pacific); and Kenneth Bruce
Stewart.
59. Minority members of the class of 1985 were Lynette Ann Barnes; Gina Maria
Clark; Cynthia Williams Clinton; Belinda Jewell Foster; Larry Dwight Hall; Larry Rolando
Linney; David Timothy McCoy (Native American); Frederick Dean Mitchell; W. Jeffrey
Moore (Native American); Allen Wayne Rogers; Avis Felecia Sanders; Beverly Renee
Shepard; Ronnie Neal Sutton (Native American); Herbert Eugene Tatum, III; Marion
Arrington Williams; and Demetta Lenee Witherspoon.
60. Minority members of the class of 1986 were John Sherman Best; William Mark
Boyum (Native American); R. Jonathan Charleston; Ronald Dean Everhart
(Asian/Pacific); Debra Carroll Graves; Gail D. Hunter, Helen Ehobhayi Ijewere; Erma L.
Johnson; Robert Joseph Lopez (Hispanic); Robin Nannette Michael; Kathleen Faithe
O'Connell (Native American); Teresa Wynn Roseborough; Claire Ann Sanders; Steven
Henry Sindos; Robin Thompson; and Neil David Weber (Native American).
[Vol. 73
CarolinaLaw Review, becoming the first African-American woman

to achieve that distinction and the second African-American in the
history of the law school (following Julius L. Chambers). Teresa
Roseborough is also one of five University of North Carolina law
graduates to serve as a law clerk to a Justice of the United States
Supreme Court. Currently she is a Deputy Assistant Attorney
General in the United States Department of Justice.
Two minority graduates of the class of 1987, which had nineteen
minority members,6 ' made inroads into areas in which minorities
were not well represented-they secured employment in traditionally
white law firms. Jerry W. Blackwell associated with a law firm in
Minneapolis, Minnesota while Donna Coleman associated with the
firm of Newsome, Graham, Hedrick & Bryson in Durham, North
Carolina. Joseph A. Roseborough was elected President of the
Student Bar Association, thus becoming the first African-American
student elected to that position. Upon graduation he went into
private practice with a law firm in Atlanta, Georgia, and later into
corporate law practice with the Georgia Pacific Corporation in that
city.
The class of 1988 had the highest number of minority graduates
of any class up to that point-twenty-eight, of which one was
Hispanic, four were Asian-American, and twenty-three were AfricanAmerican. 2 Included in that class were Odessa Jackson, Renee
Horn Neary, and Jacques S. Whitfield. Odessa Jackson was President
of the Black Law Students Association during her second year in law
school. She was such an effective all-around constructive force in the
law school that she was inducted into both the Order of the Golden
Fleece at the University and into the Davis Society at the law school.
61. Minority members of the class of 1987 were Bryan Elliot Beatty, Sr.; Jerry Wayne
Blackwell; Angela Ingram Carmon; G. Scott Childers (Native American); Calvin Edward
Coleman; Donna Maria Coleman; Anthony Wayne Cummings; Ruth Bizzell Dillard; Juan
Antonio Flores, Jr. (Hispanic); Thurston Edward Frazier, Jr.; Karen Evans Johnson;
Barbara Jean Namkoong (Asian/Pacific); Cheryl Angela Perry; Joseph Anthony
Roseborough; Orian Carlena Southall; Gregory Dwight Underwood; Tracey Sasser
Wilkinson; James Lambert Worthey; and Jeffrey Wynn (Native American).
62. Minority members of the class of 1988 were Sherrod Banks; Lester Bernard Bass;
Cindy York Beard (Asian/Pacific); Douglas Ray Brown; Lora Maria Brown; Peter Danny
Copeland; Fred Alan Cunningham (Asian/Pacific); Steven Dubois Exum; Yolanda Juetta
Feimster; Anthony Emerson Flanagan; Nina M. Gworek (Asian/Pacific); Kenneth Leroi
Harris; Odessa Palmer Jackson; Clinton Columbus Jones, III; Elizabeth Kelly; Herbert
Stanley Lindsey; Lorell Maddox; Renee Hom Neary (Asian/Pacific); Lucky Theophilu
Osho; Marleen Joy Phillips; Stephen Anthony Riddick; Marie Boyce Russell; Desiree
Darcell Shives; Sonya Renee Tennell; Martha Ann Walker-McGlohon; Kristie Lynn
Webber; Jacques Sterling Whitfield; and Althea Johnston Williams.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
She went on to serve as a law clerk to a judge on the United States

Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals and as an attorney with
the Commercial Litigation Branch of the United States Department
of Justice. She currently is an Assistant United States Attorney in
Washington, D.C. Renee Horn Neary, of Asian origin, who was quite
active and participated in many activities while enrolled, after
graduation became a corporate attorney with Alumax, Inc., in
Norcross, Georgia. Jacques S. Whitfield served as Attorney General
of the Student Bar Association, with responsibility for judicial
enforcement of infractions. He is believed to be the first AfricanAmerican law student to hold that position. He went into practice
with the firm of Nelson, Tang, Thompson et al., in Los Angeles,
California.
Other members of that class went into private practice in North
Carolina, including Sherrod Banks, Cindy York Beard (Asian/Pacific),
Kenneth Harris, Lorell Maddox, and Martha Walker-McGlohon.
Others went into practice with out-of-state law firms. These include
Fred Cunningham (Asian American), with Sellars & Supran in North
Palm Beach, Florida; Stephen A. Riddick with Piper & Marbury in
Baltimore, Maryland; and Marie Boyce Russell with King & Spalding
in Atlanta, Georgia. Still others went into various forms of public or
governmental service, such as Douglas Ray Brown with the Staff of
the Judge Advocate of the Navy in Alameda, California; Lora M.
Brown, Legal Services in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Peter D.
Copeland, the Federal Trade Commission in Atlanta, Georgia;
Anthony E. Flanagan with the Kings' County District Attorney's
Office in Brooklyn, New York; Clinton C. Jones, III, staff member to
the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of the United
States House of Representatives; Elizabeth Kelly, Captain in the
United States Army in Massachusetts; Lucky T. Osho, attorney with
the Department of Community Affairs of Tallahassee, Florida; and
Desiree D. Shives, attorney with the United States Air Force in
Washington, D.C.
The number of minority members in the 1989 graduating class
dropped back to twenty-three.63 This class had what appears to be
63. Minority members of the class of 1989 were Jorgelina Araneda-Chandler
(Hispanic); Timothy Connell Batts; Elizabeth Allison Brown; Jack Marvin Brown, Jr.;
Joanne Beauvoir Brown; Claudia Laverne Daniels; James Jervalle Exum; Brinkley Autry
Faulcon; Adrian Rafael Halpern (Hispanic); Grady Lee Hunt (Native American); Valerie
Felicia Kennedy; Vernon Roderick Malone; Theresa Ann Marlowe; Artemeus Elton
McNeil; William Russell Morris, Jr.; K. Eric Morrow; Wendy Grode Nissman (Hispanic);
Javoyne Hill Reed; Cynthia Tano Shriner (Hispanic); Frances Cecile Silva; Mildred
[Vol. 73
the highest proportion of minorities in any class to become associated

with traditionally white law firms. The members who were employed
in out-of-state law firms include Joanne Beauvoir Brown with
Freeman & Hawkins in Atlanta, Georgia; Frances C. Silva, who
started practice as an associate with Venable, Baetjer & Howard in
Baltimore, Maryland, and has since become an Attorney in the Office
of the General Counsel of the United States Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C.; and Mildred R. Spearman with Pillsbury,
Madison & Sutro in Los Angeles, California. Minority graduates
employed by North Carolina traditionally white law firms include
Adrian Rafael Halpern (Hispanic) with Coleman, Bernholz, GledhUll
& Hargrove in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Vernon R. Malone with
Tharrington, Smith & Hargrave in Raleigh, North Carolina; and
Cynthia Tano Shriner (Hispanic) with Faison, Fletcher, Barber et al.,
in Durham, North Carolina.
THE 1990s AND BEYOND: A GREAT VISION IS HARD TO HOLD

The challenge of the 1990s and beyond perhaps is best expressed
by the Native American leader, Chief Seattle, when in the midnineteenth century he observed: "A great vision is hard to hold." If
the vision either of the legal profession comprised of a reasonably fair
representation of the people of the nation, or of the enrollment of
minorities in the law schools of the nation in numbers significant
enough to manifest America in her true diversity, or of the enrollment
of minority students at the University of North Carolina School of
Law in reasonably representative proportions might be described as
"a great vision," then historical experience demonstrates that a great
vision is indeed hard to hold. That would seem to be one of the
central lessons of the early 1990s, especially 1994-95, when we
celebrate the sesquicentennial of the law school. Only with continued
palpable commitment can we "hold" the "great vision" of a truly
diverse law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
for generations yet to come.
Happily, after a low start of only seventeen minority graduates
to begin the decade in 1990, the number increased to twenty-seven in
1991 and was sustained at twenty-nine for each of the graduating
classes of 1992, 1993, and 1994.
Rhodon Spearman; Reneen Hewlett Tyler, and Daniel Thomas White (Native American).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
From the graduating class of 1990, which had seventeen minority

members,' five students have been selected as representative. Alan
Andrews excelled as a student leader and was elected to the position
of chief justice of the Holderness Moot Court Bench. After graduation, he became a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps in
Hawaii. Emmanuel Kojo Bentil was elected editor-in-chief of the
North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial
Regulation. Following graduation, he became an associate with the
New York law firm of Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvin. After
serving as editor-in-chief of the North CarolinaLaw Review, Jaye P.

Mayer (Hispanic) became an associate with the Raleigh, North
Carolina law firm of Tharrington, Smith, & Hargrave. R. Andrew
Patty, II (Native American) became an associate with the Raleigh law
firm of Smith, Debnam, Hibbert & Pahl, while Raymond Van Dyke
(Native American) became an associate with the New York law firm
Brooks, Haidt, Haffner & Delahunt.
In 1991, the graduating class had twenty-seven minority members.6' Anita Brown-Graham, who upon graduation became an
associate with Diepenbrock, Wulff, Plant & Hannagan in Sacramento,
California, recently has become an Assistant Professor with the
Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. Jeen Kim (Asian) became associated with Prickett,
Jones, Elliott et al. in Wilmington, North Carolina. Reginald T.
Shuford served a clerkship with North Carolina Supreme Court
Justice Henry E. Frye and then joined a traditionally white North
Carolina law firm, Richard Schwartz & Associates, in Raleigh.
The class of 1992 had twenty-nine minority members.66 Winston
64. Minority members of the class of 1990 were Alan Aron Andrews; Emmanuel Kojo
Bentil; Marian Louise Borum; Kevin Marc Bridges; Karen Ward Day; Michael Anthony
DeMayo (Hispanic); Karen Dye Evans; Carol Batina Fisher; Roger Morgan Goode; Terry
Ann Knox; Algirdas Jonas Kreivenas (Hispanic); Ronald Gregory McNeil; Jaye Powell
Meyer (Hispanic); Sharon Bernice Moses; John James Padilla (Hispanic); R. Andrew
Patty, II (Native American); and Raymond Van Dyke (Native American).
65. Minority members of the class of 1991 were Beverly Rice Allen; Saralyn Towanna
Alston; Asa Lee Bell, Jr.; Alicia DeLaney Brooks; Anita Brown-Graham; Michelle Smith
Cofield; Robert Terry Drakeford; Paul Wayne Drummond, Jr.; Athena Lynn Fox (Native
American); Leesha Lynnette Fuller; Diette McEntire Hansberry; Michael Anthony Hew;
Jeen Kim (Asian/Pacific); Kelli Kathryn Luck; William Henry Massenburg; Chrystal
Walker Redding; Beverly Lynn Rubin (Asian/Pacific); Maria Curras Scanga (Hispanic);
Reginald Tyrone Shuford; Janice Elaine Smith; Jerome Lafayette Smith; Obrie Smith, III;
Kenneth Alexander Soo (Asian/Pacific); Barron LeGrantStroud, Jr.; Edwin Joseph Tisdale
(Hispanic); Katrina Daphine Watson; and Ernest Eugene Yarborough.
66. Minority members of the class of 1992 were Rudolph Acree, Jr.; Keith Wayne
Allen; Fred Andrew Anderson; Julie Lynn Bell; Pamela Denise Brewington (Native
[Vol. 73
B. Crisp, who served as president of the Black Law Students

Association, so impressed the dean of the law school that she hired
him as Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. He is the first AfricanAmerican to hold such a position at the law school. Kurshid K.
Mehta (Asian/Pacific) served as Articles Editor and Kelvin L.
Newsome served as Research Editor, respectively, for the North
CarolinaJournal of InternationalLaw and Commercial Regulation.

From the class of 1993, which had twenty-nine minority mem-
bers,67 Merlin Bass became a tax associate with Deloitte & Touch in
New York. Michael Charles Gardner became an associate With

Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander and Ferdon in New York. Donna
Rigg became an associate with Carmody & Torrance in New Haven,
Connecticut, while Tamika Shafeek took a judicial clerkship with a
judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of
North Carolina.
The class of 1994 had twenty-nine minority members.'
Based
on those students whom the author came to know during their en-
American); J. Pablo Caceres (Hispanic); Corliss Nichele Carter; Aliette-Marie Charles;

David Monadi Chilman (Asian/Pacific); Winston Boyd Crisp; Faris Carnell Dixon, Jr.;
Jacqueline Marie Dudley; Loraine Dillinder Farabow (Asian/Pacific); Jennifer Sanchez
Goebel (Hispanic); Cynthia Rose Howard; Kevin Dwan Howell; Kristi Lashon Jones;
Lester Bernard Law (Asian/Pacific); Do-Yol Lim (Asian/Pacific); Melissa Lyn Long
(Hispanic); Jonathan Paul Luna; Kymric Y. Mahnke (Asian/Pacific); Sadta Lynn Mallard;
Letitia Mason McGeough; Khurshid Kekhushru Mehta (Asian/Pacific); Kelvin LaVel
Newsome; Cindy Marie Patton; Geetha Veerabhadrappa Ravindra (Asian/Pacific); Lucia
Margarita Trevino de Lane (Hispanic).
67. Minority members of the class of 1993 were Charles Lenard Alston, Jr.; Merlin
Bass, III; Tracy Lolita Brown; Anna Perez Chason (Hispanic); Cherry Ophelia Crawford;
John Paul Fernandez (Hispanic); Michael Charles Gardner; Berge Hovsepian; Stephanie
Renee Johnson; Anne Goco Kirby (Asian/Pacific); Patrick Henry Lambert (Native
American); Emanuel Dubois McGirt; Carena Cavette McIlwain; Anthony Bernard Norris;
Christopher Parker-Cyrus; Kenneth Martin Perry; Donna Rhea Rascoe; Donna Marie
Rigg; Timika Shafeek; Dawn Elizabeth Siler; Peyton Michelle Stepney; Normand Jacob
Travis; Granette Allene Trent; Mark Kenneth Velasco (Asian/Pacific); Alfred Walker Jr;
Charlesena Elliott Walker, Doretta LaShaun Walker; Bryan Edward Wardell; and Faith
LaFrance Wynn.
68. Minority members of the class of 1994 were Colleen Lynn Adams; Lisa Marie
Anderson; Jonathan Baldwin; Sorojini Judith Biswas (Asian/Pacific); Brian Keith Brooks
(Native American); Earl D. Brown, Jr.; Yvonne Emersonia Bulluck; Steaven Hong
Campbell (Asian/Pacific); Lori Grundy Christian; Lauren Michelle Collins; Letitia Carol
Echols; Aubrey W. Fountain; Simone Elizabeth Frier; Cheryl Lynette Head; Susan Maria
Hunt (Native American); Valerie Alston Johnson; Sheena W. Jones; Chiege Ojiugo Kalu;
Julia Jin-A Kim (Asian/Pacific); Vinatha Vijaya Linga (Asian/Pacific); Shelley Jane Lucas;
Felice Shanta McConnell; Loi Neeza; Deanne Johnson Nelson; Gloria Denise Ruiz
(Hispanic); Marjorie Johnice Smith; Renee Nicole White; Anthony Ray Williams; and
Jamie Melissa Woods.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
rollment, they too have the capacity and the drive to be achievers in
the same manner as, if not even better than, their predecessors.
CONCLUSION
One might well ask several questions about this project. What is
the purpose of a history of an institution written by those who are
associated with it? Surely the objectivity of such writers is questionable. How can those who are law professors with no formal training
in historical research methods be relied upon as authoritative? Surely
such writers will misinterpret important events. How can a nonsystematic, but rather, more or less anecdotal, arbitrary,, personal
knowledge, or even random selection of students and alumni to
discuss be useful?
Such questions deserve answers. For the author of this chapter,
this project of attempting to relate something about the history of
minorities and the University of North Carolina School of Law
became an occasion to revisit inspiring aspects of both minority
peoples' struggle for justice and an institution's struggle to adapt and
improve. Since most of the individuals discussed are persons with
whom the author is personally acquainted, the author was pleased to
systematically examine inspiring facts-some of which had long been
known to him, others he newly discovered-about these individuals
in the context of an analysis of the institution. The interplay of the
stories of individual achievements with the story of the institution's
growth presents a richer rendering of both this aspect of minority
peoples' struggle and of the institution's improvement, than could
have been achieved in an accounting of either alone.
These events are not seen from an objective perspective and the
presentation in this chapter does not purport to be objective. This
presentation is designed not merely to inform but also to inspire us to
hold onto the "great vision" until, at some distant time, it may come
closer to fulfilment. It should inspire those who have previously been
associated with the UNC School of Law, including especially those
alumni who love and care about the institution, to better appreciate
where it has come from, where it now is, and where it ought to be
trying to go. It should inspire those of us now associated with the
enterprise as students, staff, administrators, and faculty to understand
the struggle more fully, to acknowledge that diversity of backgrounds
and perspectives in the institution strengthens the educational value
for everyone, and to appreciate more adequately the accomplishments
of minorities after graduation. Moreover, the people currently
[Vol. 73
associated with this institution desire to move it to even higher planes

of excellence. To reach these entirely worthy ambitions, everyone
must be cognizant that the prestigious law schools that UNC might
emulate have achieved a degree of diversity in their student enrollments at the present time that the University of North Carolina
School of Law can only aspire to achieve in the future. 9
It should inspire those who will be associated in the future with
the School of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
to recognize that they will add their legacies of labor, sweat, toil,
accomplishment, and occasional disappointment to those of all who
preceded them. In that way may everyone be inspired to give a full
measure of support and devotion to an institution that needs that
support and devotion and merits it for the opportunities it has provided and will continue to offer.
Finally, the persons selected are the responsibility of the author.
Every student could have been named in some respect, because every
student's and graduate's achievements on their own merits are clearly
worthy of mention. Omissions exist solely because of insufficient
time, space, energy, and knowledge on the part of the author.
69. Prior to 1994, the University of North Carolina School of Law had never had a
minority enrollment that equalled 15%, although it reported 14.9% minority enrollment
in the 1995 Official Guide to U.S. Law Schools (Law School Admission Services, Inc.) 2229 (1994). Also in 1995 Official Guide to U.S. Law Schools, the following highly regarded
law schools reported minority enrollments that substantially exceeded the University of
North Carolina School of Law as follows: Yale Univ. 25%, Stanford Univ. 36%, Columbia
Univ. 27%, Harvard Univ. 27%, New York Univ. 23%, Univ. of Michigan 23%, Univ. of
Pennsylvania 21%, Georgetown Law Center 27%, Univ. of California at Los Angeles 39%,
and Univ. of California at Berkeley 36%. The entering class in 1994 at the UNC School
of Law indicates that the school's enrollment percentage is increasing, because the class
included 17.8% minority students.
WOMEN AT UNC AND iN THE PRACTICE OF LAW

LAURA N. GASAWAY & JUDITH W. WEGNER
Laura N. Gasaway has been directorof the Law Library and

professor of law at UNC since 1985. She received her B.A.
and M.L.S. degrees from Texas Woman's University and her
J.D. from the University of Houston. Prior to coming to
Chapel Hill, she was director of the law libraries at the
University of Oklahoma and the University of Houston. She
teaches and writes in the areasof gender-baseddiscrimination,
intellectual property, law librarianship,and legal resources.
She is a past president of the American Association of Law
Librariesand a Fellow of the Special LibrariesAssociation.
She also serves on the American Bar Association's
Accreditation Committee. She has a continuinginterestin the
role of women in the legal profession, legal education, and
law librarianship. She has served as chair of the University
of North Carolina Committee on the Status of Women. She
was pleased to preside at the rededication of the UNC law
library as the Kathrine Robinson Everett Law Library in
1993.
Judith W. Wegner has long been interested in the role of
women as leadersin the legal profession. She is the author of
a biographical article on Kathrine Robinson Everett that
appearedin the 1992 Carolina Alumni Review. She, too, has
served as the chair of the University of North Carolina
Committee on the Status of Women. She became the first
woman dean of the UNC School of Law in 1989. In 1995,
Wegner will serve as the president of the Association of
American Law Schools, only the fifth woman to hold that
position in the Association's ninety-five-year history.
INTRODUCrION
In 1878 North Carolina became the sixth state, and the first
southern state, to admit a woman to the practice of law. Just six
years after the United States Supreme Court decided Bradwell v.
Illinois,' which upheld the denial of a license to practice law to Myra
Bradwell solely on the basis of her gender, the North Carolina
1. 83 U.S. (16 WaIl.) 130 (1872).
[Vol. 73
Supreme Court permitted Tabitha Anne Holton of Guilford County

to take the licensing examination. The matter was not without
controversy, however. The January 10 Raleigh Observer commented:
"We certainly admire this little woman's pluck, if we can't say so
much for her judgment."2 The justices reportedly were astounded on
January 7, 1878, to find that among the nineteen applicants for the
licensing exam was a twenty-four-year-old woman. Unsure what to
do, the court did not permit her to take the bar exam that day but
asked her to return in two days with an attorney to plead her case for
permission to sit for the bar. Greensboro attorney Albion W.
Tourgee spoke for ninety minutes, arguing that the statutory provision
"such persons as may apply" included Ms. Holton. He said that the
legislature expressed no intent to include women, but neither did it
exclude them.
Further, Tourgee argued that under North Carolina law, lawyers
from other states were permitted to practice in this state, and this
included women attorneys licensed in other jurisdictions. He declared
that it would be absurd to deny "a daughter of this state what is
allowed to women of other states."3 Despite the opposition of
William H. Battle, it took the court only ten minutes to decide that
Ms. Holton should be permitted to take the examination. Examined
in private, she passed, according to reports, without missing a single
question. Her license was dated January 8, 1878, the date that
appeared on the licenses of the male applicants that year.4 Ms.

Holton, who mastered the law while she tutored her brothers for the
bar examination, intended to practice with a brother in Kansas where
there were other women lawyers. It is unknown whether they went
to Kansas, but they did practice together in Yadkinville, where she
died of tuberculosis in 1886.'
It was 1911 before another woman was admitted to practice in
the state.6 Mrs. Lilian Rowe Fry, the first woman admitted to the
University of North Carolina School of Law, was the second woman
2. 3 WILLIAM S. POWELL, DICIONARY OF NORTH CAROLINA BIOGRAPHY 193

(1988).
3. Billy Arthur, Equal Justicefor All, THE STATE, Apr. 1991, at 12.
4. 3 POWELL,
supra note 2.
5. Arthur, supra note 3, at 13.

6. For the spring term of 1905 and the fall term of 1906, lawyers admitted to practice
are listed only by last name and first initials. Thus, some of the admittees may have been
women, but it is impossible to so determine.
For this and other important information, the authors thank Ms. Louise Stafford,
Librarian, North Carolina Supreme Court.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
licensed. By 1920 just twelve women had been licensed in North

Carolina,7 some of whom never actively practiced. The first woman
to argue and win a case before the North Carolina Supreme Court
was Ms. Julia McGehee Alexander (the third woman licensed in the
state). Although women had appeared before on printed briefs, Ms.
Alexander of Charlotte appeared in person to argue the plaintiff's
case in Alexander v. Auten's Auto Hire 8 and won.9
WOMEN ARRIVE AT THE UNC SCHOOL OF LAW
Ms. Lilian Rowe Fry's admission to the school in 1911 was a
harbinger of changes to come. Although she did not graduate (law
school graduation was not then required for licensure), she was
licensed to practice in 1911. The first woman graduate of the school
was Margaret Berry Street, who graduated in 1915. Mrs. Street stated
that she was the first woman to win a case before the North Carolina
Supreme Court, appearing by brief. She practiced law in Charlotte
and Asheville from 1917 until 1933; she was also an attorney on the
legal staff of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation from 1934-37 in
the company's Atlanta and Washington, D.C., offices. Mrs. Street was
active in the Mecklenburg Bar Association and in many other civic
organizations, including the North Carolina Good Roads Association
prior to the passage of the state highway bill (still valid today) by the
General Assembly in 1921. Mrs. Street retired in 1943 and died in
1967.1
The number of women at UNC remained small for many years.
Most classes had no women, but there was a single woman graduate
in 1915, 1919, 1920, 1929, and 1935. In the decade of the 1930s, there
were only four women graduates, but in 1939, for the first time in its
7. The following are the first 12 women admitted to practice in North Carolina. The
list includes name, county of admission, date of admission and the North Carolina
Reporter cite where their admissions are noted: Tabitha Ann Holton, Guilford, Jan. 1878,
78 N.C. v; Mrs. Lillian Rowe Fry, Swain, Fall 1911, 156 N.C. v; Julia McGehee Alexander,
Mecklenburg, Fall 1914, 166 N.C. vi; Margaret K. Berry, Orange, Fall 1915, 169 N.C. vi;
Stella Elizabeth, Phelps, Nance and Forsyth, Fall 1917,174 N.C. vi; Mrs. Irene Fay Graves,
Orange, Spring 1919, 177 N.C. vi; Miss Willie May Stratford, Mecklenburg, Fall 1919,178
N.C. vii; Miss Madeline Elizabeth Palmer, Mecklenburg, Fall 1919,178 N.C. vii; Mrs. Opal
I.T. Emry, Halifax, Fall 1919,178 N.C. vi; Frances Elizabeth McKenzie, Buncombe, Spring
1920, 179 N.C. vi; Katherine McDiarmid Robinson, Fayetteville, Fall 1920, 180 N.C. vii;
Louise Brevard Alexander, Greensboro, Fall 1920, 180 N.C. vi.
8. 175 N.C. 720, 95 S.E. 850 (1918).
9. North Carolina Supreme Court Minute Document, Addenda, Fall Term 1916-Fall
Term 1918.
10. UNC Chapel Hill General Alumni Association files.
[Vol. 73
history, the School of Law counted two women among its June
graduates. The first woman listed as a student editor of the North
CarolinaLaw Review was Daisy Strong Cooper in 1925.
The first woman justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina
was Susie Marshall Sharp who graduated with honors from the School
of Law in 1929. Appointed to the supreme court in 1962, she became
chief justice in January 1973, the first woman elected as chief justice
of a state's highest appellate court in the nation's history." Her
election as chief justice was just one of the firsts in her career: Sharp
was the first female city attorney in North Carolina and the first
woman to serve as a North Carolina Superior Court judge. She was
often referred to as "North Carolina's first lady of the law."12 Sharp
served as a student editor of the North Carolina Law Review at
Chapel Hill. She entered practice with her father upon passing the
bar examination. 3
The first woman on the law faculty was Law Librarian Mary W.
Oliver, who was appointed in 1955. Ms. Susan Ehringhaus served on
the faculty in a three-year temporary appointment from 1970-73.
Other women faculty appointed in the 1970s include Gail Richmond,
who currently is a professor at Nova Law School and recently served
as acting dean at Nova; Susan Lewis, who now practices in Chapel
Hill; and Sally Sharp, who was appointed to the faculty in 1978 and
continues to serve there.
The first woman editor-in-chief of the North Carolina Law
Review was Doris Roach Bray, who edited Volume 44 in 1965-66.
Ms. Bray has enjoyed a distinguished career as a partner in the law
firm of Shell Bray Aycock Abel & Livingston in Greensboro. She has
a corporate practice that includes securities regulation and mergers
and acquisitions. Six other women have served as editors-in-chief of
the North Carolina Law Review: Joan Goren Brannon, 1970-71;
Teresa Wynn Roseborough, 1985-86; Jaye Powell Meyer, 1989-90;
Elizabeth Anne Janeway, 1990-91; Helga L. Leftwich, 1992-93; and
Amy Kathryn Johnson, 1993-94.
Eight women have served as president of the Student Bar
Association, beginning with Joyce L. Davis in 1973-74. Other women
11. Justice Sharp was not the first woman chief justice in the United States because
Arizona rotates the position; Loma Lockwood held the chief justiceship there prior to
Chief Justice Sharp's election. Ginny Carroll, Susie Sharp Is Sworn In; FirstWoman Chief
Justice, NEWS & OBSERVER (Raleigh), Jan. 3, 1975, at 19, 21.
12. Id. at 19.
13. Tom Sieg, Susie Sharp: She Broke New Ground Gently To Become N.C.'s Chief
Justice, WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL, May 17, 1987, at A13.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
who have headed the SBA include Catherine Cooper (Williamson),

1975-76; Nancy Kroc, 1982-83;, Patricia Nece, 1983-84; Patricia
Lewandowski (Gillen), 1985-86; Lisa Rice (Hayes), 1987-88; Lauren
Burnham (McClellan), 1990-91; and K. Corinne Harrah, 1994-95.
The first African-American woman to graduate from the UNC
School of Law was Mrs. Sylvia X. Allen, who graduated in 1962. Mrs.
Allen had been a nurse, a public school teacher, and a vocalist. She
had six children when she entered law school. Upon graduation, she
took the bar examination at a time when fifty-two percent of the law
school class failed. Mrs. Allen and Julius Chambers were the only
African-Americans to pass the bar that year. She established a
general practice in Fayetteville and became an assistant district
attorney in 1969. Mrs. Allen ran for district court judge in 1974. It
was, twelve years before another African-American woman would
graduate from Carolina. 4
THE CHANGING CLIMATE FOR WOMEN
In addition to the pathbreakers just noted, many other women

have contributed in innumerable ways to shape the School of Law and
the legal profession in North Carolina over the years. A sense of the
pace of change can be gleaned from a review of the graduation data
over the period 1915 to the present.
Based on demographic data alone, the history of women at the
School of Law seems to be divisible into three major phases: (1) the
era of pioneering women, which includes the classes of 1914 through
1972; (2) the second era, 1973 through 1983, a transitional period
when women made up ten to thirty percent of the graduating class;
and (3) the modern era, covering the classes of 1983 to the present,
when enrollment has stabilized with women comprising approximately
forty to fifty percent of each graduating class. Not surprisingly, this
pattern of law school enrollment parallels national trends in women
admitted to practice. From 1951 to 1967, the percentage was
approximately three percent; by 1982-83 it had risen to thirty-four
percent, and by 1990-91 exceeded forty percent.15 Women lawyers
have also increased as a percentage of the total lawyer population in
the United States, increasing from two and one-half percent (1950-51)
14. NORTH CAROLINA ASS'N OF BLACK LAWYERS, Sylvia X. Allen, 3 CHRONICLE OF
BLACK LAWYERS IN NORTH CAROLINA 39 (1990).
15. Legal Education and Professional Development-An Educational Continuum,
Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Professions: Narrowing the Gap, 1992
A.B.A.
LEGAL EDUC. AND PROF. DEV.
19.
710
[Vol. 73
to eight and one-tenth percent (1980-81) to twenty-two percent (199091).16
The experiences of women as law students at UNC are portrayed

most effectively through the observations of women graduates."
Even as women's law school experiences have been slowly transformed, law alumnae have endeavored to reshape the legal profession
in their image. A 1983 study documented the experiences of women
graduates of the School of Law. The 121 respondents to the survey
that was sent to 540 law alumnae suggested trends of experience that
may still be true for women attorneys. For example, alumnae
observed that, in their view, women bring something special to their
law careers, particularly in the area of dealing with clients. They
reported that they were trailblazers and that they experienced firsthand the effects of their pioneering efforts. Respondents indicated
that alumnae encountered special challenges in finding jobs. They
also noted challenges in combining professional and personal lives,
especially in relation to childbearing and childrearing.
A much more comprehensive study of the experiences of women
in law practice was completed in 1993 by the Commission on the
Status of Women in the Legal Profession in North Carolina, cochaired by Dorothy Bernholz, Director of Student Legal Services at
UNC, and Sharon Parker, a Durham practitioner and a UNC law
alumna.' 9 The report cited continuing problems with sexual harassment and gender differences in legal practice, and it documented the
"perception that women attorneys could be more fully and successfully involved in the management of private law firms." The report also
found that "[l]awyers who are parents, especially female attorneys,
face conflicting demands between their family obligations and their
professional obligations."2 The report encouraged law schools to
16. Id. at 20.

17. For thoughtful studies of the experiences of women at law schools across the
country and critiques of legal education by women legal educators, see Catherine Weiss
& Louise Melling, The Legal Education of Twenty Women, 40 STAN. L. REV. 1299 (1988).
18. Cathy Schweitzer, Report On Alumnae Survey: How Are Our Women Graduates
Doing, LAW ALUMNI NEWSLETrER (UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Jan. 1984,
at 1-4; Woman Attorney: Valuable To the Firm, But Will She Stay? Survey of Law Firms
Brings Sparse Results, LAW ALUMNI NEWSLETTER (UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill,
N.C.), Apr. 1984, at 1-2.
19. NORTH CAROLINA BAR ASSOCIATION, FINAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON
THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION IN NORTH CAROLINA (1993)
[hereinafter NORTH CAROLINA BAR ASSOCIATION, STATUS OF WOMEN].
20. Id. at 2; see also Jane Wettach, Women in the Practice: The Struggle Continues,
NORTH CAROLINA STATE BAR QUARTERLY, Summer 1990, at 18-22 (reporting study by
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
foster freedom from gender bias and urged bar organizations to

involve women attorneys as members and to foster their development
21
in leadership positions.
WOMEN OF NoTE
From the first woman graduate in 1915 to the class of 1994, the
careers of women law graduates have been varied, reflecting the wide
range of career opportunities available to women attorneys at
different points in the law school's history. For the following discussion, the authors selected one woman graduate as representative of
each decade. To the extent possible, the accounts that follow have
been prepared based on interviews or accounts of interviews with
women graduates of UNC over the last eighty years. In this way,
several generations of UNC women are able to trace both the
evolving experience of women as students at the law school and as
legal professionals, while at the same time providing personal insights
in their own uniquely "different voice."'
1910-19
Mrs. Opal I. T. Emry was born in 1884, received her law degree
in 1919 and was the ninth woman licensed to practice law in North
Carolina. Mrs. Emry held B.A. and M.A. degrees in botany from
Ohio State University and taught botany at both Ohio State and the
University of Arizona before enrolling at UNC. She was a scientific
assistant at the United States Department of Agriculture and a state
botanist at the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. There is
no record of whether she practiced law. Mrs. Emry was invited in
1970 to attend the Old Students Club luncheon, organized to
recognize individuals who graduated fifty years ago or more. The
letter of invitation was filled with references to the "Half-Century
Boys," "The Old Boys," and "Sons of the Alma Mater." Mrs. Emry's
terse reply was, "Why not sons and daughters? As I am not a son, I
do not consider myself invited." A quick response from the Alumni
North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys).
21. NORTH CAROLINA BAR ASSOCIATION, STATUS OF WOMEN, supra note 19, at 3.
22. See generally CAROL GILLIGAN, IN A DIFFERENT VOICE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
THEORY AND WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT 1 (1982) (observing that in speaking of moral
problems and interpersonal relationships, "the women's voices sounded distinct" from
men's); MONA HARRINGTON, WOMEN LAWYERS: REWRITING THE RULES 7-9 (1994)
(asserting that women lawyers occupy the vantage point where the conventional roles of
women and the professional roles of men collide, which enables them not only to feel the
pressure of change, but to work to shape that change).
[Vol. 73
Secretary apologized and indicated that the Old Students Club

included both alumnae and alumni and that she certainly was invited.
Still fighting for the recognition of women, Mrs. Emry died in Weldon
in 1974.3
1920-29
Kathrine Robinson Everett, who graduated from the School of
Law in 1920, practiced law in Durham for more than seventy years.
The only woman in her law school class, she graduated first in the
class and was the top scorer on the 1920 state bar exam. She was the
eleventh woman licensed in the state. Mrs. Everett's lawyer father
influenced her both in her selection of a career in law and in her
dedication to public service. She graduated from UNC-Greensboro
in 1913 and then taught history and business in Mount Airy and
Salisbury. When the United States entered World War I, she went to
Washington, D.C., to work for the war effort. While there she took
courses at the Washington College of Law of American University
and then enrolled in a summer session at Columbia University. Mrs.
Everett applied for admission to the University of Virginia School of
Law, but she was rejected, as she said, because Virginia was "still
ungracious enough not to take women." To its credit and benefit, the
University of North Carolina did admit her.
Mrs. Everett found her fellow students pleasant despite ribbing
from classmates who said, "You [are] going to ruin the law school,
with women coming." She returned to Fayetteville in the fall of 1920
after passing the bar examination, just as women received the vote,
and joined her father in his practice. She also worked registering
women voters in that year. Mrs. Everett told wonderful stories about
husbands chasing her from front porches as she attempted to register
their wives. Kathrine Everett tried her first case in Clinton, North
Carolina, and recalled that "people came from miles around to see a
lady lawyer." She won the case. That same fall she argued and won
her first case in the North Carolina Supreme Court. 4 Mrs. Everett
is quoted as saying: "I was concerned about whether or not to wear
a hat and gloves to court." 25
She married fellow lawyer Reuben Oscar Everett in 1926 and
moved to Durham, where Mr. Everett had his criminal law practice.
23. UNC Chapel Hill General Alumni Association files.
24. See Elliott v. McMillan, 180 N.C. 232, 104 S.E. 459 (1920).
25. Mike Collins, A Lawyer Ahead of Her Time, RALEIGH NEws &
17, 1989.
OBSERVER,
Apr.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
She specialized in civil matters and worked on briefs and did title
work. In 1928 their son, Robinson 0. Everett, now a successful
attorney and law professor in Durham, was born. In 1951 Mrs.
Everett became one of the first two women to run successfully for the
Durham City Council.26 During these years and later she continued
to practice law with her husband and then her son. On the same day
in 1954, all three of the Everetts were admitted to practice before the
U.S. Supreme Court, a first for the Court.'
In 1990 Mrs. Everett was thought to be the oldest practicing
attorney in the United States.' She is remembered fondly by a host
of lawyers around the country. Her twenty years on the Durham City
Council and fair representation of many clients endeared her to many
people. She died on January 28, 1992, at the age of ninety-eight. 9

In September 1994, on what would have been her 100th birthday, the
law library at UNC was named in her honor and is now known as the
Kathrine R. Everett Law Library.
1930-39
Sarah Starr Gillam graduated in 1939 and became the only
woman lawyer in Iredell County. She associated with her father's law
firm in Mooresville upon receiving her license. Gillam says that no
one was ever able to change her mind, even though her mother
certainly tried. Coming to UNC for law school was a foregone
conclusion because her father was a graduate. Virginia Douglas Bell
was her classmate, and they were the first women to graduate from
a class with more than one woman. In addition to Mrs. Bell, there
was one other female student in their first-year class whom Mrs.
Gillam characterizes as a "fluffy one" who was gone by the end of the
first semester.
The law school was a very different place in those years, but
Manning Hall was welcoming. The school built a restroom for
women at the side of the building; to get there, one had to walk past
the faculty offices. Mrs. Gillam thought this was good since it
encouraged students to approach the faculty with problems and
26. Mary Semans was the other woman elected to the Durham City Council.
27. Jim Thornton, UNC School of Law Honors 97-Year-Old Durham Lawyer,
DURHAM MORNING HERALD, Oct. 20, 1990, at C1.

28. See Judith W. Wegner, Writing a Woman's Life; KathrineR. Everett '20, CAROLINA
ALuMNI REVIEW, Summer 1992, at 35-39 (recounting the life of Katherine R. Everett).
29. Treva Jones, Kathrine Everett Dies; Legal Career Marked by Firsts, NEWS &
OBSERVER (Raleigh), Jan. 29, 1992, at lB.
"NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 73
questions. She describes the atmosphere as informal and pleasant.

The faculty treated her well, and most of the male students did also.
"There were a few male students who had just as soon we not be
there," she recalls, "but most were polite and pleasant." She had a
part-time job working with the dean's secretary to earn extra money
and knew Dean Maurice T. Van Hecke better than she knew any
other member of the faculty.
While practicing in Mooresville, Charles Tillett, a well-known
attorney in Charlotte, asked Gillam to come to work for him, but she
was not interested in relocating. He successfully tempted her to work
for him two days per week, however. While working for Tillett in
Charlotte, she met Julia Alexander, who was still in active practice.
Ms. Alexander (the first woman to argue and win a case before the
Supreme Court of North Carolina) was known as "Miss Carrie." Mrs.
Gillam had great admiration for Miss Carrie, describing her as a
character who once got confused in an introduction and presented her
to Judge William H. Bobbitt as Susie Sharp. Judge Bobbitt replied
that he knew Susie Sharp and this was not she. Sarah Gillam replied
that she certainly was not Susie Sharp, she was Sarah Starr.
During World War II, Mrs. Gillam went to work at the Office of
the State Attorney General in Raleigh. She did not want to accept
this position, but her father encouraged her because he felt it would
be excellent experience. During those years she became reacquainted
with classmate Moses B. Gillam, Jr., whom she married in 1942.
After the war, the Gillams decided to come back to Windsor, North
Carolina, where her husband's father and uncle had been in practice.
Sarah Starr Gillam remains a partner in the law firm of Gillam &
Gillam, where she practices with her husband and the younger of her
two sons. The older son, Bob, is Associate General Counsel for
Carolina Power & Light Company in Raleigh. Mrs. Gillam is active
in the Bertie County Bar Association and the North Carolina State
Bar and is still practicing after fifty-five years. Although she has
done extensive title work and some civil litigation, she was originally
interested in criminal law. Moses Gillam was the local prosecutor for
a number of years, however, and by the time criminal work ceased to
constitute a conflict of interest, her proclivities had changed. Mrs.
Gillam found law practice to be an excellent career for women.
Combining family responsibilities and law practice worked well for
her, but she credits practice in a small town with some of her success
in these demanding endeavors.
Sarah Gillam recognized law as a good career choice for women
long before there were many female law students or attorneys. The
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
variety of types of practice and other uses to which one can put a
legal education make it most attractive, in her opinion. If Mrs.
Gillam could change one thing about the practice of law, it would be
to return to the ideal of law as a service profession. "It now seems
to be pure business, and that is too bad."3
1940-49
Bertha "Bea" Merrill Holt attended the University of North
Carolina School of Law from 1938 to 1940 and subsequently received
her degree from the University of Alabama in 1941. In the intervening years, she served her country, raised a family, traveled the world,
and contributed important leadership to the state through her twenty
years of service in the North Carolina General Assembly.
Bea Holt grew up in Eufala, Alabama, where her father was a
lawyer. She remembers that her calling to the law came early. In the
seventh grade, students were asked to write about their career
choices, and she wrote that she wanted to be a lawyer. Bea laughingly reports, "Everyone said I was nuts!" She notes that her decision
was "always an amazement for mother, who cried when I said I
wanted to go to law school."
Ms. Holt received her B.A. from Agnes Scott College in Decatur,
Georgia, during the Depression, and economic conditions required
that she give careful thought to how to pursue her dream of a legal
education. She had family ties to Chapel Hill through a cousin, Allen
Merrill (editor of the Daily Tar Heel and the proud possessor of a car
that she could share). She financed her education with the help of an
uncle and the state. She found the campus beautiful and the social
life a good deal of fun for someone who had just spent four years in
a women's college.
Bea enjoyed law school despite not having other women in her
class, and despite feeling she had no real mentors and few role
models. She remembers that women such as Sarah Starr Gillam,
Clover Johnson, and Virginia Douglas Bell had preceded her. She
also notes that Libby Shumate, who stood at the top of an earlier
class, had not been allowed to be editor-in-chief of the North Carolina
Law Review. Bea got on well with male students and recalls her first
meeting with her husband, Clary Holt, who received his J.D. in 1938.
While she was studying in the basement of the library, he came upon
30. Telephone interview with Sarah Starr Gillam, partner, Gillam and Gillam Law
Firm (July 18, 1994); UNC Chapel Hill General Alumni Association files.
[Vol. 73
her and insisted that she type something for him. Bea's retort ("I
never was a good typist. And who do you think you are?") led to an
enduring affection and a fifty-two-year marriage that is still going
strong. She was skilled at turning challenge into opportunity. She
recalls her first class with Albert Coates, who lectured her for twenty
minutes about law school's being a "rough go" for a woman. His
brusque approach failed to deter her thirst for a legal education.
"Besides," she quips, "my knees had turned to rubber, so I couldn't
walk out."
After graduation and success on the Alabama bar exam, Bea
found few doors open to women lawyers. Law firms recommended
that she get training as a secretary, and a bank where she applied to
be a trust officer told her that she would not be paid as much as a
man. She finally headed for wartime Washington, D.C., where she
worked for the United States Department of the Treasury and later
the Department of the Interior. She and Clary Holt became reacquainted, married, and returned to Burlington where he began to
practice. Still there were few opportunities for women lawyers. Bea
became a homemaker and raised three children, one of whom is the
manager of the rock band, R.E.M.
Ms. Holt began her long tenure in the North Carolina General
Assembly in 1975, when she was appointed to fill the unexpired term
of James Long. In the House she has earned a reputation for her wit,
good humor, candor, and ability. She stands up for what she believes
in, even though she may not win the day. For example, she called for
public hearings when the legislature considered reinstating retirement
for a judge who had been removed from the bench. None of her bills
passed during the remainder of that legislative session. On the other
hand, she has enjoyed moments of considerable triumph. For
example, in 1993 she served as chair of the legislative women's caucus
and forged an effective coalition that eliminated North Carolina's
marital rape exemption. In 1994 she was instrumental in shepherding
criminal-law reform proposals and in gaining support for capital
appropriations to begin planning for a new addition to the UNC law
school building.
Bea is a favorite speaker at the law school, and she is an active
member of the UNC Law Alumni Association Board. In words and
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
deeds, she inspires those around her to keep their perspective and
sense of humor and to use their legal training for the public good.31
1950-59
Mary W. Oliver graduated from the School of Law in 1951 with
a totally different career plan from most graduates. Ms. Oliver
received her A.B. degree from Western Maryland College in 1940 and
her master of library science degree from Drexel University in
Philadelphia three years later. When she entered law school, she
already had had several years of library experience and had worked
at the University of Virginia Law Library. Ms. Oliver never
considered law school until after she had become a librarian. She
worked ten hours per week in the law library for Ms. Lucille Elliott
(UNC's first law librarian) while completing her legal education.
When Mary entered law school, there were only ten women in the
whole school, and only three graduated with her class. One entered
practice, one married and did not practice, and Ms. Oliver became a
law librarian and law professor.
While most of the faculty said that women were welcome in the
school, Ms. Oliver does not believe that the women really felt
welcome. Most male students treated the women quite well, although
there were a few who thought that the only place for women in law
was as legal secretaries. Because there were so few women, they did
not cling together but participated with male students in study groups
and the like.
Ms. Oliver's first job after graduation was as a researcher for
Albert Coates at the Institute of Government working with the
legislative commission studying North Carolina administrative
agencies. In September 1952, she became Assistant Law Librarian at
UNC despite other offers. Although Ms. Elliott would be retiring in
a few years, there was no assurance that Ms. Oliver would replace
her. Some members of the faculty thought it would be better to have
a man for the job. Nonetheless, in 1955 Ms. Oliver was -appointed
Law Librarian and Assistant Professor of Law. The University had
31. Interview with Bertha M. Holt, Representative to the North Carolina General
Assembly (July 1, 1994); Pat Bailey, Prison Cooking Grads Hear Alamance 'Lady
Legislator',DURHAM MORNING HERALD, Mar. 12, 1976, at 3B; Martha Waggoner, Rep.
Holt Creditedwith Success of MaritalRape Bill, NEws-ARGUS (Goldsboro, N.C.), July 30,
1993, at A12; UNC Chapel Hill General Alumni Association files. See generally Betty
Mitchell Gray, Women in the Legislature: A Force for the Future, 15 N.C. INSIGHT 2
(1994) (discussing the increasing numbers and growing influence of women in the North
Carolina General Assembly).
[Vol. 73
some hesitation about appointing to the faculty someone whose main

responsibility was administration rather than teaching, but the law
faculty was behind her appointment, especially since she would teach
legal bibliography. The law library had only two full-time staff
members at that time.
Mary Oliver says that she found her career challenging and
rewarding. The two most difficult things about the position were the
lack of financial resources to provide the staff; collection, and services
that users demanded, and the faculty's refusal to permit a security
system in the new Van Hecke-Wettach building. There were frequent
budget cuts, frozen positions, and holds on spending during those
years. Both Ms. Elliott and Dean Henry Brandis were supportive and
encouraged her to become active not only in the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) but also in the Association of
American Law Schools (AALS) at a time when there were not many
women in the field as librarians or law professors. Professor Oliver
was president of the AALL in 1972-73, served on the AALS
Executive Committee, and chaired the Law Library Committee of the
American Bar Association.
Professor Oliver retired in 1984 after a distinguished career,
having devoted thirty-two years to her work at the UNC Law Library.
She is remembered fondly by former students and is well known and
respected among leaders in legal education.
1960-69
Susan Haughton Ehringhaus graduated in 1968 with honors and
served as articles editor of the North CarolinaLaw Review. From her
early teens Ms. Ehringhaus was increasingly sure that she did not
want to adopt the traditional pattern of following college with
marriage and then a family without developing her other interests, In
her ninth-grade civics class she wrote a paper on career choices; law
was one of those she highlighted. She comes from a family of
lawyers; her father, grandfather, and various other male family
members enjoyed long and distinguished legal careers. Additionally,
Ms. Ehringhaus's mother had a career of her own, serving for several
years as executive director of the North Carolina Art Society and
later the North Carolina Museum of Art. Ms. Ehringhaus credits her
parents with rearing all three of their children free of gender
stereotypes; her older sister is a theater producer and her younger
brother is a banker. Following two years at St. Mary's College, Ms.
Ehringhaus transferred to UNC to complete her B.A. in a combined
degree program. Ms. Ehringhaus states that she was attracted to
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Carolina for law school for a variety of reasons: its fine reputation;
her legacy (both her father and grandfather were graduates of the
School of Law); the affordability of a legal education at Carolina; and
scholarship support awarded by Dean J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., who was
"willing to take a chance on me."
There were five women in her class, but only she graduated in
1968. There were approximately four women in the class behind and
four in the class ahead of hers. Ms. Ehringhaus credits Doris Bray,
the first female editor-in-chief of the North CarolinaLaw Review, as
one of her role models: "She gave heart to everyone; I knew of her
and felt the power of her coattails. Further, her success kindly
disposed the faculty to women."
Ms. Ehringhaus says that she had a thoroughly positive law
school experience. Many women from this era report that they felt
isolated and sometimes alienated during law school; fortunately, this
was not Ehringhaus's experience. She feels that she had a first-rate
education at the School of Law and that she was fortunate to be
there.
Her first job was as an associate at the firm of Maupin, Taylor
and Ellis in Raleigh, followed by a year at the United States Justice
Department in the Appellate Section of the Antitrust Division. In
1970 she left the Justice Department and joined the UNC law faculty
for a three-year stint. Since 1974 she has served as Assistant to the
Chancellor and Senior University Counsel at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. She continues to teach part-time in the
School of Law. Ms. Ehringhaus loves her job and being part of the
University's noble tradition. Her colleagues are not just lawyers; she
enjoys contact with the faculty and finds the variety of backgrounds
especially interesting. She describes the work as similar to being inhouse counsel to an $800 million business with all of its attendant
challenges.
The School of Law, she says, "should inspire young people to
know that they can belong to this group. Once one becomes a part
of the profession, it is important to reach back and help younger
people; this is no less than a professional responsibility." 2
32. Telephone interview with Susan H. Ehringhaus, Assistant to the Chancellor and
Senior University Counsel at UNC Chapel Hill (June 29, 1994).
[Vol. 73
1970-79
S. Elizabeth Gibson received her law degree in 1976. In the
ensuing years, she distinguished herself as one of the first women to
clerk for a justice of the United States Supreme Court and as one of
the most talented and beloved members of the current UNC law
faculty.
Gibson grew up in Raleigh, and, like many young women of her
generation, planned to become a teacher. She was inspired by active,
involved women in her family, including her mother and her aunt
Frances Satterfield, who was active in the Democratic Party and
worked in the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor.
Gibson considered the possibility of a legal career while attending
Duke University as an undergraduate, but remained unsure. After
working for a year in Washington, D.C., at the Department of
Justice's Civil Rights Division, she found that she missed being on a
college campus and decided to take the LSAT. Success on the exam
boosted her confidence and she decided to enter UNC, which she
considered to be a good school at an affordable price. She hoped that
there she would come to know those with whom she would work in
law practice.
Gibson's experiences at law school were different from those of
the women who preceded her. Her class had an enrollment of
approximately twenty percent women in contrast to the much lower
proportion in earlier years. The class was different in other respects
as well. Returning veterans of the Vietnam War seemed to add a
tone of seriousness of purpose to the school, and women were more
readily treated as equals by most of their male classmates. A few
men continued to comment unkindly about outspoken women in their
classes. Some others played cards and seemed to enjoy relatively
uncomplicated lives while their wives worked to put them through law
school. Change was the order of the day, however, and institutional
fixtures such as the North CarolinaLaw Review changed in tone and
character. Professors were fair and respectful, although their
awkwardness seemed unavoidable when they asked whether women
preferred to be called "Mrs." or "Miss." Women students generally
survived with good grace and enjoyed feeling like pioneers.
Law faculty members such as Paul Verkuil, Susan Lewis, and
Gail Richmond were mentors who provided encouragement at key
moments. At the end of her second year, Gibson met United States
Circuit Judge J. Braxton Craven, Jr., the UNC law graduation
speaker; she was invited to interview for and was offered a judicial
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
clerkship with him. Fellow law clerk (now husband) Robert Mosteller
encouraged her to pursue a clerkship with a United States Supreme
Court justice. She interviewed unsuccessfully with Justice Lewis F.
Powell, Jr., and later was invited to interview with Justice Byron R.
White. She became Justice White's first female clerk and one of only
seven female clerks at the Supreme Court during its 1977 term.
Gibson then practiced with the firm of Shea & Gardner in
Washington, D.C. She found Shea & Gardner "just the right place"
for someone who valued intellectual challenge and took pride in her
work. She was made a partner in 1983, just before she joined the
UNC law faculty.
Professor Gibson enjoys her job as a faculty member at UNC.
She is well respected by her colleagues, including those who were her
teachers. Professor Gibson teaches courses in civil procedure, federal
jurisdiction, and bankruptcy. She received awards for teaching
excellence from the classes of 1988 and 1991. Professor Gibson has
also become a nationally-respected scholar on the procedural and
jurisdictional aspects of bankruptcy. She has written for and worked
closely with federal bankruptcy judges on the handling of large
corporate "mega-bankruptcies." Professor Gibson became the first
woman to be named to a distinguished professorship at the UNC
School of Law when she became Burton Craige Professor of Law in
1993.
1980-89
Teresa Wynn Roseborough graduated in 1986 as the first AfricanAmerican woman to serve as editor-in-chief of the North Carolina
Law Review. Ms. Roseborough had long been interested in the law
as a tool for social change, an interest which she credits to being a
child old enough to appreciate but too young to participate in the civil
rights movement. Attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Ms.
and justices of the Supreme Court were her heroes.
Roseborough, whose B.A. is from the University of Virginia, also has
a master's degree in education from Boston University and is the first
lawyer in her family.
Women comprised over forty percent of the first-year class when
she entered, but there were only twenty-two African-American
students; however, this was a tremendous improvement over the
previous two years. She credits Professor Harry Groves as her role
model for his strong interest in individuals and for caring so much
that students develop strong legal analytical skills. Although he ran
a tight ship in class, he encouraged students to rely on their own
[Vol. 73
abilities to find answers and have the confidence to share the

outcomes with the class. Although Ms. Roseborough believes that she
was treated very well at Carolina, in one class she remembers a
difficult case where the professor was going down the row asking the
same question to student after student, each of whom was unable to
answer the question. Just before the bell rang, the professor came to
Roseborough, who answered the question correctly. She reports that
the professor appeared stunned that someone finally answered
correctly and that the person was a black woman.
Ms. Roseborough never felt that she was treated differently from
other students, and she believes that Dean Ken Broun set a wonderful
tone to encourage discussion and openness and that he would not
tolerate discrimination. The low number of women on the faculty was
a problem, however. One issue she feels was not handled well was
the focus on rape cases in criminal law classes where some professors
never appeared to understand how offensive it was to continually use
rape as the paradigm for the criminal law nor how difficult it was for
women to deal with the complexity of criminal law through such a
difficult and personal situation.
Upon graduation Ms. Roseborough clerked for Judge J. Dickson
Phillips, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit and then for Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States
Supreme Court. She feels very fortunate to have worked with two
such outstanding jurists and to be trained by them. She says that
Judge Phillips is "all of what a judge should be, both as a scholar and
a human being." Justice Stevens, she says, is such a wonderful person
that she "would work for him if he were running a service station."
Ms. Roseborough entered private practice with the firm of
Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan in Atlanta in 1988. When she was
hired there was only one woman partner, and the firm had policies
that permitted partners to entertain clients at race- and genderrestrictive clubs. These policies changed soon thereafter, and the firm
no longer reimbursed attorneys for entertainment in such establishments. She found that some sections of the firm were very welcoming
to women, but others reflected the difficulty women have entering allmale professions. Too many male attorneys view women as unwilling
to make the sacrifices to have a successful career, Ms. Roseborough
believes; at the same time, they fail to recognize that a large percentage of male attorneys have stay-at-home wives.
After five years at the firm, Ms. Roseborough joined Assistant
Attorney General Walter Dellinger as one of his deputies at the
Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department. Although she
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
finds it hard to be separated from her husband Joseph (UNC Law

'87), and two-year-old daughter Courtney, both of whom remain in
Atlanta, Ms. Roseborough says that Attorney General Janet Reno has
made it possible for many women in the Justice Department to work
hours that support family life. Ms. Roseborough lives in Washington,

D.C., from Sunday night through Thursday and returns to Atlanta
Thursday evenings.
As she looks to the future, Ms. Roseborough hopes that Carolina
will soon develop the same kind of network that several major private
schools have created, through which one turns to classmates for
advice, political appointments, and the like.33
1990-94
Amy Kathryn Johnson graduated first in her class in 1994 and
served as editor-in-chief of the North CarolinaLaw Review. With an
undergraduate degree in business administration from the University
of Michigan, Ms. Johnson decided on law as a career in her senior
year, even though she has no other family members or close family
friends who are attorneys. She chose law school because studying law
affords numerous career opportunities.
Ms. Johnson reports that her experiences at the law school were
uniformly positive, due in part to the fact that women comprised
forty-three percent of her entering class. When she became editor of
the North CarolinaLaw Review, she found many of the faculty quite
helpful, especially Professors Louis Bilionis and Richard Rosen. She
can recall no instance in which she felt that her gender was a liability.
Ms. Johnson began clerking for Judge J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., of
the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit after taking
the July 1994 North Carolina bar exam.
CONCLUSION
Women have been important contributors to the School of Law

for well over fifty years. The dramatic change in the place of women
since the school's centennial in 1945 is symbolized by the leadership
of the school's first woman dean, the naming of its law library in
honor of a noted alumna, the dramatic rise in the number of female
students and law alumnae, and the contributions that its women
graduates are making to the legal profession and society. Although
such developments in many respects are relatively recent, there is a
33. Telephone interview with Teresa W. Roseborough, (June 30, 1994).
724
[Vol. 73
much deeper and longer history of women affiliated with the UNC
School of Law than is readily accessible or adequately documented.
This short essay has sought to fill that gap by more fully tracing
the increasing presence of women at the UNC School of Law and
more fully canvassing the history of women's entry into the legal
profession. While it is impossible to predict the future, it seems likely
that the substantial presence of women in the law school will lead to
a continuing pattern of transformation of legal institutions, the legal
profession, and its traditions as women make their voices heard and
share their own experiences and values with their male colleagues.
Academic Programs
THE CHANGING COURSE OF STUDY:
REFLECTIONS
SESQUICENTENNIAL
JUDITH WEGNER
Judith Welch Wegner serves as the ninety-fifth president

of the Association of American Law Schools, after serving for
a number of years on the Association's Accreditation and
Executive Committees. At UNC, she served as chair of the
curriculum committee and as associate dean prior to her
appointment as dean in 1989. She has had a continuing
interest in innovative approaches to legal education and the
development of law school curricula.
The law school's sesquicentennial provides an opportunity to
reflect upon its development as an institution. Since the course of
study lies at the heart of that institution and forms the fundamental
bond linking faculty to student and students across the generations,
this history would be incomplete without expanded observations on
the development of the school's educational program over the years.
One area of development-the creation and growth of the law
school's clinical program-is- detailed at length elsewhere in this
volume.' This essay therefore concentrates on tracing national efforts
to effect curricular reform in legal education, highlighting aspects of
the current UNC School of Law curriculum that show particular
promise, and offering modest reflections on the probable course of
curricular innovation in the years ahead.
I.
NATIONAL EFFORTS TO EFFECT CURRICULAR REFORM IN

LEGAL EDUCATION
Detailed histories of the evolution of American legal education2
1. See Richard A. Rosen, Clinical Legal Education, 73 N.C. L. REV. 751 (1995).
2. See ROBERT STEVENS, LAW SCHOOL: LEGAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA FROM
THE 1850s TO THE 1980s (1983). Several earlier studies of American legal education also
[Vol. 73
and of the early development of legal education at the University of

North Carolina 3 are found elsewhere. Suffice it to say that during
the first 100 years of the UNC School of Law's development, national
legal education had evolved through four principal phases: a
requirement for some period of law study followed by a bar exam;
recognition of law school as an alternative to apprenticeship; the
requirement of law school attendance in lieu of apprenticeship; and
the requirement of college attendance and graduation from an ABAapproved law school in order to sit for the bar in most states. 4 In the
last fifty years, debate has generally focused on curriculum and
pedagogy within this established framework.5
The curricula of most American law schools in the late 1940s
were characterized by the American Bar Association as follows:
The curricula are fairly well standardized. The vast majority
of schools are either local or regional and the curricula have
been fashioned largely around the subjects in which the
graduates of the school must be examined for admission to
practice. By and large, the law students have pressed for the
"bread and butter" courses and the subjects specified in the
rules for admission to practice. The law schools have
tended, because of limited funds, inadequate facilities, and
lethargy, to yield to the pressures.6
Legal historian Robert Stevens summarizes the curricula of the
post-war years in similar, unflattering terms. In Stevens's view, the
course of study was "disheartening" and filled with warmed-over
reforms that had been tried in the 1920s and 1930s but failed due to
"the remarkable underfunding of legal education manifested in poor
student-faculty ratios, the lack of student interest in scholarly
remain relevant. See HERBERT L. PACKER & THOMAS EHRLICH, NEW DIRECTIONS IN
LEGAL EDUCATION 164-328 (1972) (reprinting Alfred Z. Reed's seminal 1921 study,
Trainingfor the Public Professionof the Law; Preble Stotz's reflections on the Reed study,
Training for the Public Profession of the Law (1921): A Contemporary Review; and
Brainerd Currie's important commentary, The Materialsof Law Study, originally published
in 1951 and 1955).
3. See Albert Coates, The Story of the Law School at the University of North
Carolina,47 N.C. L. REV. 1 (1968).
4. STEVENS, supra note 2, at 205.
5. A recent law suit by the Massachusetts School of Law challenging the role of the
American Bar Association in law school accreditation has reignited the more fundamental
debate, however. See Ken Myers, Law School Suit AgainstAccreditation Officials, NAT'L
L.J., Dec. 6, 1993 at 4.
6. STEVENS, supra note 2, at 210 (quoting ABA Survey of the Legal Profession, in
LOWELL S. NICHOLSON, LAW SCHOOLS OF THEUNITED STATES 21 (1958)).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNLAL
727
endeavors, and a strong tradition of faculty independence."7 Stevens

characterized the two post-war decades as reflecting cyclical changes
(including periodic revisitation of certain types of enrichment
courses), disenchantment with the case method, and a modest increase
in the number of electives, often taught as seminars.' Stevens,
quoting Albert Z. Reed's study of the curriculum forty years earlier,
found that the law school curriculum continued to be a "mere
aggregate or conglomerate of independently developed units."9 Not
surprisingly then, curricular reform efforts during the 1950s and 1960s
sought (unsuccessfully) to make legal education more programmatic
or sequential. 0 Modest efforts were also undertaken to attend to
legal skills not easily emphasized through the case method, develop
introductory courses to bring greater cohesion to the curriculum, and
create tutorial programs taught by recent graduates to enhance writing
instruction." Seeds were being planted that would yield more
significant reform in later years, however, particularly in the form of
improved skills training at "the2 better state universities," such as the
University of North Carolina.
The civil rights movement and the Vietnam war brought a
growing sense of frustration and more significant critiques of legal
education. Students sought more "relevant" courses relating to such
topics as poverty and civil rights,13 and the Socratic method came
under attack. 14 Dissatisfaction with legal education in the second
and third years and the perceived need to graduate more lawyers
more quickly to address the needs of unrepresented populations led
to proposals to shorten the duration of legal education to less than
two years." Other methodologically driven strategies to address
upper-division discontent were employed by law schools during this
period, including eliminating upper-division requirements in deference
to student choice among elective offerings; introduction of more
intensive writing opportunities; and use of smaller classes where
possible. 6 Intellectually driven solutions were also proffered, such
7. STEVENS, supra note 2, at 210.

8. Id. at 211.
9. Id.
10. Id. at 212.
11. Id.
12. Id. at 213.
13. Id. at 234.
14. PACKER & EHRLICH, supra note 2, at 29-30.
15. Id. at 78-83.
16. Id. at 31.
[Vol. 73
as encouragement of joint work with other disciplines (in some cases

through the introduction of "law and.. ." courses, in others through
creation of joint degrees),' 7 and reformulation of the basic inquiry
that underlies the study of law toward more socially oriented and
philosophical ends. 8
Two major reports published by leading legal educators during
the 1970s reflected relatively radical and radically different strategies
for addressing the perceived malaise. In 1971, Professor (and later
Dean) Paul Carrington authored a major study on behalf of the
Association of American Law Schools. 9 Carrington's study stressed
the importance of diversity of mission and objectives in American
legal education. It included both a general statement of objectives for
American legal education (setting forth important philosophical
assumptions) and model curricula with related commentary. Three of
Carrington's major objectives are worthy of special note:
(1) Legal education should offer training that is coherently
related to the varied demands of the public for legal services
and to the varied ambitions of a wider array of students.
(3) Each [AALS] member school should consider the extent
to which its instructional offering ought to relate to such
diverse goals as:
(a) training individuals for general practice as lawyers;
(b) training lawyers desiring special competence in
particular fields of practice;

(c) training scholars capable of interdisciplinary research;
(d) training individuals for careers in the delivery of
legal services as members of allied professions;
(e) training about law for students motivated by intellectual curiosity, by uncertainty of career goals, or by
career goals in other disciplines.
17. Id.
18. Id. at 34-36 (describing "secularization" as the "prime intellectual cause of the
contemporary malaise in legal education," and suggesting a renewed emphasis in the legal
curricula on the three dimensions of "justice" defined by Calvin Woodard: the needs of
private individuals (the "practical aspect"), problems too complicated or too far reaching
to be resolved on a piecemeal basis (the "collective aspect"), and speculation about the
nature and role of law in any of its variegated forms (the "philosophical, or theoretical
aspect")).
19. The Carrington report was published initially in AALS, PROCEEDINGS, Pt. 1, Sec.
2 (1971). It is set forth in full at Appendix A of PACKER & EHLICH, supra note 2.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
729
To the extent that each is deemed to be an appropriate goal

of a particular school, its offerings should be coherently
related to such goals.
(4) In pursuing such goals, schools should not be inhibited
by received limitations which do not relate to function.
Specifically, schools should not be bound by the traditions
that:
(a) all graduates must be trained to omnicompetence;
(b) all schools must pursue the same general goals;
(c) most courses or units of instruction must be centered
on a core of doctrine and serve the usual function of
training students "to think like lawyers";
(d) all students must have prolonged undergraduate
training;
(e) students cannot attain their first degrees in law
without three years of study within the walls of a law
school.'
In short, Carrington advocated that legal education should be
related to the public's demands on the profession; reflect individual
law schools' choices among diverse possible missions; and resist
traditional constraints or assumptions that have tended to drive
curricular development.
In keeping with these assumptions,
Carrington proposed a standard curriculum incorporating basic,

intensive (seminar-like), and extensive (large-group) instruction; an
advanced curriculum which provided opportunities for specialized and
research instruction; and an open curriculum available to undergraduates and those interested in instruction in allied professions!'
Carrington envisioned the standard curriculum as taking less than
three years, and incorporated the advanced curriculum to satisfy
existing ABA residency requirements, pending fundamental change
in accreditation requirements that never occurred.
While Carrington's study emphasized the architecture and choices
implicit in legal curricula, an American Bar Association study
authored by Dean Roger Cramton emphasized the need for accountability to the public and the broader institutional forces within
universities and the legal profession that shape those choices.
Cramton's point of departure was Chief Justice Warren Burger's wellremembered query: Are lawyers competent?' The Cramton task
20. PACKER & EHLIcH, supra note 2, at 48-49.

21. See id at 101-26.
22. See ABA SECTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION AND ADMISSIONS TO THE BAR,
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE TASK FORCE ON LAWYER COMPETENCY: THE
[Vol. 73
force concluded that the historical practice by which young lawyers

gained acceptable levels of competence in practice was no longer as
acceptable as it had been in the past; skillful professional performance could indeed be improved by curricular reform within law
schools; and the practicing bar had a responsibility to assist law
schools in undertaking such curricular reform by helping identify new
resources needed to fuel such an endeavor.
The Cramton task force also offered more specific recommendations, including the following: (a) consideration of the full range of
qualities and skills important to professional competence in reaching
admissions decisions; (b) providing training in fundamental skills
including legal analysis, legal research, writing, oral communication,
fact gathering, interviewing, counseling, and negotiation; (c) modification of pedagogy to emphasize constructive work habits, attitudes, and
values and to incorporate more small classes, cooperative work among
law students, and alternative approaches to evaluation; (d) introduction of greater structure and coherence into the three-year law school
curriculum; and (e) involvement of lawyers and judges along with
traditional faculty members as teaching personnel.' In short, the
Cramton report emphasized the linkage of legal education within the
academy to the ultimate delivery of high-quality legal services;
stressed the responsibility of the academy in fostering greater
competency; and suggested ways through which the academy could
enhance training in "practical skills."'24 The report also cited the
unavoidable resource questions raised by its proposals, and noted the
legal profession's responsibility for addressing this problem. Not
surprisingly, the Cramton report also revisited the continuing theme
of needed reform in curricular structure and pedagogy.'
ROLE OF THE LAW ScHOOLS 1 (1979).
23. Id. at 3-5.

24. In this respect, the Crampton report picked up the trail of the legal realists,
particularly Jerome Frank, who had advocated the creation of "clinical lawyer-school[s]"
in both the 1930s and the 1950s. See generally Jerome Frank, Both Ends Against the
Middle, 100 U. PA. L. REV. 20 (1951) (reviving his earlier critique of legal education as
suffering from "reality-phobia"); Jerome Frank, Why Not a Clinical Lawyer-School?, 81
U. PA. L. REv. 907 (1933) (advocating a restructuring of law school education that would
diminish the role of the case study and increase students' exposure to the day to day
realities of legal practice).
25. A more in-depth critique of law school pedagogy is found in THOMAS L. SHAFFER
& ROBERT S. REDMOUNT, LAWYERS, LAW STUDENTS AND PEOPLE (1977).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
The 1980s witnessed further efforts to grapple with the themes
developed so forcefully in the Carrington and Cramton reports.2 6

Although the Carrington proposals had had little effect in fostering
major structural reform, a number of schools endeavored to foster a
greater sense of progression or integration within their curricula. The
1989 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools
featured presentations on various structural curricular reforms,
including Harvard's experimental effort to coordinate first-year

courses and introduce week-long "bridge" segments emphasizing
topics of relevance to each course; 7 and Utah's "capstone-comerstone" program which sought to offer both integrated, intensive
courses ("capstones") and compressed coverage of broad subject areas
It also emphasized developments in teaching
("cornerstones").'
lawyering skills, 9 developments in teaching ethics,3 and attitudinal
and process issues raised by curricular reform.3 '

The late 1980s also saw the birth of another American Bar
Association Task Force, this one chaired by New York City lawyer
Robert MacCrate, and entitled Law Schools and the Profession:
Narrowing the Gap. The task force report Legal Education and
ProfessionalDevelopment-An EducationalContinuum,was published
26. Articles on curricular reform published during this period include Anthony G.
Amsterdam, ClinicalLegalEducation-A 21st Century Perspective,34J. LEGAL EDUc. 612
(1984); Robert A. Gorman, Legal Education at the End of the Century: An Introduction,
32 J. LEGAL EDUC. 315 (1982); Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., CurriculumStructure and Faculty
Structure, 35 J. LEGAL EDuc. 326 (1985); Frank I. Michelman, The Parts and the Whole:
Non-Euclidean CurricularGeometry, 32 J. LEGAL EDuC. 352 (1982); James Boyd White,
Doctrine in a Vacuum: Reflections on What a Law School Ought (and Ought Not) to Be,
36 J. LEGAL EDUC. 155 (1986).
27. Todd D. Rakoff, The Harvard First-Year Experiment, 39 J. LEGAL EDUC. 491
(1989).
28. Kristine Strachan, CurricularReform in the Second and Third Years: Structure,
Progression,and Integration, 39 J. LEGAL EDUC. 523 (1989).
29. See, e.g., Daan Braveman, Law Firm: A First-Year Course in Lawyering, 39 J.
LEGAL EDUC. 501 (1989) (recounting Syracuse's experience); Jacqueline M. Nolan-Haley
& Maria R. Volpe, Teaching Mediation as a Lawyering Role, 39 J. LEGAL EDuc. 571
(1989) (discussing the growth and methodology of law school mediation instruction);
Leonard L. Riskin & James E. Westbrook, IntegratingDispute Resolution Into Standard
First-Year Courses: The Missouri Plan, 39 J. LEGAL EDUC. 509 (1989) (discussing the
experience of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law).
30. See, e.g., David Link, The Pervasive Method of Teaching Ethics, 39 J. LEGAL
EDUC. 485 (1989).
31. See, e.g., Curtis J. Berger, A Pathway to CurricularReform, 39 J. LEGAL EDUC.
547 (1989); Eleanor M. Fox, The Good Law School, the Good Curriculum, and the Mind
and the Heart,39 J. LEGAL EDUC. 473 (1989).
[Vol. 73
with great fanfare in 1992.32 It challenged the purported "gap"

between the legal education community and the legal profession,33
finding instead a marked contrast between expectation and reality.
The report discussed at considerable length the profession for which
lawyers must prepare, emphasizing the growth and diversity of the
profession, its diverse practice settings, and the organization and
regulation of the profession.' It then set forth its "vision of the
skills and values new lawyers should seek to acquire, 35 (including
skills in problem solving, legal analysis and reasoning, legal research,
factual investigation, communication, counseling, negotiation,
litigation and alternative dispute-resolution procedures, organization
and management of legal work, and recognizing and resolving ethical
values; and fundamental values related to providing competent
representation; striving to promote justice, fairness, and morality;
striving to improve the profession; and professional self-development). 6 It emphasized the educational continuum through which
lawyers acquire their skills and values (beginning prior to law school,
and continuing through law school, the transition from law student
to
37
practitioner, and professional development after law school).
In many respects, the MacCrate report represents a continuation
of the dialogue stimulated by the Cramton report of thirteen years
earlier, although in this case, without emphasizing the critical question
of resources."
Of prime importance is the MacCrate report's
appreciation for the complex nature and continuing duration of
lawyers' educational venture, the fundamental responsibility vested in
each lawyer to pursue that education, and the multiple providers who
assist the lawyer in doing so. How the MacCrate report's prescriptions for change will be embraced by the academy and the legal
profession remains to be seen.
32. ABA SECTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION AND ADMISSIONS TO THE BAR, REPORT
OF THE TASK FORCE ON LAW SCHOOLS AND THE PROFESSION: NARROWING THE GAP,
LEGAL EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT-AN EDUCATIONAL CONTINUUM (1992).
33. Id. at 4-6.

34. Id. at 13-120.
35. Id. at 121.
36. Id. at 139-41.
37. Id. at 225-317.
38. See John J. Costonis, The MacCrate Report Of Loaves, Fishes, and the Future of
American Legal Education, 43 J. LEGAL EDUC. 157, 172, 174, 196-97 (1993).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
II. THE EVOLVING CURRICULUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH

CAROLINA SCHOOL OF LAW
A.
HistoricalEvolution
The evolution of the curriculum at the University of North

Carolina School of Law in many respects paralleled national trends.
Writing in 1949, Dean Henry Brandis observed that "[i]f there is a
law faculty in the country which is completely satisfied with its
curriculum and teaching methods, the writer is not acquainted with it.
Certainly, our faculty is not wholly satisfied in these respects ....
The changes in our curriculum have been gradually cumulative rather
than drastic."39
In his ensuing yearly reports, Brandis was to note the addition of
individual courses such as military law, enhancement of the curriculum through courses offered by visitors during the summer session,
marginal shifts in the first-year curriculum (affecting civil procedure,
property, and criminal law), and modest growth in the number of
seminars. A more comprehensive review occured in 1956, when
changes were made in the North Carolina bar examination and a
reduced number of units were assigned to some courses.'4 Certain
curricular developments were characterized as "frankly experimental,"
including the introduction in 1959 of a course in preparation for trial,
featuring expert testimony by Medical School faculty and involvement
of practicing lawyers.4 ' In that same year, the school began
sectionalization of first-year courses and advanced courses.'
A
course in legal method had been introduced by 1964, and the faculty
attempted to tinker with and improve it, seemingly to no avail.43
Modest reform was forecast in 1965, when Dean Phillips reported
that
the [faculty curriculum] committee this year is considering
the possibility of several fairly fundamental realignments of
traditional materials in order to open up more electives to
advanced students; the problem of working in more formal
and systematic instruction in all aspects of the professional
responsibility of the legal profession; and the problem of
39. Henry Brandis, Jr., The Law School, 28 N.C. L. REv. 73, 81 (1949).
40. Henry Brandis, Jr., The Law School, 35 N.C. L. REV. 63, 67 (1956).
41. Henry Brandis, Jr., The Law School, 38 N.C. L. REV.62, 68 (1959).
42. Id.
[Vol. 73
providing the best possible introductory and orientation type

course for beginning students."
Subsequent years witnessed such refinements as the abandonment
of a required first-year course in legal research (the first-year class
had grown too large and an advanced limited-enrollment elective was
substituted), the shift of equity into the first year (a change that was
swiftly reversed), the introduction of a three-day orientation program,
and the creation of a year-long course in civil procedure, in lieu of
separate courses in pleading and parties and trial and appellate
practice.' A new four-hour course in sales and secured transations
and a new three-hour course in land finance and development were
added in deference to the growing importance of the Uniform
Commercial Code. 46 A new "pervasive" method of presenting
professional responsibility materials was introduced into the required
first-year curriculum in 1970.'
The law school student body and faculty embraced somewhat
more expansive review in the following years. An editorial in the
Law School Record in November 1970 observed that "we are
undergoing a new series of changes in our national life," and
suggested that even Harvard's Professor Langdell (often cited as the
originator of the Socratic method and case-study approach that
subsequently swept the country) would approve.48 Students noted the
changes in the sheer bulk volume of laws, legal principles and court
decisions (making it impossible to teach or learn all relevant black
letter in three years' time); social trends forcing the legal profession
to oversee and mediate changes in business, governmental, and
cultural structures; concern about the poor and powerless; growing
attention to quality of life rather than continued industrial expansion;
backlogs in judicial and police administration; the rise in the administrative state; and law students' impatience with the long hours of law
study when the world was changing around them.49 Students
proposed three specific curricular reforms, including (1) "allow[ing]
each student in his second and third year to take one or more courses
for full credit per semester in skills and methods of legal practice,
44. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 44 N.C. L. REV.127, 135 (1965).
45. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 45 N.C. L. REv. 152, 159 (1966); J.
Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 46 N.C. L. RaV. 71, 77 (1967).
46. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 48 N.C. L. REv.79, 85 (1969).
48. For the Record: CurriculumReform, N.C. L. REC., (UNC School of Law Student
Bar Association, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Nov. 1970, at 6-8.
49. Id.at 6-7.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
including such items as drafting wills and contracts, writing briefs and
memoranda, oral advocacy and courtroom procedure"; (2)
"increas[ing] the number of courses which deal with the legal context
of the problems of today"; and (3) "allow[ing] students on their own
initiative to qualify for admission to the bar before they receive their
degree ... [by taking] the Bar Exam early or ... provisional
admission to the bar allowing a student to work with a lawyer or to
accept certain types of cases only." 50 The next years' deans' reports
heralded more significant shifts in the UNC curriculum, including the
introduction of a "small-section" program for the first-year class
(coupling classes of approximately thirty students with instruction in
legal research and writing); 5' new courses and seminars in such
subjects as administrative law, social legislation, and consumer
credit;52 implementation of joint degree programs with the School of
Business Administration and the Department of City and Regional
Planning; 3 enhancement of practice-oriented offerings related to tax
law;54 approval in principle of clinical instruction in conventional
courses and development of specialized clinical offerings;5 5 and
adoption of faculty legislation authorizing third-year law students to
be certified under the North Carolina third-year practice rule.56 The
subsequent evolution of the Law School's clinical program throughout
the 1980s and 1990s is detailed elsewhere in this history. 7
B.
The Curriculum Today

The School of Law's curriculum is now markedly different from
that of fifty years ago. An effort has been made to articulate the
different goals that underlie each of the three years of law study.58
The first-year curriculum is designed to (1) introduce law students to
the rigors of legal thought, in order to assist them in developing
critical thinking skills; (2) ensure that all law students are well
grounded in the core subject matter that lies at the heart of the
American legal tradition including civil procedure, contracts, criminal
50. Id. at 8.
51. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 50 N.C. L. REV. 75, 82-83 (1971).
52. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 51 N.C. L. RFv. 517, 524 (1973).
53. Id.
54. J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 52 N.C. L. REv. 575, 580-81 (1974).
55. Robert G. Byrd, The Law School, 53 N.C. L. REv. 959, 967 (1975).
56. Robert G. Byrd, The Law School, 54 N.C. L. REv. 845, 852 (1976).
57. Rosen, supra note 1.
58. The University of North Carolina School of Law, Academic Advising Handbook,
1994-1995, 1-2 (1994).
[Vol. 73
law, torts, and property law; and (3) assist students in developing
important law-related skills in the areas of legal resarch and writing.
Substantive coverage remains quite traditional, with most basic
courses (other than criminal law) receiving six hours of credit and
running throughout both semesters.5 9 This approach was reaffirmed
by the faculty in 1992, as a means of providing adequate flexibility in
each basic course and permiting professors in both large and smallsection courses to train their students in legal analysis as well as
substantive law. More significant changes have been made in the

first-year research and writing curriculum and its companion academic
support program (LEAP).' The research and writing program is
now staffed by a clinical faculty member who serves as program
director and numerous adjunct faculty drawn from the ranks of the
practicing bar. The course has been reconceptualized as covering
"research, reasoning, writing, and advocacy," and has been divided
into two parts: a one-unit fall segment that emphasizes smaller,

progressive assignments geared to a series of specific developmental
tasks;61 and a three-unit spring segment that emphasizes more
extensive writing and research, the production of office memoranda
and appellate briefs, and an introduction to oral advocacy. Both
segments are taught in sections of eighteen or fewer students. The
research and writing director also oversees a "learning lab," which
offers first-year students a menu of noncredit learning opportunities
designed to assess and address areas of potential weakness and to
build study and exam-taking skills.
The second-year curriculum has been reshaped to provide a
transition between first-year core instruction and the culminating
electives, seminars, and skills-oriented instruction available during the
third year. The second-year curriculum incorporates strategic
pedagogic changes designed to foster engagement and polish
analytical and writing skills. Second-year students are obligated to
59. A recent survey of curricula at other major law schools reveals that this
arrangement is the clear trend, and now the vast majority of schools have reduced such
coverage to four or five units per substantive course. See information on file, available
through the N.C. LAW REVIEW.
60. Henry Brandis Professor Charles Daye was instrumental in the creation of the
LEAP program, beginning in 1986, and in national efforts of the Law School Admissions
Council and the Association of American Law Schools to develop effective approaches to
providing academic support. The LEAP program was subsequently directed by Professor
Barry Nakell. It has been significantly redesigned by the current Director of Research and
Writing and LEAP, Associate Clinical Professor Ruth McKinney.
61. See Paula Lustbader, Presentation at Law School Admission Council Academic
Assistance Training Workshop (June 4, 1992) (discussing relevant learning theory).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNLAL
elect a small section in a core or elective subject, featuring specially

tailored writing assignments and a 25:1 student-teacher ratio. In 199495, second-year small sections were offered in administrative law,
criminal procedure-investigation, evidence, family law, federal civil
rights litigation, immigration law, intellectual property, philosophy of
law, race and gender, sales, securities, and scientific theory for
lawyers. Training in professional responsibility is also a cornerstone
of the second year. Students must elect one of several varied
offerings that provide core instruction in professional responsibility
while permitting exploration of the implications of ethical obligations
in particular practice fields (such as public interest and government
practice, litigation, and criminal practice). The second year is also
intended to broaden students' base of substantive knowledge and to
provide opportunities to begin exploring subjects of special interest

that foster broader perspective on the study of law, lead to the
development of individual career goals, and provide the foundation
for more concentrated study during the third year. Students are
encouraged to take core upper-division courses ranging from
constitutional law to business associations, trusts and estates, income
tax, evidence, criminal procedure-investigation, sales and secured
transactions, family law, and administrative law. Second-year students
may also enroll in varied electives.
Third-year students are encouraged to enroll in electives, in order
to broaden and deepen their experience in the law. Electives range
from banking law to children and the legal system, comparative law,
consumer law, corporate finance, corporate tax, debtor-creditor,
education law, employment discrimination, environmental law, estate
and gift tax, federal jurisdiction, health law, housing, income tax,
insurance, intellectual property, international business transactions,
international law, labor law, legal history, ocean and coastal law,
partnership tax, race and poverty, real estate finance, remedies, state
constitutional law, and technology and intellectual property. Such
electives reflect a major effort by the School of Law to increase its
offerings relating to international law and perspectives on the law in
recent years.
Third-year students must also enroll in a seminar of their choice
(covering such topics as administrative process and advocacy; business
planning; capital punishment; constitutional adjuducation; constitutional theory; consumer law; corporate law; domestic law; estate planning;
health policy; international law of human rights; international
litigation; the judicial process; judicial review and social change; law,
culture and society; law and literature; lawyers and public policy; legal
[Vol. 73
history; legal issues in higher education; national security law; ocean

and coastal law; oral history of lawyers and judges; patent practice;
philosophy of law; political and civil rights; property and the
Constitution; studies in Russian law; Supreme Court practice and
appellate advocacy; and torts). Third-year students are also encouraged to enroll in courses that provide opportunities for development
of various other lawyering skills. Virtually all third-year students
enroll in trial advocacy, while many also elect alternative dispute
resolution, interviewing, counseling and negotiation, or pre-trial
lawyering. Other students participate in the law school's summer
criminal clinic or its school-year criminal and civil clinical programs.
Still others avail themselves of the various practice-oriented seminars
listed above, or the growing number of advanced skills-related courses
in such areas as advanced family law, advanced bankruptcy law,
advanced environmental law, commercial transactions (negotiating,
drafting, and closing the deal), and advanced legal research. Students
are also encouraged to broaden their perspectives by participating in
the school's growing number of international study-abroad opportunities and in non-law school coursework related to their legal
studies, during either their second or third years.62
The curriculum of the UNC School of Law has thus developed
significantly in the fifty years since World War II. The core objective
of training law students to "think like lawyers" and to ground them
in the basics of the common law remains unchanged. In other
respects, however, the course of study is significantly different.
Students take many more classes in small groups and explore a much
richer variety of elective offerings. There is more intensive and
effective training in legal writing and legal ethics. Students have
many more opportunities to develop perspectives on the law, gain
insight into other countries' legal systems, and develop "practical
skills."
62. The UNC School of Law has established cooperative programs with the Universite
Jean Moulin-Lyon III, France; and Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands; and
is establishing cooperative programs with the Universidad de Costa Rica, the University
of Manchester, England, and the St. Petersburg University, Russia. For more detailed
discussion of the school's international programs, see Jerry W. Markham, The North
Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation and International
Course Offerings, 73 N.C. L. REv. 807 (1995).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
III.
THE MILLENIUM APPROACHES: PREDICrIONS AND

REFLECTIONS
It is impossible, of course, to predict with accuracy the development of law school curricula by the middle of the twenty-first century.
The past is ever prologue, however, and the events of the past fifty
years provide some lessons that may usefully be borne in mind.
1.
Pressuresfor curricularreform will probably increase.

The population of law students is becoming more diverse, as-the
United States experiences major shifts in racial and ethnic mix, a
growing number of workers seek second (or third) careers in law,
those with disabilities seek the full range of opportunities in higher
education, and the mobility between states and nations continues to
increase. So, too, the legal profession continues to diversify as
specialties proliferate and nontraditional opportunities emerge. It
must also confront economic pressures associated with competition
among the growing number of lawyers and economic downturns. The
world changes all around us, economies become increasingly global
and local, technological developments reshape our approaches to
mastering and managing knowledge, and the pace of change accelerates. Universities face growing financial pressures, as competing
demands limit the availability of additional public funding and a
combination of tuition resistance and debt loads constrain even wellendowed private schools. Taken together, these forces will inevitably
result in different and increasing demands during a time of scarce
resources. Law schools designing and updating their curricula in the
coming century can expect increased pressures from these and other
directions.
2.
The fundamental goals of legal education are well-known and

unlikely to change.
In 1969, Dean Bayless Manning observed that an "educated firstclass lawyer" is trained to possess the following characteristics:
analytic skifs; substantive legal knowledge; basic working skills;
familiarity with institutional environments of legal institutions;
awareness of the total nonlegal environment; and good judgment. 63
63. PACKER & EHRLICH, supra note 2, at 22-23 (quoting Bayless Manning, American
Legal Education: Evolution and Mutation-Three Models, Address before the Western
Assembly on Law and the Changing Society, June 12, 1969).
740
[Vol. 73
Most legal educators would agree with Manning and would find it
difficult to eliminate one or more of these important objectives.
Assuming such a baseline, it might be possible to narrow a law
school's mission to one or more of the following, described in Paul
Carrington's 1971 report: training individuals for general practice as
lawyers; training lawyers desiring special comptence in particular
fields; training scholars capable of interdisciplinary research; training
individuals for careers in the delivery of legal services as members of
allied professions; and training about law for students motivated by
intellectual curiosity, by uncertainty of career goals, or by career goals
in other disciplines. 64 Most law schools have continued to attempt
to train all-round lawyers and those with uncertain career goals, while
many have developed specialities in one or another area as a way of
distinguishing themselves. Increasing financial pressures may well
give schools an incentive to narrow their choices, but competition for
a dwindling pool of law school applicants and the inertia associated
with curriculum formulations adopted in more favorable times is likely
to lead most schools to demur.
3.
The first-year curriculum will remain the subject of perennial

debate, but will emerge with minimal change.
Legal educators take as a tenet of faith that the first year of law
school trains students to "think like lawyers," and introduces them to
core subject matter. Historical experiments, at the University of
North Carolina and elsewhere, endeavored unsuccessfully to separate
training in "legal methods" or "legal analysis" from substantive
instruction in traditional fields; it is unlikely that this experiment will
be repeated while memories of these earlier experiments remain. The
principal debate will accordingly continue to swirl around the
substantive subject matter that forms the core of the first-year
curriculum and through which students are introduced to the art of
legal analysis.
The debate can be formulated in only a limited number of ways:
(1) certain subject matter is so critical as a foundation for subsequent
instruction that it requires a particular duration of coverage at the
very outset of students' legal education (the "foundational" argument); (2) certain subject matter is particularly conducive to working
with students to develop their abilities as legal analysts (the "methodological" argument); (3) certain subject matter reflects the core values
64. See supra note 19 and accompanying text.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
of the legal system or legal education, and should be introduced at the

time when it is most likely to be retained by impressionable beginning
law students (the "values" argument, one that may emerge either to
support retention of traditional course offerings representing the
"historical canon," or to support more "modem" alternative offerings
that emphasize statutes or perspectives on the law); (4) students
should be given the opportunity to elect certain alternative subject
matter in the upper-division curriculum, and other fundamental
subject coverage should be shifted to the first year in order to
accommodate subsequent choices (the "pragmatic balance" argument); and (5) students should be instructed in fundamental skills
(such as research and writing) or professional values (such as legal
ethics) during the first year in view of the growing recognition of the
importance of and need for such training (the "compelling priorities"
argument).
Will one of these recurring arguments carry the day at last? The
emerging view seems less to reflect the ascendency of one or another
of these viewpoints and more to represent inevitable compromise.
The trend has been to maintain traditional core subject coverage in
the first year, but to cut back on hours (often from six semester hours
to four or five) in order to accommodate one or another of the
competing concerns noted above. The law school of the twenty-first
century is therefore likely to maintain a first-year curriculum
reminiscent of the curriculum of the current decade: some combination of common law courses (torts, property, contracts, criminal law);
civil procedure (perhaps redefined as "disputes and disputing" or
"judicial and administrative process"); constitutional law; and
introduction to lawyers' values and skills (a combination of legal
ethics, research, and writing).
4.
Legal educators will continue to struggle with the problem of

cohesion and progressionin the upper-division curriculum.
New areas of inquiry and new social problems will inevitably
develop in the coming century, particularly in such varied and
important fields as international business transactions, environmental
law, nonprofit organizations, health law, elder law, and technology
and intellectual property. Law faculty will undoubtedly develop new
law school courses reflecting these and other current interests. Such
important and beneficial trends will inevitably result in an even more
wide-ranging and far-flung curriculum, compounding the problems of
fragmentation and lack of cohesion that have come to characterize the
law school curriculum in the last fifty years.
[Vol. 73
Modest steps may be possible to reduce students' experience of

fragmentation. Faculty members can consult more carefully about
overlaps and gaps between courses and can make considered decisions
concerning prerequisites, corequisites, and recommended courses.
Schools can adopt breadth and depth requirements akin to those of
undergraduate schools, giving students freedom to elect specific
courses according to their interests, but ensuring that they will receive
a comprehensive "liberal" education which combines balanced
exposure to varied subject matter and intensive exploration of a
potential area of concentration or cohesive focus of intellectual
inquiry. Schools can adopt an appropriate scale in their endeavors to
foster a sense of progression and cohesion, focusing, perhaps, on the
distinct purposes of the first, second and third years of law school, and
the opportunities for post-graduate education, rather than losing the
bigger picture through excessive preoccupation with a growing
number of specialty courses. Last, and certainly not least, law schools
can focus more explicitly on the need to define a coherent academic
program for each student, something that is aided but not ensured by
coherence within the curriculum. More intensive advising for
individual students can significantly foster such coherence, particularly
when approached along a continuum that explores students' interests,
preferences, and developmental profiles; academic choices; and career
planning.
5. Continuedprogress will be made in developing effective strategies
for instruction in professionalresponsibility and professionalism.
Many schools continue to struggle to develop meaningful and
effective strategies for instruction in professional responsibility. This
area is one in which significant progress should be made, thanks to
foundation efforts to stimulate curriculum enhancement and to
creative partnerships between legal educators and members of the
practicing bar.
The W. M. Keck Foundation has recently awarded major grants
to eleven prominent law schools to develop innovative strategies for
enhancing instruction in the area of professional responsibility. Many
of the efforts now underway show great promise. For example,
Loyola-Los Angeles has developed new videotaped materials

featuring simulated fact patterns that raise ethical issues. Stanford has
developed a clearinghouse for new teaching materials relating to
professional ethics. Duke is developing specialized professional
responsibilty offerings relating to various fields of legal practice. The
University of North Carolina is implementing an "intergenerational
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
legal ethics" program that uses oral history techniques to link law
students with lawyers and judges who share their insights on the
development of personal and professional values in ways that
stimulate students to explore such questions on a deeply personal
basis.
Other schools, such as the University of New Mexico, are
experimenting with carefully structured mentoring programs, linking
law students with practicing lawyers. Many schools cooperate with
local Inns of Court, which bring together relatively inexperienced

lawyers or law students, those with some experience, and senior
"masters" to explore ethical questions and enhance litigation skills.
Others, such as those in North Carolina, have cooperated with the
bench and bar in innovative research projects that draw on the
experiences of practitioners to define current problems in professionalism, then address those problems both in law school settings and
in continuing legal education programs. Undoubtedly, partnerships
such as these will generate many creative approaches that foster
better training in legal ethics and professionalism during the coming
century.
The MacCratereportwill stimulatecreative strategiesfor "bridging
the gap" that has divided academic lawyers and legal practitioners
who reside at different points along the spectrum of lawyers'
continuingprofessionaldevelopment.
The MacCrate report's call for enhanced instruction in lawyering
skills and values has warmed the hearts of some legal educators and
raised the hackles of others who fear that it may pave the way for
more intrusive regulation by the practicing bar and for damaging
reallocation of scarce financial resources. There is reason to hope
that the resulting debate will give rise to constructive and varied
improvements in law school curricula in the years ahead.
First, it is part of a continuing dialogue sparked years ago, one
that preceeded and was enhanced by the Cramton report in 1979 and
that has given rise to the diverse forms of skills-related and clinical
instruction present in America's law schools today. As the years have
gone by, more legal educators and practitioners have become well
informed about the relevant issues and more law schools have made
a place for clinical teachers within their core faculties. Many states
have begun to organize conclaves (bringing together lawyers and legal
educators to discuss MacCrate and related issues) and sections on the
education of lawyers to undertake joint initiatives under the auspices
of individual state bars.
6.
[Vol. 73
Second, law schools have varied options for preserving their

autonomy. Most have already incorporated some form of instruction
in the principal lawyering skills and values within their curricula and
can continue to experiment with and refine their approaches, much as
they have with various live-client clinical programs and diverse types
of externships. Law schools are also likely to identify cost-effective
ways to provide appropriate "transition education" for senior law
students, featuring such approaches as team-taught seminars involving
both law professors and practitioners, or advanced electives offered
by carefully selected adjunct personnel. Finally, legal educators may
articulate their own vision of the training needed by twenty-first
century lawyers, persuasively explaining the importance of a "liberal"
legal education and assisting practicing lawyers to conceive and
deliver more effective forms of continuing education to those who
have passed the bar.
7.
Legal educatorswill turn their attentionto the unfinished business

of preparinglawyers to appreciate the nonlegal contexts in which
they may work.
As noted above, Bayless Manning, among others, has cited
"awareness of [the] total nonlegal environment" as one of the
characteristics of the "educated first-class lawyer., 65 Law schools,
including those associated with first-class universities, have traditionally treated this characteristic as one of lesser importance or one that
is best left to the individual student to develop on his or her own.
While a number of law schools established joint degree programs with
cooperating academic units fifteen to twenty years ago, such programs
tend to reflect modest investments of resources and to enroll only a
handful of students in any given year. As specialization has increased,
lawyers find it more and more necessary to negotiate boundaries
between legal and nonlegal cultures. Lawyers increasingly need to
understand the details of financial dealings, welfare bureaucracies,
medical procedures, and environmental regulation in order to afford
clients competent representation. Lawyers who fill the role of
problem-solvers in both traditional and nontraditional settings are
increasingly called upon to translate the expectations of affected
parties. In short, the nonlegal environment has become increasingly
important and at the same time increasingly puzzling and complex.
Law students are also likely to express increased interest in training
65. See supra note 63 and accompanying text.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
in nonlegal fields, at least if such training is perceived as providing

them with enhanced opportunities in a tight employment market, or
a chance to mature and develop an area of interest before leaving the
groves of academe.
Law schools of the twenty-first century will face decisions
whether to educate their students about this important aspect of
professional practice. Those situated in universities with strong
related departments are likely to seize the opportunity to do so in one
of several ways. Traditional joint or dual degree programs might be
expanded to incorporate not only programs in business, but also in
health, environmental studies, information studies, journalism, social
work, criminal justice, social science, international studies, public
policy, planning, and other fields. Alternatively, schools may
experiment with minor concentrations that incorporate a more
substantial blending of legal and nonlegal courses in specialized fields
of study. Faculty members may also choose to team-teach courses
with colleagues in pertinent fields, particularly where enrollment of
both graduate students and law students would enrich the intellectual
interchange. Specialized internships or summer job placements may
also be more readily developed for those with contextual nonlegal
training. Law schools may in addition be increasingly drawn toward
more sophisticated dual-disciplinary programs as they seek to compete
for more sophisticated "second career" students, including those who
seek to capitalize on pre-existing background in other fields.
8. Law schools will develop various non-J.D. alternatives,ranging
from masters degrees to non-degree certificationprograms.
Just as American law schools may in the future endeavor to assist

their students in gaining relevant nonlegal training, so, too, they may
be drawn to develop educational opportunities for those in related
fields who do not wish to practice law in the traditional sense. A
growing number of professionals in other fields might benefit from
rudimentary training in legal method and relevant law. The practicing
bar and law schools themselves may find it desirable to establish more
alternative outlets for those with law-related interests who would
otherwise flood the clogged legal employment market or spend three
years securing a J.D. only to emerge unhappy and uncertain about
their career goals. Universities, too, may attempt to induce law
faculties to consider curricular offerings geared to graduate and
undergraduate students, particularly in this era of downsizing,
consolidation, and tight budgets. Changes in electronic media and
computer technology are also likely to blur the boundaries of the legal
[Vol. 73
profession and the practice of law. Thoughtful analysts have

suggested that new communications technologies will dramatically
affect our understanding of "legal" and nonlegal information, allow
citizens to use information that previously has been available only to
members of the legal profession, and result in a "gradual and subtle
change in the knowledge base of the profession and in the role and
makeup of the organized bar."'
While not all law schools would be so inclined, some might see
such changes as an opportunity to seize upon Paul Carrington's earlier
invitation to embrace a mission involving allied professions or training
of those in related disciplines. Critical questions would, of course,
need answers-including how those with more limited legal education
might subsequently qualify to enroll in traditional J.D. curricula and
how educational offerings could be designed to maximize the benefit
for both traditional J.D. and non-J.D. students.
9.
Legal educatorswill reaffirm the centralityof justice within the law

school curriculum, and ask their students to do the same.
Both legal educators and law students typically cite their interest
in justice and the system of justice as among the reasons that drew
them to the study of law. Yet, as Herbert Packer and Thomas
Ehrlich noted in 1977 and other more recent authors have reiterated,
law school curricula are in many cases "secularized," in a way that
removes questions of collective justice and the philosophical underpinnings of justice from center stage. 67 Recent efforts to reform the
canon of legal educations have attempted to raise the profile of
justice issues throughout the curriculum. Efforts to encourage or
require law students to engage in pro bono service activities, or to

participate in clinical programs designed to service indigent clients,
have likewise sought to bring students face-to-face with questions of
justice at a critical time in their development as professionals.
The curricula of the future are likely to grapple with the issue of
justice in a variety of ways. Faculty members may continue to infuse
their courses with questions of fairness and justice or offer an
66. M. ETHAN KATSH, THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF

218, 220 (1989).
67. See supranote 18 and accompanying text; see also Symposium, The JusticeMission
of American Law Schools, 40 CLEV. ST. L. REV. 277 (1992) (exploring what law schools
are doing to pursue the justice mission).
68. See, e.g., Frances L. Ansley, Race and the Core Curriculumin Legal Education, 79
CAL. L. REV. 1511 (1991).
LAW
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
increasing number of electives developing such themes, in hopes that
students will become more engaged. Students might be encouraged to
elect among courses that concentrate on questions of justice from one

of several vantages. A growing number of schools may urge students
to undertake pro bono service, and assist in coordinating opportunities for service of this sort in conjunction with volunteer lawyer
organizations. Law schools may also seize the opportunity to face
head-on the pain, anger, shame, and lingering injustices associated
with the American traditions of injustice to women, members of racial
and ethnic minority groups, and homosexuals through all the tools at
their disposal-not only the formal curriculum but also informal
opportunities for training and conversation.
10. Legal educators will develop more innovative pedagogical
strategies geared to their students' multiple intelligences,
incorporate new insights offered by adult learning theory, and
embrace opportunities to reshape the culture of legal education.
In the coming century, legal educators will undoubtedly become
more interested in and knowledgeable about how their students learn.
The evolving theory of multiple intelligences, pioneered by Howard
Gardner,69 will very likely have become more influential, as teachers
and students in elementary and secondary schools become more
cognizant of strategies for developing distinctive forms of intelligence,
and as businesses place a greater premium on teams whose productivity is enhanced by diverse and complementary talents and skills. The
need to train and re-train workers to compete in rapidly changing
global markets will stimulate more wide-spread appreciation for the
nuances of adult learning theory. There should also be a growing
appreciation for the need to "coach the hidden curriculum" of modem
life, so as to develop intellectual habits that incorporate higher orders
of thinking capable of handling the complex comparisons and insights
demanded in the "postmodem" world,70 and to address not only
69. See HOWARD GARDNER, FRAMES OF MIND: THE THEORY OF MULTIPLE

INTELLIGENCES (1983). Gardner posits several forms of intelligences, including linguistic,
musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, and personal intelligences. He
views the work of lawyers as readily implicating several of these intelligences, including
linguistic, interpersonal, and logical-mathematical intelligences. Id. at 317-19. Charles
Handy has posited nine forms of intelligence, including factual, analytical, linguistic, spatial,
musical, practical, physical, intuitive, and interpersonal intelligence. See CHARLES HANDY,
THE AGE OF PARADOX 204-06 (1994).
70. See Robert Kegan, IN OVER OUR HEADS: THE MENTAL DEMANDS OF MODERN
LIFE 271-304, 307-34 (1994).
[Vol. 73
ideas but feelings that influence student learning within the law school
setting."
How might such changes come into being? A growing number
of law schools have now hired professionals with training in psychology or educational theory, either as directors of legal research and
writing courses, directors of academic support programs, or directors
of career development and services programs. Assistant deans for
student affairs have also become more common in American law
schools and assistant and associate deans have begun to have more
access to professional development programs emphasizing learning
theory and informal networks of colleagues with interests in such
fields. Changing law student populations have also introduced a
growing number of mature students who have had extensive work and
life experience. Faculty members, particularly women and members
of minority groups, have come to appreciate the importance of
institutional culture and climate in influencing their own professional
development. Taken together, such diverse influences are likely to
stimulate a more self-conscious examination of how students learn,
how faculty teach, and how communities foster professional and
personal development for all their members.
IV.
CONCLUSION
This essay has offered a variety of observations concerning the

evolution of American law school curricula during the past fifty years,
suggesting that the relatively slow rate of incremental change has
nonetheless yielded a variety of improvements. Its review of the
course of study at the University of North Carolina School of Law
suggests tnat the school's educational program in recent years has
paralleled national developments quite closely, while incorporating
certain recent innovations that hold promise for schools elsewhere.
Finally, the essay has reflected on the lingering agenda for educational
reform that remains unresolved or unaddressed in today's law school
curricula, and offered modest proposals for grappling with key issues
in the years ahead.
71.
See SHAFFER
& REDMOUNT,
supra note
25, at 193-229.
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
RICHARD A. ROSEN
ProfessorRichard Rosen was born in 1947 and grew up

in Charlotte, North Carolina. He attended Vanderbilt
He
University where he received his B.A. in 1969.
subsequently began his legal studies at the University of New
Mexico before transferring to the University of North
Carolina. He graduatedfrom UNC in 1976. Following law
school graduation, Rosen served as a staff attorney in the
Washington, D. C. public defender's office from 1976-82. He
then joined the UNC law faculty as a clinical supervising
attorney and became director of the UNC School of Law
ClinicalProgram in 1983. He continues as a member of the
law faculty, overseeing the school's clinicalprograms,as well
as teaching and writing in the areas of criminal law, criminal
procedure,professionalresponsibility,and capitalpunishment.
He has contributed significant service to the law school,
through his work on curriculum innovation, and to the bar,
through his pro bono representationof indigent defendants.
At the University of North Carolina School of Law, and generally
throughout academia, clinical legal education is defined as legal
education centered around actual client representation by law
students. Although UNC entered the field of clinical education rather
late in the day, it has, over the last sixteen years, fashioned a clinical
program that gives a substantial portion of the third-year class a
valuable experience in real-life lawyering, while at the same time
providing high quality representation to hundreds of indigent clients
each year. It is this combination of excellence in education and
service that has become the hallmark of the UNC School of Law
Clinical Programs.
THE EARLY EFFORTS AT UNC
The twentieth century produced a marked change from the timehonored clerkship method of legal education. As the century turned,
state after state passed laws requiring law school graduation and a bar
exam, and law schools universally patterned their classes on the
[Vol. 73
classroom/casebook method fostered by Christopher Columbus

Langdell at Harvard Law School. This pattern continued for over
half of the century, and it was not until the late 1960s that law schools
began seriously to explore alternatives to this model of legal
education.
Some schools began to offer simulated trial classes based on a
model developed by the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA).
At UNC the first trial advocacy class was offered in 1969 by Professor
Kenneth Broun, an early participant in NITA and one of NITA's first
Executive Directors. At the same time, law schools around the nation
began experimenting with client contact clinical programs1 and at
UNC the faculty began considering the establishment of a clinical
program.
These efforts bore fruit in the early 1970s with the establishment
of two programs that offered students a chance to gain practical legal
experience. First, in January 1971 the law school helped start a legal
aid office in Chapel Hill. This office, staffed by a single attorney and
a secretary, offered second- and third-year law students a chance to
experience a "hands-on" approach to the study of law, albeit on a
voluntary, noncredit basis. Professors Nakell and Pollitt also taught

seminars which provided students with an opportunity to work on
cases involving claims by indigent prisoners in the United States Court
of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Although these programs provided
students with valuable learning experiences, it soon became obvious
that a more systematic approach was needed to allow the law school
to offer clinical education on a permanent basis.
UNC
By the late 1970s the clinical legal education movement was
sweeping the country, and UNC began to explore ways to establish a
permanent program of for-credit, client contact legal education.
During this time students kept up a consistent demand for clinical
opportunities, and various faculty committees examined existing
clinical programs and the available literature on clinical legal
education. Based on this work, in 1977 the law school took a major
step in developing a client contact clinical program by hiring a
THE START OF THE MODERN CLINICAL PROGRAM AT
1. One of the earliest programs was begun by Professor Paul E. Wilson at the
University of Kansas in 1965. Paul E. Wilson, Legal Assistance Project at Leavenworth,
24 LEGAL AID BRIEF CASE 254, 255 (1966).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
permanent, tenure-track faculty member to develop a clinical program

for the UNC School of Law.
The person chosen to fill this role was David Rudolf, a cum laude
New York University Law School graduate with extensive trial and
appellate experience. Professor Rudolf arrived at the law school in
August of 1978, and in the 1978-79 school year he supervised twelve
students in the Prisoner Legal Assistance Clinic. These students
represented indigent persons in post-conviction criminal matters and
in criminal misdemeanor cases. The cases were referred to the clinic
by North Carolina Prisoners' Legal Services, an office established
largely through the efforts of Professor Nakell that offers legal
assistance to indigent prisoners. The students participated in the
clinic for two semesters and received three hours credit each
semester. In addition, the clinic students were required to take the
three hour trial advocacy course and Professor Rudolf's three credit
Prisoner's Rights and Post-Conviction Remedies course. Professor
Rudolf also began to lay the groundwork for the expansion of the
clinical program, applying for, and receiving, the first in a series of
federal grants which allowed the law school to expand and consolidate
its program of clinical legal education.
1980 was an important year for clinical legal education at UNC.
First, with funding from the United States Department of Education,
two supervising attorneys were added to the Prisoner Legal Assistance
Clinic. I returned to the law school in January of 1980, having served
for four years with the Public Defender Service for the District of
Columbia after graduating from the UNC School of Law. Patricia
Lemley, a 1974 graduate of Loyola of Chicago College of Law and an
experienced trial assistant in the office of the United States Attorney
for the Middle District of North Carolina, joined me as a supervising
attorney in September of 1980.
1980 was also the year that the law school expressly adopted a
plan for the implementation of clinical legal education at UNC, a plan
that provided the basis for the expansion and consolidation of UNC's
clinical programs and which set out a framework for clinical education
at UNC that still exists today. In February of 1980 the Clinical
Committee, chaired by Norman Lefstein,2 presented a "Report and
Recommendations" on the future of clinical education at the law
school. The heart of this document, which was adopted by the full
2. Other committee members were Joe Kalo, Ron Link, Dave Rudolf, and student
Mark Kirby.
[Vol. 73
faculty, was the recommendation that the school proceed to develop

its clinical program using an "in-house" clinical model and rejecting
the externship, or "farm-out" method of clinical legal education.
In a "farm-out" clinic, or externship, a student is placed with a
law firm or other legal provider for practical experience, with the law
school contributing to the students' education through a weekly
seminar and some supervision in the field. One advantage of this
model is that the students get to choose from a wide variety of legal
experiences. Another is that it is a relatively cheap way to provide
clinical education, especially compared with the "in-house" model
chosen by the UNC faculty, where all the student work is supervised
by a full-time faculty member.
Despite the expense, however, the UNC law faculty chose the
"in-house" model. Only by keeping full faculty control over all
aspects of the clinic, with all student work being supervised by fulltime faculty members, could the school guarantee that the clinical
program was maximizing the educational benefit of the clinical
experience. The adoption of the in-house model with close faculty
supervision also ensured that the clients represented by the students,
all indigent as required by State Bar rules, received first-rate
representation.
Under the plan adopted by the faculty, the clinic would be run
by a project director who would be a full tenure-track member of the
faculty. The supervising attorneys would be full-time law school
personnel whose primary responsibility would be supervision of the
students and the teaching of related courses to the clinic students.
The students would handle all aspects of the cases assigned to them
under close faculty supervision: interviewing, investigation, negotiation, counseling, drafting, and representation at trial or hearing.
Emphasis would be placed on preparation of cases under the watchful
eye of the supervising attorney and constant evaluation and critique
of student activities.
CLINICAL PROGRAM IN THE 1980s
With this framework in place, the 1980s was a decade of growth
and consolidation for the clinical programs. The Prisoner Legal
Assistance Clinic evolved into the Criminal Law Clinic, with students
concentrating their efforts on representing indigent criminal defendants in misdemeanor cases in the courts of Orange and Chatham
THE
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
County, as well as assisting faculty members in defending felony

cases.3 The clinical faculty developed a course entitled "Lawyering
Process-Criminal" to complement the clinic experience. Required of
clinic students, it provided a classroom setting for instruction on such
general topics as interviewing, counseling and negotiating, as well as
topics specifically geared toward criminal litigation, such as plea
bargaining and sentencing.
The 1980s also witnessed an increasing commitment by the law
school and the University to clinical legal education. In 1981 the
University provided a modular building to house the law school's
clinical program. First one, and then the second, of the supervising
attorney positions in the Criminal Law Clinic were moved from "soft"
grant money onto permanent University funding.
The law school also began to look to develop additional clinics.
An Appellate Defender Clinic was established, with students
representing indigent criminal defendants. In this clinic, which was
available to eight students each semester, the students conducted
research and prepared briefs for their clients under the supervision of
an experienced appellate attorney, James Glover. Unfortunately,
because of the lack of a student practice rule that would allow the
students to argue their cases in the North Carolina appellate courts,
this clinic was discontinued in 1983. 4
In 1982 the law school developed yet another clinical program,
the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic. Started as a joint program with
Legal Services of North Carolina and North State Legal Services, the
Civil Legal Assistance Clinic provided law students with an opportunity to represent indigent clients in civil cases under the direction
of a supervising attorney. The Civil Legal Assistance Clinic was
patterned closely on the Criminal Law Clinic, with the overall

administration of the program vested in the clinic director, and with
the students closely supervised by a supervising attorney who was a
full-time faculty member. The main difference between the two, of
course, lay in the types of cases handled by each clinic, with the civil
clinic students representing clients in landlord-tenant disputes,
government benefit claims, and consumer claims, among others.
3. This move was made largely for educational reasons: Because of the vagaries of
post-conviction and prisoners' rights litigation, and especially the length of time it takes
to litigate these cases, they were considered particularly difficult to use as educational
vehicles.
4. Even after the demise of the Appellate Defender Clinic, the law school has in
some years offered an Appellate Defender seminar patterned on the clinic.
754
[Vol. 73
The development of the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic during the

1980s also parallelled the development of the Criminal Law Clinic.
For the first several years, the initial supervising attorney position was
funded by grants from the United States Department of Education
and Legal Services of North Carolina. A second supervisor was
added to the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic using grants from DOE and
the Legal Services Corporation. By the end of the decade the
University and law school took over the funding for both positions.
In addition, a Lawyering Process-Civil course was added to complement the client representation.
CLINIC PERSONNEL
The first half of the 1980s was a time of rapid expansion and
turnover in clinic personnel. In 1982 David Rudolf, having accomplished his major goal of establishing a clinical program at UNC, left
the law school to enter private practice. I left my supervising attorney
position to take over as acting director of clinical programs for the
1992-93 school year, and at the end of that year I was appointed to
the position on a permanent basis. In 1983 Jovita Flynn, the secretary
in the clinic, left to return to graduate school, and she was replaced
by Shelby Mann, a graduate of Alamance Community College who
had been working at the law school since 1978.
The 1982-83 school year saw three new supervising attorneys
starting work at the clinic. The two criminal clinic positions, open
with my move to director and Patricia Lemley's departure for private
practice in Virginia, were taken over by Mark Olive and William
Larimer. Mr. Olive was lured to Chapel Hill from his position as a
clinical faculty member at the University of Tennessee School of Law.
Mr. Larimer had graduated from UNC in 1975 and since that time
had established himself as one of the preeminent criminal defense
attorneys in Orange County. The initial supervising attorney in the
Civil Legal Assistance Clinic was Jean Cary, a 1975 Georgetown
University Law Center Graduate who had practiced as a Legal
Services Attorney in Charlotte and Raleigh, and who had been the
statewide Coordinator of the Public Benefits Task Force for Legal
Services attorneys immediately prior to accepting the job with UNC.
In 1985, with the addition of a second supervising attorney

position in the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic, Ms. Cary was joined by
Lucie White, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School
who, after clerking for Federal District Court Judge James McMillan
in Charlotte, had worked for several years for Legal Services of the
Southern Piedmont in Monroe, North Carolina. In the Criminal Law
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Clinic, 1985 was the year when Mark Olive departed to litigate death
penalty cases in Florida. Mr. Olive was replaced by Michelle
Robertson, a 1982 UNC School of Law graduate who had practiced
criminal law in Durham and Chapel Hill, and who had the honor of
being the first clinic graduate to return as a supervising attorney in
the clinic.
Several more personnel changes occurred in the late 1980s. Both
Jean Cary and Lucie White left the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic; they
were replaced by Walter Bennett and Alice Ratliff Mr. Bennett, who
joined the clinic faculty in 1986, is a 1972 University of Virginia Law
School graduate. After more than a decade practicing law and
serving as a District Court Judge in Charlotte, Mr. Bennett returned
to Virginia for an LL.M. degree, which he received with honors in
1986. Prior to joining the law faculty in 1987, Ms. Ratliff, who
graduated from UNC School of Law in 1976, practiced with the North
Central Legal Assistance Program in Durham, where she served as
both Managing Attorney and Acting Director.
THE CLINICAL PROGRAMS: Now AND THE FUTURE
If the 1980s can be described as the decade of change and growth

for the clinical programs at the UNC School of Law, the 1990s, to this
point, can be considered the era of stability. The school continues to
operate a Criminal Law Clinic and a Civil Legal Assistance Clinic,
and the students continue to represent their clients under the close
supervision of four full-time faculty members acting as supervising
attorneys. 5 Moreover, there has been a significant change from the
days of rapid turnover in clinic personnel.
In 1987 the faculty voted to grant job security to clinical faculty
members by providing them with long-term contracts and status as
Clinical Professors, Associate Clinical Professors, or Assistant Clinical
Professors.6 With this change, the clinic staff has remained stable
since 1988, with myself as director, Shelby Mann as the administrative
assistant,7 Bill Larimer and Michelle Robertson as supervising
5. The only change in the structure of the clinical program since 1985 has been the
addition of a one-semester option for criminal clinic students, added in 1988 as a way to
provide a clinical experience for students who do not have the time or resources to commit
to a full-year clinic.
6. The faculty also outlined a procedure whereby a clinical faculty member could
request consideration for a tenure track position. To date, no supervising attorney has
chosen that option. The director, Richard Rosen, is a tenured full professor.
7. In 1991 the university upgraded Ms. Mann's position to classify it as administrative
assistant I. This was a long overdue official recognition that Ms. Mann had shouldered
[Vol. 73
attorneys in the Criminal Law Clinic, and Alice Ratliff and Walter
Bennett in the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic.8
The clinical programs have become an integrai part of legal
education at UNC-Chapel Hill, in large part because of the continued
demand for and appreciation of clinical legal education by the student
body of the law school. There is little doubt that student desire for
clinical education was the main factor behind the law school's initial
foray into clinical legal education, and student support for clinical
legal education has remained strong. In 1982 the law school's clinical
committee sent out a questionnaire to clinic alumni asking for their
evaluation of their clinical experience.
The responses were
unanimously positive, and helped to fuel the continued growth and
consolidation of the clinical program in the ensuing years. Moreover,
law school graduates who participated in a clinic continue to show
their appreciation with words of praise and financial contributions to
a separate endowment established specifically to benefit the clinical
programs.9
Yet it is just this popularity of the clinical programs that has led
to two interrelated difficulties now facing the clinical program at the
law school. One is a space problem-the modular building provided
for the clinic over a decade ago, when the clinic was less than half its
present size, has proven to be inadequate. The second is the surging
demand for a clinical experience, so that over the last several years
dozens of students each year who wish to participate in a clinic find
themselves unable to do so.
The first problem should be solved with the building of an
addition to the law school-the plans for the addition include
significant space for offices for clinic faculty and students. The second
significant administrative responsibilities for the management of the clinical programs.
8. Mr. Bennett is currently beginning a leave of absence from the clinic to work on
an oral history project funded by the Keck foundation. See Lawyers Talking: UNC Law
Graduatesand Their Service to the State, 73 N.C. L. REV. 849 (1995). During the 1994-95
school year, Mr. Bennett will be replaced by Hazel Mack, a Temple Law School graduate
who has been serving as Managing Attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Northwest North
Carolina, Inc., in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. During an earlier leave, Mr. Bennett's
position was occupied by Susan Stancill, a 1988 UNC School of Law (and clinic) graduate.
9. The clinical programs have also reaped praise from others in the legal community.
In one interview, now Chatham and Orange County District Attorney Carl Fox told a
reporter that "[Clinic students] are well prepared-probably better prepared than most
attorneys." UNC Legal Clinics Helping Many, THE CHAPEL HILL NEWSPAPER, Oct. 15,
1984, at 7B. According to District Court Judge Stanley Peele, "The clinic program
produces a graduate who is a thousand percent better when he starts his practice. ....
[Clinic students] show the way a case ought to be tried." Cornelia Lee, Champions For
Justice, CAROLINA ALUMNI REVIEW, (Chapel Hill, N.C.), Spring 1988, at 28-29, 35.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
is more difficult, and the school is now trying several approaches to

meet the increased student demand. For instance, during the summer
of 1994 the law school offered a summer school clinical program for
the first time," and during the spring 1995 semester the law school
will offer, also for the first time, a Lawyering Process course for nonclinic students.
Despite these challenges, the University of North Carolina School
of Law can feel proud of the distance it has traveled over the last
sixteen years. In that time the school, starting virtually from scratch,
has established a clinical program in which over a fourth of the thirdyear class is provided an opportunity to learn lawyering skills in a real
world situation under the watchful eye of an experienced lawyer/teacher. To the extent that challenges remain for the clinical
program and the school in the area of clinical legal education, they
can be attributed in large part to the determination of the school's
leaders to provide only the best in the way of legal education.
10. The summer program, which was financed by a grant from U.S. Department of
Education, consisted of two sections of the Criminal Law Clinic. The supervising attorneys
were Michelle Robertson of the clinic staff and Grady Jessup, a visiting North Carolina
Central Law School faculty member with extensive experience as an assistant public
defender in Charlotte, North Carolina. The grant will also provide for a summer clinic in
1995, but beyond that funding is uncertain.
The UNC Law Library: 1945-95
MARTHA
B. BAREFOOT
MarthaBarefootis the Reference/UserServices Librarian

at the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, University of North
CarolinaSchool of Law. She received her B.A. in arthistory
from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in 1964 and her
M.S.L.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill in 1984. She has been affiliated with the UNC School
of Law since 1980 and has also had experience with the
Perkins Library at Duke University.
Since 1945 the Law Library has enjoyed a half-century of growth
and success as a result of the following factors: the strength and
vision of the library directors who led the organization through boom
times as well as some lean years; the dedication and commitment of
staff members who frequently gave more than the minimum requirements of their job descriptions; the efforts of friends who have
supported the library with their gifts and their interest; and the
foresight of law school deans and other administrators who acknowledged and acted upon the belief that law students, faculty, and the
state bar are well-served by a sound and accessible collection of legal
research materials.
THE POSTWAR YEARS
For the Law Library, the years following World War II were
characterized by a rapid growth in the number of users, problems with
space and money, and a lack of adequate staffing.
The rapid growth of the law school student body during the
immediate postwar years strained the resources of the Law Library to
a degree unmatched in its history. In the fall of 1944 there were
forty-two registered law students By the fall of 1946, the student
body numbered 222.2 The library staff scrambled to find space in
1. The Law School, 24 N.C. L. REV. 47, 47 (1945).

2. The Law School, 25 N.C. L. REV. 55, 55 (1946).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
759
Manning Hall for additional study areas and rushed to place orders
for new library materials while attempting to continue the personal
service formerly provided for students, faculty, and outside users of
the library. This proved an almost impossible task, made more
difficult by a lack of funds and a constant turnover of student
workers, each of whom had to be trained in the intricacies of a law
library and its resources. Simultaneously, the interest of the University's social science departments in the resources available in the Law
Library made the inadequacies of the library's physical space and
equipment more obvious than ever. The library staff struggled to
provide service to a constituency that had more than quintupled in a
two-year period.
Because of overcrowding in the library's study space after the
war, the law school was -assigned the use of a temporary structure
(formerly used by the pre-flight school) located behind Manning
Hall.3 In 1947 a second federally funded temporary structure was
erected and equipped with library furniture, books, and student desk
staff:4 Although the structure was designed for the use of the large
first-year class, problems of poor lighting, insufficient heat, noise, and
distance from the general collection made it less than desirable, and
actual student use of the space was limited. Correction of some of
these problems and the addition of more reference books led to
increased use of the structure. During the second semester, such
temporary structures only exacerbated the problems of a collection
now scattered over four floors, seven reading rooms, and two
annexes.5 With limited desk staff, such a layout was difficult, if not
impossible, to administer efficiently.
A second problem facing the staff of the Law Library was how
to keep up with the cataloging and recordkeeping for a collection
growing exponentially. One solution the school seriously considered
was to have the Law Library cataloging and recordkeeping handled
by the main library at least on a temporary basis. Administration
hoped that the main library catalogers could refine and standardize
the Law Library records, conduct an inventory of the collection, bring
the card catalog up to date, and "leave the work in such shape that
the Recordation Department of the Law Library can by carried by
3. UNC SCHOOL OF LAW, LAW LIBRARIAN'S ANNUAL REPORT FOR YEAR
1946-
1947, at 1 (on file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, UNC School of Law).
4. UNC SCHOOL OF LAW, ANNUAL REPORT OF LAW LIBRARIAN 1947-1948, at 1 (on
file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, UNC School of Law).
5. Id. at 1-2.
[Vol. 73
one person." 6 This was deemed the most sensible solution; others
required infusions of money from a legislature disinclined to provide
funds.
The result of this solution was confusion of affiliation: was the
Law Library a branch or departmental library, or was it an independent library? The issue of autonomy would be a subject of frequent
study over the next eight years and was not completely resolved until
1955 when all personnel and policy decisions, book selection, budget,
and technical services functions were centralized in the Law Library.7
By 1949, the Law Library was at a crossroads. With inadequate
resources for the growing student body, a small staff plagued by
constant turnover, an administrative policy growing more convoluted
and complex yearly, and a diminished status among comparable
libraries in the country,' Lucille Elliott found it necessary to petition
the law school administration to conduct long-range planning for the
Law Library. She asked that policies, staffing, collections, and
clientele be inventoried and that the law school decide whether the
library should become a branch of the University library or be an
autonomous library with all of the extra financial support from the
school that such a relationship would bring. She also pointed out that
in order to regain its former prestige among American law libraries,
the library needed an infusion of money to purchase new materials
and refurbish older items. This was a necessary accompaniment to
any decision leading away from branch library status. A corollary to
Ms. Elliott's suggested changes was the need for acquisition of
additional library space. This specific need was quickly answered.
LIBRARY SPACE
The law school had moved into Manning Hall in 1923; by the late
forties, the growing library collection, expanded faculty, and exploding
student body required the use of three annexes to accommodate the
overflow. The news of a new addition to Manning Hall was greeted
with great pleasure by members of the library staff, who were finding
it increasingly difficult to maintain a library the components of which
6. Id. at 3.
7.
MARY W. OLIVER, LAW LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA REPORT
OF AcrIvrrIEs, JULY 1954-JuNE 30, 1955, at 1 (on file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law
Library, UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.).
8. REPORT OF THE CHANCELLOR AND THE LIBRARIAN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA ON CONDITIONS IN THE LAW LIBRARY, 1948-1949 (on file with the
Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
were so widely dispersed. The 1949 General Assembly appropriated

$638,500 for an addition to the law school9 and, after considerable
delays in construction, the building was dedicated on November 3,
1951.
Although the construction caused many hardships for the library
staff (much of the collection had to be packed away and then
unpacked and rearranged when the new space was completed), the
end result was so pleasing that the law school planned a special
celebration for alumni who had worked for the library as students.
Library staff enthusiastically planned the celebration and were
gratified at the number of responses and the interest of those who
were able to attend.' 0
For the next fifteen years, the growing library had ample space
and the collection burgeoned thanks to an ever-increasing budget. By
the mid-1960s, however, when the law school began plans for a new
building, the lack of study space for students in the library and the
collection's expected continued growth, as well as the lack of up-todate library equipment in Manning Hall, made the promise of new
library space particularly appealing. In the fall of 1965, after the
General Assembly had appropriated construction funds," a faculty
committee on the library building was formed. Professors Ernest
Folk, Dan Pollitt, Frank Strong, and law librarian Mary Oliver were
its first members. 2 The committee's responsibility was to plan and
make recommendations for the library portion of the new building.
To help with the planning process and to gain information on library
buildings, Professor Oliver visited several new libraries for ideas.
Because he had been dean at the College of Law at Ohio State
University while a new library was planned and built, Professor
Strong brought valuable first-hand experience to his committee
responsibilities.
The move to Van Hecke-Wettach Hall, located on a site adjacent
to the Institute of Government, took place late in the summer of
1968. Although some of the permanent fixtures (such as the
circulation desk) had not arrived, most of the library's books were
9. Act of Apr. 23, 1949, ch. 1248, 4, 1949 N.C. Sess. Laws 1575, 1577.
10. UNC SCHOOL OF LAW, LAW LIBRARIAN'S ANNUAL REPORT FOR 1951-52, at 1
(on file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill,
N.C.).
11. Act of June 10, 1965, ch. 915, 2, 1965 N.C. Sess. Laws 1230, 1231.
12. LAW LIBRARY UNIvERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA ANNUAL REPORT, JULY 1,
1965 THROUGH JUNE 30, 1966, at 1 (on file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library,
UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.).
[Vol. 73
unpacked and in place on the shelves by mid-September. The new

library had plenty of expansion room for the collection, a spacious
work area for the technical services functions of the library, a rare
book room, a room for microforms, a typing room, a faculty library,
study space on each floor for students, and air conditioning (a
welcome bonus, as many of the books had become moldy in the unair-conditioned environment of Manning Hall). For students and
faculty, the move to the perimeter of the campus was a mixed
blessing. The new building was spacious and the library facilities were
excellent, but they came at the cost of easy access, to the materials
and collections in Wilson Library on the main University campus.
It is a tribute to law librarian Mary Oliver and her planning
committee that, for the next twenty years, the physical space in the
library was adequate to meet most of the changing needs of students
and faculty for legal research. By the mid-1980s, however, two areas
were hopelessly inadequate: internal facilities for the newly emerging
technologies taking over the field of legal research were lacking and
the growing staff had little office space. In 1968, when the library
moved into Van Hecke-Wettach Hall, the staff numbered seven, and
the most advanced technology in use by most law libraries was a
microform reader-printer. By 1988, online legal research was an
integral part of law school curricula throughout the United States and
computer-based cataloging and acquisitions were the rule. The Law
Library had a staff of eight professional librarians and thirteen other
employees, many of whom had to work in cramped spaces not
equipped to handle the technologically sophisticated tools. Once
again, it was clear that physical expansion had become a priority. In
the summer of 1989, construction began on an extensive building
project, including expansion of the reference area, addition of offices
for professional librarians to the main floor of the library, and
upgrades to the internal wiring. The project, funded by the law
school, was complicated by the fact that asbestos had to be removed
from the ceiling of the Reading Room and full library services were
to continue during the construction period. After a summer of
dislocation, dust, and noise, the new spaces were completed and both
library users and staff benefitted from the improved conditions.
Despite all efforts to upgrade the current library space, many
problems still remain. The space for public services is completely
inadequate: Office and work spaces for all staff members are still in
need of upgrading; the current classroom space for teaching Computer
Assisted Legal Research is inadequate; the library has no internal
classroom space for legal research instructional sessions; and there is
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
little room for expanding the new computer and CD-ROM work
stations proliferating in the current information environment. New,
expanded library space, correctly wired and arranged for the extensive
use of computers and electronic systems, is necessary to facilitate
service to users.
THE LIBRARY DIRECroRs
The Law Library has been fortunate in its three directors, whose
abilities and vision led the facility as it progressed from a small local
collection to one of the leading law libraries in the Southeast. To
chronicle the progress of the library is to acknowledge the strengths
of each director.
The law collection became known as the Law Library in 1907,
but it was not until 1923 that a permanent custodian was named to be
in charge of the collection. The first custodian, who later became the
first law librarian, was Lucille Elliott. When Miss Elliott became parttime custodian of the Law Library in the summer of 1923, the
collection numbered about 7,000 volumes. By the time she retired as
law librarian in 1955, the collection was more than ten times larger,
with approximately 70,000 volumes. Miss Elliott was an active
member of the American Association of Law Libraries, attending the
Association's annual meetings after the war (when travel funds were
available) and serving as president of the organization in 1953-54.
Mary Oliver began working as a student assistant in the Law
Library in November 1949.13 For ten hours a week she and one
other student assistant attempted to maintain the recordkeeping and
cataloging of new books for the Law Library. Perhaps it was this
early work in the library that helped guide her when she became law
librarian; when asked what she considered her greatest accomplishment, she replied, "Lucille Elliott built a great library collection
with very little money; I wanted to continue building a great
collection but also wanted to make sure that we14had good records so
that people could make use of that collection.,,'
Ms. Oliver received her degree in library science from Drexel
University and her J.D. from the University of North Carolina. She
became assistant law librarian in 1952 and law librarian in 1955. By
the time she retired in 1985, she had steered the library through thirty
13.
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, ANNUAL REPORT OF THE LAW LIBRARIAN
FOR THE YEAR 1949-50, at 12 (on file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, UNC
School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.).

14. Interview with Mary Oliver, in Chapel Hill, N.C. (July 1, 1993).
764
[Vol. 73
years of almost constant growth, helped design a significant new

library wing for the law school, initiated and taught a seminar in legal
history, and taught numerous law and library science students the
intricacies of legal research and law library administration. The
collection, which numbered approximately 70,000 volumes in the early
1950s, had grown to more than 280,000 fully cataloged and classified
items by the time she retired in 1985. Users could consult the card
catalog with confidence knowing that all of these items could be
identified by the library's records.
Mary Oliver was a member of the American Bar Association and
the Association of American Law Schools, serving on many inspection
teams and committees during her years as law librarian. Ms. Oliver
was elected twice as a member of the UNC Faculty Council and she
was frequently asked to serve as library consultant to numerous
corporate and law libraries across the country. An active member of
the American Association of Law Libraries, she served on many of its
committees and was AALL President in 1972-73.
Laura N. Gasaway has been Director of the Law Library and
Professor of Law since 1985. She received her M.L.S. from Texas
Woman's University in 1968 and her J.D. from the University of
Houston in 1973. Formerly serving as Director of the Law Libraries

at the University of Houston and the University of Oklahoma, she
came to Chapel Hill with new ideas, enthusiasm, and a firm conviction
that the library had to move quickly to embrace new technology.
Within weeks of her arrival, she formulated plans for changes
involving all departments of the library: Its collections and services
were opened to all members of the University community as well as
to the legal community of the state, planning began for automating
many library functions, and a new classification system was adopted.
Committed to maintaining the quality of the collection and enhancing
its usefulness for faculty and students, Ms. Gasaway has been a
particularly vocal and visible symbol for the library. As an expert on
copyright issues, she presents many workshops throughout the country
each year and has been tirelessly involved with fundraising for the
library during the past decade.
Professor Gasaway served as President of the American
Association of Law Libraries in 1986-87 and is currently a member of
the ABA's Accreditation Committee. She is a fellow of the Special
Libraries Association and has served on and chaired various committees of SLA and AALL, including their copyright committees.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
COLLECTION
The growth of a library is often plotted by a linear graph that

indicates the rate at which the collection is expanding. When assessed
by this measurement, the growth of the Law Library can be
represented by a generally ascending line. For example, from the
70,000 volumes in the late 1950s the collection grew to more than
88,000 in 1963, to 120,975 in 1967, and to 180,893 in 1977. By 1987 it
numbered 312,770 volumes. There have been years when the ascent
has been more gradual, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s the line
was virtually flat. In general, however, the collection's growth has
been steady.
Although much of the collection has been gathered by judicious
purchasing, the library has on many occasions been the beneficiary of
generous gifts from faculty, members of the North Carolina bar, and
alumni throughout the country. It'is impossible in this forum to list
individually the significant gifts from friends and alumni during the
past fifty years, but a perusal of the annual reports of the Law Library
reveals the names of those who have given generously from their
private collections. Without these gifts, the Law Library collection
would be a significantly poorer one.
The collection in the early 1950s was strong in federal materials
as well as in North Carolina titles, but it suffered from a lack of
significant British research materials, particularly historical items.
When Lucille Elliott retired as law librarian in 1955, she remained on
the staff as bibliographer. While traveling in the British Isles in 1956
she purchased many of the old and valuable English titles needed to
bring the collection up to research standards. These purchases were
generously financed by the Friends of the Library, which contributed
approximately $1,000, and by an allocation of $2,000 from the Alumni
Annual Giving Fund.'
With the help of the North Carolina General Assembly and the
staff of the North Carolina Law Review, Lucille Elliott and Mary
Oliver instituted extensive exchange programs that facilitated the
acquisition of state legislative materials and law reviews from other
states. Copies of North Carolina Session Laws, the North Carolina
Reports (and later the North Carolina Court of Appeals Reports),
and the North Carolina Law Review were deposited with the Law
Library to be exchanged for similar materials from other state
15. Henry Brandis, Jr., The Law School, 35 N.C. L. REv. 63, 66 (1956).
766
[Vol. 73
governments and law schools. Such exchanges meant that for a small
financial outlay in postage and correspondence, the library could

obtain a significant portion of the state materials necessary for a
comprehensive legal research collection.
The Law Library became a U.S. Government Depository Library
in 1978 shortly after the passage of federal legislation that allowed
ABA approved or state bar designated law libraries to gain depository status. For Law Library users, this has meant that publications of
many governmental agencies are now readily available in the library;
for staff, it has meant the acquisition of many valuable publications
for minimal financial outlay.
Although there are rumblings abroad in the library world that
volume counts alone no longer can be an adequate measure of a
library, the collection at UNC is, nevertheless, a large one; in 1991,
the 350,000th volume was added to the collection. Today the library
boasts 373,544 volumes and volume equivalents.
COOPERATIVE EFFORTS
In March 1975, Mary Oliver and Kathleen Price (the law librarian
at Duke University) met to discuss ways in which the two law schools16
could cooperate in the development of their research collections.
Although many titles had to be duplicated in both libraries, the
purchase of some materials was coordinated when it was possible and
prudent. For example, during the late 1970s, the purchase of state
administrative codes was equally divided and free photocopies were
provided for users who needed the materials not available in their
own library. The purchase of large or expensive sets could be timed
to take advantage of availability at the other library allowing some
budgetary flexibility in lean years.
The current and perhaps most significant cooperative venture in
which the Law Library is a participant is the Triangle Research
Libraries Network (TRLN), which was established in the late 1970s.
Among the benefits of this cooperative endeavor is a shared online

catalog providing data on the holdings of each of the libraries at
North Carolina State University, Duke University, and the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Law Library serves as a
research collection for briefs and records of the United States Court
16. LAW LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL ANNUAL

REPORT JULY 1974-JuNE 1975, at 2 (on file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library,
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and is a member of COSELL, the

Consortium of Southeastern Law Libraries, which consists of thirtyfive academic law libraries throughout the Southeast.
AUTOMATION
The technological advances of the past fifteen years have

produced the most significant changes in the Law Library's history,
altering not only the organization of the staff but mandating massive
changes in the library's physical structure.
The library acquired its first photocopy machine in 1976.'7 It
radically changed the use of library materials and the character of the
formerly quiet study areas. Now students could retrieve and copy
huge amounts of material, finances permitting; quiet note-taking from
individual volumes quickly gave way to the noise of the copiers and
piles of unshelved reporters around the copiers each morning.
During the 1970s, Westlaw and LEXIS introduced online legal
research services that included the full text of reported decisions. By
using these sources, legal researchers could search every word in a
document in seconds. Within a few years, law schools across the
country were including online instruction in their research and writing
programs and providing terminals for student and faculty use on the
two systems.
The Law Library subscribed to Westlaw in April 1981, purchasing
an IBM 3101 computer for the purpose and installing it in one of the
offices on the 5th level of the library. When the library acquired a
special terminal for Westlaw in 1984, it was moved into the newly
developed reference area on the main floor of the library; in April
1985, the library added a LEXIS terminal. The transition to a
modern, technologically advanced library had begun. By the spring
of 1985, the library was using a national bibliographic utility, OCLC,
to catalog materials, and in 1987 it began to process its interlibrary
lending and borrowing requests through this same national database.
During the first week of classes in the fall of 1987, a Microcomputer Lab opened in the former typing room on the third floor of the
library. Co-sponsored by the law school and the Microcomputing
Support Center, the lab offered ten linked IBM-PC work stations; the
shared software on the network included three word processing
17. LAW LIBRARY UNIVERSrrY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL ANNUAL
REPORT JULY 1976-JuNE 1977, at 4 (on file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library,
[Vol. 73
programs as well as many specialized legal resources. The lab

currently has twenty-two personal computers. In the past few years,
law students' use of the lab has dropped off, probably due to
decreased hours for the lab and the fact that eight-three percent of
the students in the first-year class now own a computer or plan to buy
one during their first year."
Once begun, the library's transition to a computerized environment moved rapidly. Personal computers were purchased for all
librarians to use, and each department was provided with at least one
general-use PC. The staff initiated a regular and ongoing assessment
of hardware and software needs as it became not only dependent
upon, but proficient in, computer use. The library purchased its first
telefacsimile machine in 1989, and it now provides many photocopy
requests to borrowing institutions and law firms by telefax.
Currently, periodical indexes, much of the material needed for
North Carolina legal research and, increasingly, federal materials are
available on compact discs. An online catalog has been installed on

campus, and each of the libraries, including the Law Library, now
conducts its circulation transactions in a computerized environment.
These changes have meant the disappearance of the card catalog,
which was removed from the library in the winter of 1993; in its place
are banks of computer terminals on each level-some for the online
catalog, others for LEXIS and Westlaw, and still others providing
access to periodical indexes, North Carolina caselaw, federal statutes,
and the like.
BOOM TIMES AND BUST
As a state-supported institution, the Law Library's budget

fluctuates with the financial condition of North Carolina. In periods
of economic growth or stability, the library can count on steadily, if
not always spectacularly, rising allocations. When the fortunes of the
state ebb, however, the pinch is often painful. With very little
flexibility in budget lines, it is not always possible to move money
where it is needed.
Because such a large percentage of a law library's budget is
committed to continuations and serials-materials that must be
purchased annually regardless of budget constraints-there have been
budget years when few monographic publications were purchased.
18. UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA LAW LIBRARY COMPUTER SURVEY (1993) (on
file with the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Occurring infrequently in the 1960s and '70s, the most devastating of

these poor budget cycles hit the state in the late 1980s. During these
years, the Law Library was forced not only to curtail new purchases,
but to begin the very painful process of identifying serials and
periodicals that were no longer central to the curriculum and research
interests of students and faculty. Although difficult, the process of
analyzing and assessing the collection proved beneficial and allowed
the library to reallocate funds to its ultimate benefit.
During the budget crises of the past five years, support for the
library has come from students, faculty, and alumni. Since 1991, the
library has been the recipient of the third-year class gift; the class of
1991 pledged $22,000; 1992, $56,000; 1993, $45,000, and 1994, $42,000.
The faculty dedicates its time and efforts to the now annual Festival
of Legal Learning, a showcase of short continuing education
programs. Proceeds from the Festival are given to the library to
augment its collection resources. Support by alumni has made a
critical difference in the 1990s. Thanks to committee chair Marion A.
Cowell, Jr., of First Union Corporation, and other UNC School of
Law graduates, the Law Library fundraising campaign had by April
1994 raised over $1.4 million in pledges against a $1.25 million goal.
A special occasion in the fall of 1993 allowed the law school
community to come together to celebrate the important contributions
of the law library and to express optimism for its future. In September of that year the law school named its library for the late Kathrine
Robinson Everett, an alumna who graduated first in her class in 1920.
Mrs. Everett's will provided generously for the School of Law, leaving
it assets worth two iillion dollars. The largest gift in the history of
the school, the bequest will be devoted to the library as well as to
endowed professorships and student support. Speaking at the
dedication of the Katherine R. Everett Law Library, Mrs. Everett's
son Robinson noted that his "mother had great affection for the UNC
School of Law and immense gratitude for its role in enabling her to
become a pioneer woman lawyer in North Carolina."' 9
Such fund raising efforts, together with an improving state

budget, promise a future for the Law Library that will rival or exceed
its rich past.
19. Ginger Travis, Law Library Named for Katherine R. Everett, UNC-LAw ALUMNI
NEWS (UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill, N.C.), Winter 1994, at 7.
[Vol. 73
LIBRARY STAFF
A library's strength depends on both the vision of its directors

and the dedication of its other employees. Although sheer numbers
do not by any means dictate success, they have a considerable impact
on what a library can accomplish. During the mid-1940s, the library
staff consisted of two trained librarians plus student help. Lucille
Elliott, in her annual reports throughout the decade, wrote of the
difficulties of providing service to a growing faculty and student body
while staffing the service desks with student assistants. Although
most student employees were diligent and hard working, they were
only temporary, soon finished with their law studies and moving on
to permanent positions. Miss Elliott and her assistant were left to
retrain another group of students for a year or two of employment.
By 1954 there were four full-time staff members in the Law
Library along with the usual and ever-changing contingent of student
assistants. As the collection grew, so the need for a larger staff,
particularly clerical help, increased. Mary Oliver expanded the library
staff gradually, adding thirteen positions over her thirty-year tenure,
but the process of acquiring new positions was, and remains, a long
and arduous one. Professor Gasaway has created several new staff
and librarian positions, and more have been requested in each budget
cycle. The library staff wants to expand its reference, circulation, and
instructional services to students, faculty, and the state bar; until more
librarians and staff are available to provide the necessary support,
such plans remain on hold.
Besides its distinguished directors, the library has had many able
librarians on the staff in the past fifty years. Some were only with the
library for a few years, others remained for lengthier tenures. To list
them all is not possible, but some should be acknowledged.
Frances Hunt Hall was appointed assistant law librarian in 1959.
She resigned her position in 1963 to become a reference librarian at
the University of Chicago, moving on to accept the position of
librarian and Associate Professor of Law at Southern Methodist
University. Miss Hall returned to North Carolina in 1977 to become
librarian of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Katherine Cheape was the assistant law librarian from 1963 until
her retirement in 1985. During a three-month leave of absence during
1971, she served as acting law librarian at the University of Alabama
for the spring term.
Timothy Coggins was Head of Reader's Services from 1982 to
1984, served as acting law librarian from June through December of
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
1984, and became Associate Director of the Law Library in January

1985. In December 1992 he left North Carolina to become Director
of the Law Library at the University of Alabama.
The current Associate Director is Thomas French, who came to
the Law Library in the summer of 1993 from the Law Library at the
University of Maine, where he served as assistant law librarian and

head of public services.
Currently, the library staff is twenty-one members strong. Of
those, thirteen are long-term employees who have worked in the Law
Library for more than six years each.20
LOOKING AHEAD TO THE FuTURE
Since 1985 the Law Library has continued to expand its services,
build its collection, enhance its teaching role, and increase the use of
technology in its operations. An extensive long-range planning
process has been in place since 1990, when the library adopted its first
mission statement-a set of guiding principles for the development of
library services and planning for the future.
LAW LIBRARY MISSION STATEMENT
The University of North Carolina Law Library supports the

education of UNC law students, serves as a research partner with
faculty and students, and strives to meet the legal information needs
20. Current staff members, position and length of tenure in the Law Library:
Laura N. Gasaway, Director and Professor of Law (9 years)
Thomas R. French, Associate Director and Clinical Associate Professor of Law
(1 year)
Sandra R. Jones, Administrative Secretary (4 years)
Marguerite I. Most, Public Services Librarian (3 years)
Martha B. Barefoot, Reference/User Services Librarian (10 years)
Janice W. Hammett, Reference/User Services Librarian (8 years)
Deborah K. Webster, Reference/Computer Services Librarian (20 years)
Masako Patrum, Reference Associate (16 years)
Steven A. Case, Collection Manager (8 years)
Dorothy A. Grant, Circulation Supervisor (12 years)
Carol A. Nicholson, Technical Services Librarian (12 years)
Terri 0. Saye, Catalog Librarian (9 years)
Sandra Dyer, Serials Librarian (2 years)
Nancy M. Cox, Cataloging Technical Assistant (23 years)
Bernetta R. Evans, Acquisitions Technical Assistant (11 years)
Cheryl H. Gee, Cataloging Assistant (7 years)
Alan R. Hall, Acquisitions/Serials Assistant (7 years)
Audrey Knowles, Cataloging Clerk (1 year)
Sylvia Pearsall, Acquisitions/Serials Clerk (2 years)
Crystal L. Sharpe, Acquisitions/Serials Assistant (1 year)
772
[Vol. 73
of university students, faculty, the legal community, and the citizens

of North Carolina. To that end, the Law Library's mission is:
* To provide access to, and instruction in, the use of legal
information resources, and to develop research guides, access
tools and instructional materials;
e To research and develop innovative services and creative
uses of technology to access, manage, and communicate
knowledge;
e To collect, organize, and preserve legal information in an
environment conducive to serious research and scholarship;
and
e To foster research and leadership in law librarianship, legal
research, and resource sharing through publication and
dissemination of findings and results.
For the past five years, the library has used the framework of the
mission statement to initiate and evaluate its services, and it will
continue to do so as it plans for the future.
In examining the history of the library, one quickly becomes
aware that the Law Library has had a long and distinguished record
of providing materials and services for its users. With the next
century fast approaching, the library is clearly in an excellent position
to make great strides into a future of unparalleled opportunity. With
a deep and rich collection of traditional legal materials, with access to
an ever-growing body of information in electronic formats, and with
plans for new library space to enhance its learning environment, the
members of the library staff look forward to the challenges of that
future.
Student Organizations
and Their Evolving Impact on the School of Law
THE NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW AT THREESCORE AND TEN

MARTIN H. BRINKLEY
Martin H. Brinkley is co-editor of this symposium. He

was born in 1966 in Raleigh, North Carolina, attended the
Wake County public schools and Phillips Exeter Academy,
and in 1987 graduated summa cum laude in classics from

Harvard University. Brinkley taught Latin, Greek, and
German before enrollingat the University of North Carolina
School of Law. He graduatedfrom the law school in 1992
after serving as Executive Articles Editor of the North
Carolina Law Review. He clerked for Chief Judge Sam J
Ervin, III, of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit, and now practices in the Raleigh office of
Moore & Van Allen, PLLC. He has written about Greek
and Roman literature and history, the law, and legal history.
APOLOGY TO HENRY BRANDIS
This issue of the North CarolinaLaw Review is the successor-ininterest to a collection of essays published in 1947 to honor the
sesquicentennial anniversary of the founding of the University of
North Carolina. Hinton James's fabled trek from the lower reaches
of the Cape Fear to Old East preceded by five decades the trustees'
appointment of North Carolina Superior Court Judge William Horn
Battle to the first "Law Professorship"' at the University. Thus the
sesquicentennial of formal legal study at Chapel Hill coincides with
the University's Bicentennial celebration. It is fitting that A Century
of Legal Education,2 in which Albert and Gladys Coates' recounted
1. See University of North Carolina Trustees Executive Committee Minutes, Oct. 3,

1845 (on file with Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
2. See A CENTURY OF LEGAL EDUCATION vii (Robert H. Wettach ed., 1947).
3. See Albert Coates, A Century of Legal Education, in A CENTURY OF LEGAL
EDUCATION, supra note 2, at 1-95. Although Professor Coates's essay is nominally his
774
[Vol. 73
the history of the Law School's first hundred years, should be the
model for this work.

Like the issue as a whole, this essay takes up the thread spun by
a predecessor. During the final semester of a thirty-two-year career
on the law faculty, Graham Kenan Professor Henry P Brandis, Jr.,
wrote an article entitled The North Carolina Law Review: 1922-
1972'. The former dean,5 an eyewitness to the Review's first five

decades of life, was destined to be its Boswell.6 After his first
student contribution (a casenote he later condemned as "feeble"'7 )
appeared in Volume Six, Brandis penned eighteen leading articles and
miscellaneous pieces and fifteen decanal reports, establishing himself
as the journal's most prolific professional contributor. For more than
half its life, Dean Brandis served the Review as a faculty advisor.
Accordingly, the Board of Editors of Volume 50 viewed the
retirement of the law school's "number one citizen"' as an occasion
worthy of the most splendorous tribute it could bestow.
Brandis, however, had the temerity to do the editors one better.
Laden with honors and lapped in a lifetime's accumulated treasure,
some would have accepted a paean lackadaisically. However, the old
dean gave them tribute for tribute. Mentor to its leaders and an
unsurpassed enricher of its pages, Brandis wrote an encomium to the
alone, no one who understood the scholarly partnership that bound him and Gladys
Coates can doubt that the work was as much hers as his. In his foreword to the collection,
Dean Wettach admitted as much. See A CENTURY OF LEGAL EDUCATION, supra, at vii
("Professor and Mrs. Coates began the arduous task of checking University records,
Trustees' minutes, Faculty minutes, catalogues, Battle's History and other documents for
the data needed. Acknowledgment is gratefully made for the painstaking research and
devoted application of Mrs. Coates to this work.").
4. 50 N.C. L. REV. 965 (1972).
5. Professor Brandis became Dean of the University of North Carolina School of Law
on July 1, 1949, and voluntarily terminated his deanship on June 30, 1964. Albert Coates,
Henry Brandis, 50 N.C. L. REV. 961, 961 (1972).
6. Dean Brandis himself remarked:
The author of this article, a Tar Heel born and bred, was a member of the
Review's staff while a student, has, since that regrettably remote time, contributed
moderately to its pages, and served on the Law School's faculty for more than
thirty-two years. His sentiments about the Review are undeniably colored by
personal considerations and by institutional and provincial loyalties... . Hence,
any reader who is seeking an unbiased appraisal, academically worthy of the
Review's normal standards, should stop here and allot his limited reading time to
something more congenial.
Brandis, supra note 4, at 965.
7. Id.
8. Professor Coates attributes the label to Dean J. Dickson Phillips, Jr. Coates, supra
note 5, at 963.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Review itself. The North CarolinaLaw Review: 1922-1972 occupies

twelve pages in a "special issue" of the journal published in August
1972.
This essay supplements and concludes Dean Brandis's appraisal
of the Review's first five decades. It examines some subjects that
Brandis chose to ignore, such as the role the journal played in the
Law School's transition from a provincial school to a national center
of law study on the Harvard model. It likewise ignores some matters
that Dean Brandis treated fully, such as the Review's relationship with
the North Carolina State Bar in the years before there was a North
Carolina Bar Association. Finally, where Brandis relied on his
encyclopedic memory of events, this essay tends toward revelation of
documented facts.
I. ORIGINs: 1922-45
In the late summer of 1921, Maurice Taylor Van Hecke arrived
in Chapel Hill to join the faculty of the University of North Carolina
as an associate professor of law. A native of Wisconsin and a law
graduate of the University of Chicago, the twenty-nine year-old Van
Hecke joined a "Law Department," as it was then known, comprising
120 students, of whom perhaps one-sixth had earned a bachelor's
degree and another sixth had had no college training whatever.'
None of Van Hecke's three senior colleagues-Dean Lucius Polk
McGehee, Professor Atwell Campbell McIntosh, and Professor
Patrick Henry Winston-held a formal academic law degree.'0 The
Law Department, for years an orphan without permanent quarters in
the University classroom buildings, consisted of a single lecture room,
constantly in use, and a small library." Fewer than twenty students
remained in Chapel Hill for the entire three-year program leading to
conferral of the LL.B. degree. 2
The arrival of Professor Van Hecke heralded the University of
North Carolina's entrance into the ranks of "modem" American law
schools. Since William Horn Battle's appointment in 1845, the Law
Department had dedicated itself to producing practitioners for the
North Carolina state courts. By claiming the life of University
President Edward Kidder Graham, the influenza epidemic of 1918
sounded the death knell of purely practical legal instruction at Chapel
9.
10.
11.
12.
See id.
See Coates, supra note 3, at 46-47.
Id. at 52.
Id. at 54.
1111.
[Vol. 73
In an unprecedented departure from tradition, the trustees
selected a northerner, sociology professor Harry Woodburn Chase, to

succeed Graham. The reform-minded Chase immediately began
surveying the instructional methods employed in the nation's leading
law schools. By embracing the classroom reforms wrought in the
1870s at Harvard by Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell, President
Chase's crusading spirit changed forever a law school dominated,
according to a resentful alumnus, by "aristocratic and family and
political ties."' 3 Enlisting the support of Dean McGehee and
Professor McIntosh, Chase resolved in the face of powerful opposition 4 to convert an antebellum bar-cramming school into a
Langdellian oasis south of the Mason-Dixon line."
Together with Chase's reforms there came to Chapel Hill the
cornerstone of Dean Langdell's modus of law teaching-the casebook.
Throughout the 1920s new faculty members, all of whom had learned
their contracts and real property from casebooks at one of the
established university law schools in the North and Midwest, began
teaching in Manning Hall. This steady stream of young men, many
of them North Carolinians like Albert Coates (who had just spent
three years sitting at the feet of Harvard's Charles "Bull" Warren and
Felix Frankfurter), brought with them the student organizations that
had begun to flourish in the law schools of the Ivy League. Under
Dean Langdell's system, every waking moment of a law student's day
was to be devoted to the deepening and expansion of his reasoning
faculties. This philosophy of total intellectual immersion found its
culmination in the law review: the preparation by law students and
law professors of scholarly commentary on recent judicial decisions
and statutes.
Although legal periodicals had been published in the United
States since the early nineteenth century (The CarolinaLaw Repository, which ran to two volumes between 1813 and 1816 under the
editorship of Chief Justice John Louis Taylor, was North Carolina's
representative), such publications had not been systematically
sponsored by the private law tutors who then dominated the paths to
the profession. With the establishment of the HarvardLaw Review
in 1887, a course was firmly set. Law schools on the Harvard model
were expected to underwrite the production of permanent journals of

13. Id. at 62.
14. Governor Cameron Morrison led opposition to many of Chase's law school
reforms. See id. at 58-59.
15. See id.at 55-63.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
legal scholarship, dedicated to intelligent criticism of legal developments in American courts and legislatures. 6 Unlike the practice in
other fields in the humanities, law reviews were to be run by students.
In contrast to the casebook's utility solely as a classroom device, the
proponents of law reviews saw their publication as a double arrow in
the law school's quiver: a vehicle capable of educating neophyte
lawyers and bringing the work of legal educators to the attention of
leading members of an increasingly powerful profession. American
law reviews flourished because they exalted the prominence of
academically trained legal "scientists" at a time when American law
schools were seeking to defend their tightening hold on the gates of
the private bar.
The American bar enthusiastically received these new publications. Lawyers in private practice, academic lawyers, and sitting
judges contributed "professional" articles, essays, and book reviews to
their pages. By the year of Professor Van Hecke's North Carolina
debut, Dean McGehee reported to University alumni that the Law
Department had acquired complete sets of the Law QuarterlyReview,
the HarvardLaw Review, the Columbia Law Review, the Michigan
Law Review, and the American Bar Association Journal.7 With
these volumes piling up on the shelves of the law library and work
underway on a new law building (soon to be named Manning Hall)
the tides of change and reform ran high in Chapel Hill. Influenced
by Van Hecke and the school's other new "modem" law teacher,
Robert Halsey Wettach, McGehee in December 1921 called attention
to the desirability of a journal or periodical publication
which may represent the School and the work it is doing. It
would serve as a link between the legal profession and the
School, and would be a most valuable tool for improving our8
instruction, and an incentive to faculty and students alike.
Fired by the enthusiastic response of North Carolina lawyers to
Dean McGehee's proposal, Professor Van Hecke labored throughout
the winter and spring of 1922 to forge a format for the new journal.
Sixty pages long, the first issue of the North Carolina Law Review
reached Van Hecke's home direct from the printers in June 1922.'
16. By 1920 the HarvardLaw Review consisted primarily of student-written casenotes
and comments on newly minted statutes. Yale, in 1891, and the University of Virginia, in
1914, began publishing legal periodicals of their own based on the Harvard model.
17. Id. at 73 (footnote omitted).
18. Id.
19. Professor Van Hecke did not have the luxury of modem, machine-attached mailing
labels. As reported more than four decades later by Professor Frederick B. McCall, the
778
[Vol. 73
The frontispiece contained a masthead listing twelve "Student Editors,

Selected by the Faculty for Excellence in Scholarship." There
followed an editorial statement of purpose titled, simply, "The
Review."'
According to this statement, the North Carolina Law
Review was founded to serve four elements of the legal profession:
the law student, the law teacher, the practitioner, and the judge.
From the tone of the passage it is apparent that its author
believed these goals to be essentially harmonious. Yet in hindsight it
is obvious that the qualities each of these groups seeks in a legal
periodical are at once disparate and conflicting. Putting aside the
matters of prestige and employment, the law student views law review
Review's first student member, Van Hecke, and McCall sacked the journal into envelopes
at Van Hecke's dining room table and hand-addressed them for mailing. Frederick B.
McCall, Van: My Teacher, Colleague, and Friend,42 N.C. L. REV.274, 276 (1964).
20. The statement read:
It is hoped that this Review may be of service to the law students, the law
teachers, the members of the bar, and to the judges upon the bench, and, through
them, to the people of the state.
As a supplement to the routine daily class work of the [Law] School, it will
afford to the second and third year students, a means of intensive training in legal
writing. To them, the independent experience, under faculty supervision, in the
analysis, investigation, and critical discussion of current problems in North
Carolina law will be invaluable. As the Review goes into volumes year by year,
it will constitute a collection of reference materials on the local law, of definite
value as collateral readings in connection with class discussion.
To the faculty of the School, the Review will be an added incentive to
systematic research in the state law and a medium for the publication of the
results achieved. To the members of the bar and the judges upon the bench, the
Review will make available, in the form of leading articles, editorial notes and
comments, discussions of important legal problems, statements of the significance
of outstanding recent state and federal decisions, and historical accounts of the
development of distinctive topics and doctrines of North Carolina law. In other
words, the Review will carry to the active members of the legal profession, the
work the School is doing in tracing the development of law in North Carolina
and in the country at large.
Of equal importance to the law student and to the law teacher, will be the
opportunity afforded by the Review to learn of the attitude, the needs, and the
problems of the attorneys and judges in active practice. It is hoped that those
who are daily carrying on the litigation and the legal work of the state may find
in the Review a means of expressing their reactions to, and the constructive
suggestions for dealing with, the difficulties encountered in the practical
administration of the law. Only through this closer contact and understanding
can the lawyer, the judge, the law student, and the law teacher effectively unite
in what should be a common effort for the solution of modern legal problems.
In this latter connection, namely, that of the public service of the legal profession
as a whole, particular attention will be given in the pages of the Review to the
influence upon legal problems of matters of legislation, government, business, and
social and economic conditions.
EditorialNotes, 1 N.C. L. REV.31, 31-32 (1922).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
membership essentially as vigorous training in various techniques of

answering legal questions. In most cases, students hope that the
practice in legal research and writing offered by review membership
will better prepare them for a career at the bar or in another branch
of the profession. For the law professor, on the other hand, the law
review is fundamentally a venue for personal expression; publishing
"professional" articles in law reviews cements a prominent tile on the
road to professional advancement-an avenue of scholarly dialogue
with fellow law teachers, with legislators, and in particular with the
bench. The practicing attorney is attracted to the review as a timesaving research tool and a source of practical theories for the
courtroom and the negotiating table. Finally, the sitting judge sees
the law review as a gadfly given to stinging criticism of recent judicial
efforts-a reflecting pool in which decisions are subjected to
penetrating (and occasionally humiliating) analysis. By declaring its
intention to serve four very different masters at once, Professor Van
Hecke's infant publication was destined to toil in a career riven by
internal conflict.
Although absent from its statement of purpose, the element of
reward has never been wholly absent from Review membership; the
first "student editors," after all, were "[s]elected by the [f]aculty for
[e]xcellence in [s]cholarship.""a Karl Llewellyn might have been
speaking in Manning Hall when he said of the Columbia Law Review
in 1930:
We have in law schools an aristocracy of a peculiar kind.
We may almost say it is a perfect aristocracy. One achieves
membership exclusively in terms of his performance.
Membership carries honor, but the honor that it carries is
the duty to work and slave and drive oneself as no other
student is expected to. A perfect aristocracy, then, because
continued membership is based on higher performance than
is demanded of non-members.'
That membership in the North CarolinaLaw Review could create
an "aristocracy" of academic excellence at the University of North
Carolina appealed to President Chase's and Dean McGehee's efforts
at reform. As the clarion voice of legal "science" winding out from
Chapel Hill to the bar of North Carolina, the Review elevated public
discourse on the developing law of a newly industrialized state. The
founding of a law review at the University represented to some the
21. 1 N.C. L. REv. 31, 31 (1922) (title page).
22. KARL N. LLEWELLYN, THE BRAMBLE BUSH 121-22 (1930).
[Vol. 73
admission of North Carolina lawyers into the legal mainstream of the

nation, justifying the monopoly of an increasingly lucrative profession.' Yoking scholarly labor to academic progress, the establishment of the North Carolina Law Review thus started a process of
assimilation transcending the law school and extending to the farthest
reaches of the state. By the late 1920s, North Carolina lawyers could
echo Professor Llewellyn in announcing to young men and women
commencing the study of law at Chapel Hill:
Now this law review is a scientific publication, on which in
good part the reputation of the school depends. Here is a
thing American. Here is a thing Americans may well be
proud of. There is not so far as I know in the world an
academic faculty which pins its reputation before the public
upon the work of undergraduate students-there is none,
that is, except in the American law reviews. Such an
institution it is a privilege to serve. Such an institution it is
an honor to belong to. And by virtue of the terms of tenure
of office, of this you may be sure: to earn that honor is to
earn an education. I hold out before you, then, as the goal
of highest achievement in your first year, this chance to
enter on real training in your second.24
II. FORMATIVE YEARS: 1923-45
A.
The Review: 1923-41

When the first issue of the North CarolinaLaw Review reached
the desks of North Carolina lawyers in June 1922, the new journal
received a resounding welcome. Writing in the University of North
CarolinaRecord in the autumn of 1922, Dean McGehee commented:
The foundation of the North CarolinaLaw Review last June
is a notable event in the history of the School. Two numbers of the Review have been issued, which have enlisted
much approving comment from the profession in and outside
of the State . ...
The editorship of the Review has been
committed to Mr. Van Hecke, who is devoting untiring
23. See LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN, A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LAW 536 (1973)

(arguing that the flourishing of Langdellian legal science in the law schools occurred
because it exalted the prestige of law and legal reasoning in a period when lawyers needed
to justify their monopoly of practice); STEPHEN B. PRESSER & JAMIL S. ZAINALDIN, LAW
AND JURISPRUDENCE IN AMERICAN HISTORY: CASES AND MATERIALS 721-22 (2d ed.
1989).
24. LLEWELLYN, supra note 22, at 122 (first emphasis added).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
energy and enthusiasm to the task, and is making it a credit

to the law department and the University. It is one of the
chief means by which we hope to extend the influence of the
School and to increase its usefulnessO
Volume One appeared in four issues, published in November,
January, April, and June, 1922-23. Its articles, casenotes, and
comments set a pattern that the Review followed for many years:
professional articles were solicited not only from members of the
University law faculty, but also from distinguished scholars in other
seats of legal learning. In Volume One, for example, Professor
Thomas Reed Powell of Columbia contributed a twenty-one-page
article examining the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hammer v.
2 6 in which a five-justice majority invalidated a federal
Dagenhart,
statute prohibiting the interstate shipment of goods coming from a
mining or manufacturing establishment that employed children under
certain ages.27 Like many early Review contributors, Professor
Powell carefully tailored the article to his North Carolina audience,
examining the impact of the Court's decision on a state in which
whole industries in the 1920s depended upon child labor. The
University law faculty also figured prominently in the pages of
Volume One. Professor Atwell Campbell McIntosh and Professor
Van Hecke wrote two articles apiece; Professor Wettach and Dean
McGehee each contributed one. Prominent lawyers were represented:
the opening article of the volume was written by Walter F. Dodd, a
member of the Chicago bar and probably a friend of Van Hecke's. 8
James H. Pou, a widely respected Raleigh attorney, offered a
contribution on North Carolina corporate law.29
Virtually all of the professional articles, notes, and comments
published in Volume One examined some aspect of North Carolina
law. Writers from other law schools, such as Thomas Reed Powell,
were encouraged to explore the North Carolina ramifications national
topics might present. As the editors of Volume Two noted, the
Review's main purpose was, without question, "to publish...
discussions of important legal problems and of significant recent
decisions, placing special emphasis on the development of the North
25. Lucius P. McGehee, in UNIvERsrrY OF NORTH CAROLINA RECORD (1922-23), at
64-65 (quoted in Coates, supra note 4, at 74-75 & 75 n.321).
26. 247 U.S. 251 (1918).
27. See Thomas Reed Powell, Child Labor, Congress, and the Constitution, 1 N.C. L.
REv. 61 (1922).
28. Walter F. Dodd, Statute Law and the Law School, 1 N.C. L. REv. 1 (1922).
29. James H. Pou, Shares of Stock Without Par Value, 1 N.C. L. Rnv. 26 (1922).
[Vol. 73
Carolina law."3
Significantly, Volume One contained a special
survey of "Statutory Changes in North Carolina Law in 1923, ' '31 in
which Dean McGehee and Professor McIntosh explored recent
legislative enactments. The survey of statutory changes became a
regular feature of the Review. The policy of publishing composite
faculty commentaries on new North Carolina legislation continued
through Volume Thirty-Eight, when the combined effect of everlengthening legislative sessions and multiplying numbers of complex
new statutes resulted in the cancellation of the comprehensive survey.
To a far greater extent than in later years, wearers of the judicial
robe, particularly the justices of the state supreme court, contributed
regularly to the Review's early volumes. In Volume Two, Chief
Justice Walter Clark's Magna Charta and Trial by Jury32 was the
leading article; Justice William J. Adams contributed two historical
pieces to the same volume.3 Chief Justice Walter P. Stacy4 and
Superior Court Judge Frank A. Daniels35 both authored
contributions to Volume Three. The Review set about building a
close relationship with North Carolina's state and federal judges by
regularly documenting important events in the life of the judiciary.
In the editorial notes to Volume Two, for example, brief tributes to
Chief Justice Clark36 and United States District Court Judge Henry
Groves Connor,37 both recently deceased, appeared. Volume Three
celebrated UNC alumnus John Johnston Parker, Jr.'s appointment to
the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.38 These
contributions, coupled with others commenting on the affairs of North
Carolina's state-court bench,39 exemplified the law faculty's '40desire
"to build up a closer connection with the judges in the state.
30. EditorialNotes, 2 N.C. L. REV. 29, 33 (1923).

31. 1 N.C. L. REV. 263 (1923).
32. 2 N.C. L. REV. 1 (1923).
33. William J. Adams, Evolution of Law in North Carolina,2 N.C. L. REV. 133 (1924);
William J. Adams, The Life and Influence of John Manning, 2 N.C. L. REV. 218 (1924).
34. Walter Parker Stacy, ChiefJusticeHoke, Patriotand Great-HeartedFighterfor the
Right, 3 N.C. L. REV. 83 (1925).
35. Frank A. Daniels, The Lawyer as Citizen-HisDuty to the Public,3 N.C. L. REV.
156 (1925).
36. EditorialNotes, Walter Clark, 2 N.C. L. REV. 225, 225-28 (1924).
37. EditorialNotes, Henry Groves Connor, 2 N.C. L. REV. 225, 228-30 (1924).
38. EditorialNotes, John Johnston Parker,3 N.C. L. REV. 167, 168 (1925).
39. See, e.g., Robert W. Winston, Chief Justice Shepherd and His Times, 3 N.C. L.
REv. 1 (1925).
40. EditorialNotes, 2 N.C. L. REv. 33, 33 (1923). For many years the Review was
furnished to the justices of the Supreme Court of North Carolina and to all North Carolina
Superior Court judges without charge.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
The death of Dean McGehee in 1923 and the departure of

Professor Van Hecke from Chapel Hill after only one year on the
faculty made it "indeed hard to carry on the work" of the Review. 1
Professor Wettach replaced Van Hecke as "Faculty Editor in
Charge," supported by Professors McIntosh and Winston and by two
new additions to the faculty: Albert Coates, a Tar Heel fresh from
Harvard, and Frederick Bays McCall, who assisted Professor Van
Hecke with Volume One. With the change in leadership came a
perceptible shift in the Review's subject-matter: Articles designed to
appeal to the practitioner began to appear in greater numbers than
Volume One had foretold.
Editorial responsibility for the Review at first clearly rested with
the law faculty. The masthead of Volume One listed four faculty
members as assistant editors and twelve "Student Editors." No
student was given a specific editorial title. It was not until Volume
Five that one student-Samuel Elton Vest-was given the title of
"Editor-in-Chief" and another, Charles Raper Jonas, was named
"Assistant Editor." Despite this increase in the prominence of
students as actual editors of the Review, the masthead continued to
list a faculty member as "Editor in Charge" through the April issue
of Volume Seventeen. With Number Four of Volume Seventeen the
faculty's intention to repose complete editorial authority in the
students was announced,42 and the faculty "Editor in Charge" was
dropped from the masthead. Through Volume Forty-One, however,
the masthead continued to list the whole faculty as "Faculty Advisors." Beginning with Volume Seventeen, the dean of the law school
designated one faculty member as principal adviser to the Review, a
practice which continues today.43
B. The Second World War

Between 1931 and 1942, the student body of the law school
numbered, on average, 110.' As the academic year 1941-42 progressed, many students volunteered for or were called up to active
military service; by Commencement enrollment had plummeted to
twenty-one. By May 1943 the total number of law students in Chapel
Hill was thirteen. The faculty was decimated: Professors Brandis,
41. Id.
42. See 17 N.C. L. REV. 421 (1940).
43. The present faculty adviser is Thomas Lee Hazen, Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Law.
[Vol. 73
Hanft, Van Hecke (who had returned to the School in the late 1920s),
and Dalzell entered upon full-time military work, leaving Dean
Wettach and three associates to keep the law school in operation.
As these statistics attest, the effect of the Second World War on
the University of North Carolina School of Law and on the publication of the North CarolinaLaw Review was profound. In June 1941,
six months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, fifteen
students were listed on the masthead of the Review as student editors.
By Number One of Volume TWenty, released in December 1941, only
ten students were listed.4' By Number Three of the same volume,
this figure had decreased to eight, plus three "Editors in War
Service." Throughout Volume TWenty the list of "Faculty Advisors"
remained intact; by April 1943, the Review felt the full brunt of war:
four students and five faculty members were left to labor over student
casenotes and comments, checking citations, and typing manuscripts.
These numbers continued with slight variations through December
1945. 4
Dean Henry P. Brandis, Jr., called the journal's continuous
publication throughout the war "the most remarkable epic in the
history of the Review."'4 7 As few as four faculty members and three
students "managed to publish volumes of respectable length and more
than respectable quality. 48 Cyrus E Lee, who served as editor-inchief of Numbers One and TWo of Volume 25, both published just
after the end of the war and before the students had returned to
Chapel Hill in large numbers, commented in a 1993 memorandum:
"During my stay, the emphasis of the faculty and the students was to
hold the [law school] tradition and the N.C. Law Review tradition
intact until the men returned from the war.49 Those were times when
the study of law did not take top priority.,
The number of professional articles published in each of the
wartime volumes was usually fewer than ten. Cyrus Lee observed:
45. These numbers, and those that follow, were first noted by Dean Brandis. See
Brandis, supra note 5, at 970-71.
46. In December 1943 the number of student editors dropped to an all-time low of
three, out of a total of twelve in the entire Law School student body; the number of
faculty advisors dropped to four, Professor Frank W. Hanft having left for Army service.
47. Brandis, supra note 5, at 971.
48. Id.
49. Memorandum from Cyrus F. Lee, Attorney-at-Law, Wilson, N. C., titled A Few
Experiences of Mine Working on the N.C. Law Review, to Martin H. Brinkley 3 (Feb. 5,
1993) (on file with author).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
It is my recollection that during the time... I was connect-
ed with the Law Review ... it was difficult to obtain lead
articles that the faculty would consider to be worthy of

publication. We went about trying to get articles for
publication by writing the faculties of other law schools and
any other source that came to our attention. Faculty
members were on the lookout for cases that pointed to new
directions in the law or for other reasons were felt to be a fit
subject for a student note. The student editors selected the
subject on which they wished to write a note from the cases
that were suggested or from other developments in the
law.50
The bulk of the wartime issues was taken up with student notes and
comments.
III.
SuBiEcr MAETrER
A. 1945-60
Throughout the first fifteen years after the war, many of the
North CarolinaLaw Review's pages were dedicated to serving North
Carolina practicing attorneys' and state officials' need for accurate,
readable coverage of new developments in North Carolina law. In
the 1950s the Review paid substantial attention to the vast changes
then being wrought by the United States Supreme Court in the
national understanding of the Bill of Rights. At the same time, the
deluge of congressional legislation enacted while the Great Depression and the Second World War were raging had dealt a mortal blow
to the supremacy of state law. During the immediate postwar years,
as a result, the nation's law journals inexorably shifted their focus
toward legal questions of national importance-most of them federal.
The last days of this period saw the demise of the North Carolina
Law Review of McGehee and Van Hecke. By 1957, a new member
of the law faculty, Daniel H. Pollitt, had begun his long association
with the journal.5' Pollitt's contributions as a prolific writer on
constitutional subjects, together with his service as the Review's
principal faculty advisor in the 1960s, led the journal to seek the
national prominence that springs from close examinations of federal
issues.
50. Id. at 1.
51. See Daniel H. Pollitt, PresidentialUse of Troops to Execute the Laws: A Brief
History, 36 N.C. L. REv. 117 (1957).
786
[Vol. 73
Henry E. Frye, the first African-American to serve as an

associate justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, was also the
first African-American to serve as a student editor of the North
Carolina Law Review. In choosing a judicial decision for his first
casenote, Frye concluded that the logical subject was a recent opinion
of the state supreme courtO5 As Frye's own contributions to the
Review reveal, substantial legal, and particularly constitutional,
questions considered by the North Carolina court were prime topics
for publication in the Review.53
The postwar editors of the Review set about serving the North
Carolina legal community by creating their most enduring legacy: the
journal's annual survey of North Carolina caselaw. First published in
1954, the survey made no attempt to examine every opinion rendered
by the Supreme Court of North Carolina during a given period. The
editors intended, instead, "to discuss only those decisions which are
of particular importance--cases regarded as being of significance and
interest to those concerned with the work of the Court, and decisions
which reflect substantial changes and matters of first impression in the
law of North Carolina."' Most research and writing for the survey,
which covered a full range of legal subjects,55 were accomplished by
selected student'editors, working under the supervision of the faculty.
Some sections were prepared exclusively by individual faculty
members. 6 Eventually the annual survey of new caselaw and the
biannual survey of statutory changes were consolidated into a single
issue of the Review, titled "Recent Developments in North Carolina
Law." That the journal published two such lengthy surveys in a single
volume of only four issues and less than a thousand pages reveals the
52. Interview with the Honorable Henry E. Frye, Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court of North Carolina, in Raleigh, N.C. (Mar. 14, 1993). Justice Frye's first casenote
examined State v. Cooke, 246 N.C. 518,98 S.E.2d 885 (1957). See Henry E. Frye, Criminal
Law-Trial De Novo-Power of Superior Court to Amend Warrant,36 N.C. L. REv. 80
(1957).
53. See, e.g., Wilton Rankin, ConstitutionalLaw-FourteenthAmendment-Trespass
Protection Not Discriminationby State, 37 N.C. L. REv. 73 (1958) (discussing State v.
Clyburn, 247 N.C. 455, 101 S.E.2d 295 (1958)).

54. Fourth Annual Survey of North Carolina Case Law, 35 N.C. L. REV. 177, 177
(1957).
55. The 92-page Fourth Annual Survey, for example, contained discussions of recent
cases in the fields of administrative law, agency and workers' compensation, business
associations, civil procedure, constitutional law, contracts, credit transactions, criminal law
and procedure, damages, domestic relations, equity, evidence, future interests, insurance,
municipal corporations, real property, sales, torts, trial and appellate practice, trusts, and
wills and estate administration. See id. at 177-269.
56. Id. at 177.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
editors' concern with full coverage of North Carolina law during the
1950s."
It is hardly surprising that the Review maintained, as it still does,
substantial allegiance to state law when other American law reviews
were lifting their sights to new developments in federal law, and
particularly to the riveting pronouncements emanating from the
Warren Court. The North Carolina Law Review, true to its name,
had been for many years the only scholarly journal of legal writing
published in North Carolina. As a child of the state university law
school, it had, by all accounts, an obligation to serve the state. The
student body of the law school was overwhelmingly North Carolinian
in origin; in 1956, for example, only eight percent of the students were
not residents of the state.58 The vast majority of the students
obtained legal employment in North Carolina following graduation.
A journal focused on state law was the natural fruit of such a close
climate.59
Throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, the Board of Editors
continued to solicit professional contributions from the faculty of the
law school and from Professor Albert Coates's new foundation, the
Institute of Government. In addition to substantive articles, the
faculty contributed many book reviews to the journal. The deaths of
two University alumni in the ranks of the appellate judiciary-Chief
Judge John Johnston Parker, Jr., of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Chief Justice Walter P. Stacy of
the Supreme Court of North Carolina-led to a brief renaissance in
the tradition of sitting judges offering the Review tributes to their
brethren. 60
Throughout the postwar years, the North CarolinaLaw Review
published its volumes on very tight budgets. Especially during the
early decades, student editors were forced to publish thin volumes, for
the costs of publication far exceeded their modest fiscal reach. On
more than one occasion, herculean efforts rescued the journal from
imminent financial peril. During the summer of 1957, Thomas P.
57. An informal statistical survey, conducted by the author, supports this thesis:
throughout the 1950s, no volume of the Review devoted less than 50% of its pages to some
aspect of North Carolina law.
58. Henry P. Brandis, Jr., The Law School, 36 N.C. L. REV. 62, 62 (1957).
59. I am grateful to Professor William B. Aycock for generously offering some of the
insights reflected in the foregoing paragraphs within this Part III.
60. See William A. Devin, ChiefJustice WalterParkerStacy, 30 N.C. L. REv. 1 (1951);
Morris A. Soper et al., Tribute to Judge John J. Parker,Jr.-"The Gladsome Light of
Jurisprudence,"37 N.C. L. Rev. 1 (1958).
[Vol. 73
Walker and Thomas C. Creasy, Jr., respectively the business managers

of Volumes 35 and 36 of the Review, compiled a supplemental indexdigest covering the last nine volumes. 61 Although the Review
struggled to obtain the funds necessary to produce the index-digest,
the books eventually produced several hundred dollars' profit, which
future editorial boards used to reduce the journal's regular operating
deficit. The Review soon fell again into financial lean times, however,
and in 1958 the Board of Editors was forced to cancel the special
subscription rate previously afforded members of the North Carolina
bar.
B. 1960-93
By the early 1960s, a new generation of student editors, schooled
in the Warren Court's increasingly broad definitions of the rights of
American citizenship, had wrought discernible changes in the editorial
policies of the Review. For a journal whose last ten years had been
devoted overwhelmingly to North Carolina subjects, the publication
62
in 1964 of a nearly 200-page symposium, Civil Rights and the South,
revealed the editors' growing willingness to examine the ills of
American society at the expense of traditional expositions of
common-law doctrine. Stocked with opposing viewpoints on the
debate over civil rights legislation-both Attorney General Robert F.
Kennedy and Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr. (men of sharply differing
viewpoints on the subject), offered short pieces6 --the symposium
was recognized by Dean J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., as "one of the most
notable efforts ever undertaken by the Review."' 4 Within a year of
its publication, Civil Rights and the South had attracted national
attention, resulting in by far the largest reprint sales ever recorded by
the Review.6
The years between 1962 and 1968 marked a period of transition,
during which the Review set its sights on national coverage and broad
scholarly recognition. The success of Civil Rights and the South gave
succeeding editorial boards a taste for fame. North Carolina subjects
increasingly were relegated to casenotes and comments. A reader
61. Brandis, supra note 59, at 69. This index-digest was subsumed in the cumulative
index-digest of the Review's first 43 volumes, published in 1965.
62. 42 N.C. L. REV.1 (1963).

63. See Robert F. Kennedy, Introduction,42 N.C. L. REV. 1, 1-2 (1963); Sam J. Ervin,
Jr., The United States Congressand Civil Rights Legislation, 42 N.C. L. REv. 3,3-15 (1963).
65. Id.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
comparing the professional articles in the February 1965 issue of

Volume 43 with those in virtually any issue from the previous decade
could hardly fail to note the sea change in the Review's focus. The
publication of five professional articles, 66 as opposed to only one or
two; the articles' substantive content ("Equality in America";
"Minorities in the Market Place"; "The Free Press and a Fair Trial");
and the nonacademic occupations of some of their authors (e.g.,
Vermont Royster, longtime editor of the Wall Street Journal)
represented a substantial departure from former Review practice.
It is impossible to divine all the causes of this tidal shift, but at
least a few are apparent. The increasing dominance of federal law
over state regulation, together with the steady overshadowing of state
supreme courts' incremental common-law jurisprudence by national
crises demanding sweeping resolution, was bound to be reflected in
journals of legal scholarship. When academic lawyers, whose personal
reputations were staked on writings published in the nation's leading
journals, ascended to important judicial posts, the prominence of the
law review as a career-enhancing institution rose. Like its counterparts at other law schools, the North CarolinaLaw Review in the mid1960s was ceasing to be simply a reactive force. Perhaps it is not
far-fetched to see in the appointments of William 0. Douglas and
Jerome N. Frank (both former Yale Law School professors identified
with the rejection of Langdellian legal "science" in major law reviews)
to the federal bench the advent of a new relationship between the
judiciary and the law review. No longer did judges look to journals
simply for criticism of the "reasoning" employed in their decisions;
now, they perused their pages for the reasoning itself. Contributing
to this trend, no doubt, was federal judges' widespread insistence
upon law review experience as a prerequisite for prestigious judicial
clerkships.
Since the Review began to focus more intensely on federal law,
the importance of North Carolina judicial decisions as the bread and
butter of the Review decreased. By the middle of the decade the
Board of Editors was seeking to curtail drastically its annual survey
of North Carolina caselaw in order to pledge staff members' time to
66. See Avery B. Cohan, Should Direct PlacementsBe Registered?, 43 N.C. L. REV.
298 (1965); Harold Demsetz, Minorities in the Market Place, 43 N.C. L. REv. 271 (1965);
Samuel R. Pierce, The Anatomy of a HistoricDecision: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,
43 N.C. L. REv. 315 (1965); John P. Roche, Equality in America: The Expansion of a
Concept, 43 N.C. L. REv. 249 (1965); Vermont Royster, The Free Press and a Fair Trial,
43 N.C. L. REv. 364 (1965).
[Vol. 73
other subjects. The faculty, in an attempt to accommodate both the

editors and the North Carolina bar's insistence upon coverage of
developments in state law, offered to write the survey itself. The
Review endorsed this plan, and for several years the professors
rendered stalwart service in preparing the survey. 67 Although fullscale professional, articles on North Carolina subjects were becoming
more difficult to obtain, the Review commissioned and published as
many as it could.6
Throughout the 1980s, the Review consistently published volumes
of more than 1500 pages. The increase in girth resulted in great part
from the decision, taken in the mid-1970s, to increase the number of
issues per volume from four to six; yet it also stemmed from a steady,
almost precipitous rise in the length of both professional and student
contributions to the journal. For example, Volume 69, produced in
1990-91, contained twenty professional articles averaging fifty-two
pages each; it also published twenty-nine student notes of approximately twenty-six pages each. These numbers represent a fourfold
increase over the typical volume of the early 1950s.
The Review's publication of a symposium, "The Law of the
Land": The North Carolina Constitution and State Constitutional
Law,' in 1992 signaled a renaissance of its former practice-embraced often in the 1970s, but rarely since-of commissioning
a collection of scholarly writings centering on a single topic.7" "The
67. See, e.g., J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., The Law School, 46 N.C.L. REV. 71,73-76 (1967)
(noting that Professors William B. Aycock, Henry P. Brandis, Jr., Donald F. Clifford,
Frank W. Hanft, Martin B. Louis, Walter D. Navin, Daniel H. Pollitt, Frank R. Strong, and
Seymour W. Wurfel each contributed case comments on developments in various fields of
North Carolina in preceding volumes of the Review).
68. See, e.g., William B. Aycock, Introductionto Water Use Law in North Carolina,46
N.C. L. REv. 1 (1967); Robert G. Lehnen & J. Oliver Williams, Some Aspects of the
Criminal Court Processin North Carolina,49 N.C. L. REv. 469 (1971); Dale A. Whitman,
TransferringNorth CarolinaReal Estate PartI How the PresentSystem Functions,49 N.C.
L. REV.413 (1971).
69. 70 N.C. L. REV. 1701 (1992).
70. See, e.g., Symposium, "To Endurefor Ages to Come": A Bicentennial View of the
Constitution,65 N.C. L. REV.881 (1987); Symposium, Labor in the South, 59 N.C. L. REV.
1 (1981); Symposium, The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, 58 N.C. L. REV. 665, 881
(1980); Symposium, Health FacilityRegulation, 57 N.C. L. REv. 1163 (1979); Symposium,

Reflections on a Decade Under the Code of Professional Responsibility: The Need for
Reform, 57 N.C. L. REV. 495 (1979); Symposium, Products Liability Law: The Need for
Statutory Reform, 56 N.C. L. REv. 625 (1978); Symposium, Population Problems and the
Law, 55 N.C. L. REV. 357 (1977); Symposium, Law and Society: The Challenge of the
Seventies, 47 N.C. L. REV. 523 (1969); Symposium, The Uniform Commercial Code in
North Carolina,44 N.C. L. REv. 525 (1966); Symposium, Civil Rights and the South, 42
N.C. L. Rnv. 1 (1963).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
791
Law of the Land" also saw the reemergence of conribution to the
Review by the North Carolina judiciary: Chief Justice James G.

Exum, Jr., and retired Associate Justice Harry C. Martin, the latter a
specialist in state constitutional law,71 prepared essays for the sympo-
sium on the significance of the North Carolina Constitution. 2 A

chief attraction was the Foreword,written by retired Associate Justice
William J. Brennan, Jr., of the United States Supreme Court;' in an
essay written for the HarvardLaw Review in 1977, Justice Brennan

had ignited scholarly and judicial interest in state constitutions as
sources of protection for individual liberties.74 The symposium
contained a history of the North Carolina Constitution,7' a comment
on the Supreme Court of North Carolina's issuance of advisory77
opinions,76 an essay on Article I, Section 35 of the constitution
constitutional decisions by the
and a number of casenotes on recent
78
courts.
appellate
Carolina
North
The following year the Board of Editors of Volume 71 published
a more ambitious symposium, The Urban Crisis: The Kerner
Commission Report Revisited,79 with contributions by nationally
famed legal scholars, sociologists, and journalists. Both of these
symposia were well received by the Review's subscribers.
71. Justice Martin is now Dan K. Moore Visiting Professor of Ethics and
Jurisprudence at the University of North Carolina School of Law.
72. James G. Exum, Jr., Rediscovering State Constitutions, 70 N.C. L. REV. 1741
(1992); Harry C. Martin, The State as a "Font of Individual Liberties". North Carolina
Accepts the Challenge, 70 N.C. L. REv. 1749 (1992).
73. William J. Brennan, Jr., Foreword,70 N.C. L. REV. 1701 (1992).
74. William J. Brennan, Jr., State Constitutionsand the Protectionof IndividualRights,
90 HARV.L. REV. 489 (1977).
75. John V. Orth, North CarolinaConstitutionalHistory, 70 N.C. L. REV. 1759 (1992).
76. Margaret M. Bledsoe, Comment, The Advisory Opinion in North Carolina: 1947
to 1991, 70 N.C. L. REV. 1853 (1992).
77. Louis D. Bilionis, On the Significance of ConstitutionalSpirit,70 N.C. L. REv. 1803
(1992).
78. John D. Boutwell, Note, The Cause ofAction for Damages Under North Carolina's
Constitution: Corum v. University of North Carolina, 70 N.C. L. RuV. 1899 (1992); Stacey
L. Joseph Cardenas, Note, Constitutional Expansion of Local Government Financing
Alternatives: Wayne County Citizens Association v. Wayne County Board of Commissioners, 70 N.C. L. REV. 1947 (1992); Michele L. Harrington, Note, State v. Whittle
Communications: Allowing School Boards to Turn on "Channel One", 70 N.C. L. RnV.
1929 (1992); Matthew P. McGuire, Note, Baker v. Martin and the Constitutionality of
Partisan Qualificationsfor Appointment to District Courts,70 N.C. L. REv. 1916 (1992).
79. 71 N.C. L. REV. 1283 (1993).

IV.
[Vol. 73
INTERNAL MAT'ERS
A. Staffing the Review

Throughout the first four decades of its publication, the Review's
requirements for staff membership were both simple and unbending.
The initial hurdle consisted of scholastic achievement: any student
who earned a minimum cumulative quality-point average of "B" at
any time became eligible to "write for" the Review.' Thus, for
nearly forty years academically successful first-year students would be
invited to write a casenote or comment for the Review as early as the
second semester of their law school careers."1 Yet becoming eligible
to "write for" the Review did not automatically convey membership
or the right to see one's name displayed on the masthead. The
student also had to write a casenote or comment considered
"publishable" by the Board of Editors.'
Even attaining full rights of Review membership did not enable
law students in the mid-1950s to rest upon their laurels. Any Review
member whose cumulative quality-point average fell below the mark
of "B" at any time was dismissed from the Review, even if he already
had written a "publishable" casenote or comment and had seen his
name listed on the masthead. The spectre of public disgrace goaded
Review members to exceed themselves in their examinations, even
after two or three semesters of hard labor in the library stacks. The
grade-based system signalled that Review membership was a tribute
awarded the scholastically successful. Underlying this theme was a
value-laden message: maintaining the Review as an academic honor
society was important to the law faculty, more important even than
securing staff members whose literary and analytical talents might
directly benefit the Review's pages at the expense of strong
examination performance.
Although the "B average" standard had the advantage of
grounding membership rights in objective fact, it caused considerable
80. See, e.g., Henry Brandis, Jr., The Law School, 38 N.C. L. REv. 62, 70 (1959).
81. Id.
82. Id. Although these paragraphs refer to the Review's "staff' and to "staff
membership," they do so only for ease of locution. It was not until the mid-1970s that the
masthead created a distinction between the "Board of Editors" and the "Staff." For most
of its history, the Review's membership consisted simply of student "editors," four of
whom held titles and served as the journal's governors. Thus, student members who
wielded no real editorial powers were long denominated "editors."
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
hardship for the Review as a working legal periodical. The four

editors could not plan the volume well in advance, because they could
not count upon the presence of trained assistants for more than one
semester at a time. Uncertainty constrained creativity and scholarly
ambition; the editors, naturally eager to maintain their own lofty
positions on the scholastic ladder, were inhibited from contracting for
the publication of lengthy, research-laden professional articles. Their
hesitation was reflected in the paucity of the Review's professional
contributions during these years. Before 1960, for example, the
editors found it virtually impossible to publish more than seven or
eight professional articles in a single volume; most of these were
coaxed from members of the law faculty.
In 1958, student complaints, both from within and without the
Review, about the journal's membership criteria reached the ears of
Dean Brandis, who responded by appointing a faculty committee to
conduct a "thorough study of the selection and organization of the
staff of the Review" during the academic year 1958-59.83 After
surveying the operations of comparable law journals around the
country, the committee recommended modest changes designed to
preserve the Review's character as an honor society while providing
the editors with a dependable staff.' Under the new regulations, the
ten highest-ranked students in the first-year class automatically
became eligible to join the staff of the Review at the end of their first
semester.' By the close of the first year, the top fifteen students, or
all those having a "middle B" average, whichever would yield the
larger number, would become eligible. 6 The committee recommended that the faculty retain the old rule that full-fledged staff
membership, including having one's name on the masthead, not be87
had written two publishable casenotes
awarded until the candidate
'
"or the equivalent." As the size of the law school's student body increased during the 1960s, the number of students chosen for Review
candidacy based on first- and second-semester grades rose to twenty.
After 1958, a student, having achieved membership on the Review,
could no longer be removed solely on the basis of a drop in scholastic
83. See Henry Brandis, Jr., The Law School, 37 N.C. L. REv. 58, 66 (1958).
84. See id. at 70-71.
85. Id. at 70
86. Id.
87. This represented an increase over the original membership requirements, which
insisted that prospective staff write only one publishable casenote.
88. See Brandis, supra note 87, at 70-71. Presumably "the equivalent" would have
been a comment or more extended casenote.
[Vol. 73
standing. The faculty, it seems, had recognized the value of a

regularly constituted staff to the overall quality of the journal.
The changes wrought by the 1958-59 committee's recommendation were but a harbinger of later metamorphoses. Within a decade
the editors had begun to lose confidence in the use of examination
marks as the exclusive avenue to Review membership, a feature
retained in the earlier reforms. As one editor-in-chief commented in
a 1970 memorandum to the faculty:
Experience has indicated to the present Board of Editors
that examination grades do not furnish a fool-proof criterion
for judging the analytical and literary competence sought in
a law review writer. It is not that grades bear no relation to
ability, but rather that there are very likely some men in the
class who could do good law review work, but whom the
grading system does not select for membership .... [I]t is
only fair to recognize legal ability that does not manifest
itself in the examination process; we feel we have, in the
past, rather arbitrarily excluded competent writers by the
mechanical quality-point test. [F]rom the standpoint of the
welfare of the law review, our publication could only benefit
from rigorous competition in the selection of some of its
contributors.89
Although the reforms adopted in 1959 had brought certainty and
stability to the staff-selection process, the midyear entry of a few
students (some in their third year) continued to cause administrative
headaches for the editors. Students who joined the staff in January
lacked the practical experience in citation-checking and casenotewriting their predecessors from the fall enjoyed. The editors were
forced to assimilate these new members at the very moment in the
year when the substantive labors of editing the Review were most
onerous. Students who made the Review at the beginning of their
third year were perceived as anxious for the credential of Review
membership but unenthusiastic about the drudgery of citationchecking. This attitude irritated senior Review members, who had
labored as much as three semesters longer than the new third-years
for no greater reward.
These faults in the old system, together with continued dissatisfaction over the use of grades as the sole criteria for Review member89. Thomas F. Loflin, III, A Proposalto Expand Law Review Membership 1, 3 (Mar.
17, 1970) (memorandum from the Board of Editors of the North CarolinaLaw Review to
the Faculty of the University of North Carolina School of Law).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
ship, led the Board of Editors to propose to the faculty the establishment of a writing competition by which "any student in good standing
as of the beginning of his third semester [could] have the opportunity
[of] becoming a candidate for staff membership on the ... Review."9
The traditional means of attaining Review candidacy
through grades and class standing were not to be altered; the Board's
proposal simply created a "different route by which a student who
demonstrates that he is capable of quality Law Review work can
attain 'Law Review' status." 91 The Board recommended that not
more than four students taking part in the proposed writing competition be permitted to attain, candidacy. 2 Anticipating the faculty's
objection that the change would bring onto the Review students who
had not "earned" the distinction, the Board emphasized that it was
striving not to displace the laudable goal of rewarding academic
distinction, but rather to "complement it with an alternative competitive route to staff membership ... ."' The Board further suggested
that students experiencing academic difficulties be precluded from
entering the competition; every candidate for Review membership,
they thought, should have a grade-point average at least of "C"
before the student's writing could be evaluated.
The faculty agreed to permit a writing competition to take place
in the fall of 1970. Second-year students who wished to enter the
competition were assigned to a member of the Board of Editors, who
offered each candidate a recent decision and guided him in the writing
of a casenote. There was open season on the library stacks. The
entire editorial board judged the entries, focusing closely upon the
quality of the entrant's writing, the depth of her research, casenote
organization, and accuracy in citation form. In the end, four students,
as forecast, were selected for staff membership.
The apparent success of the Review's first writing competition
masked the hardships the competition had entailed. The ordeal of
simply planning a competition open to all wreaked havoc with the
Review's busy fall publication schedule and annihilated the Board's
hitherto cordial relationship with the staff of the law library. Participating second-year students ceased preparing for classes while
90.
91.
92.
93.
IdL at 1.
Id.
Id.
Id at 2.
[Vol. 73
researching and writing their casenotes.94 Moreover, the competition

posed a familiar administrative dilemma to the Board: How could
students selected for the Review through the writing competition be
integrated into the staff when their peers, chosen on the basis of
grades, already had been laboring at the Review tasks for months?
To assuage these frustrations, during the late 1970s the Board
substantially modified the writing competition, which, due to its
success, had been endorsed by the faculty as a regular event, shifting
it from mid-semester in the fall to immediately after final
examinations in the spring. Although the prospect of writing a
casenote after an arduous examination period made this change
unpopular among the students, the new date stuck, and endures
today. The editors channeled the actual writing portion of the
competition into a closed packet of materials containing the decision
on which the casenote was to be composed, various background cases,
and supplementary materials. Candidates were not permitted to
consult sources outside the packet. A small group of editors, selected
by the editor-in-chief, reviewed the entries and recommended the best
for staff membership.
The method of staff selection employed by the Review today has
remained virtually unchanged for nearly fifteen years. As the size of
the student body has increased-from fewer than 300 in 1960 to more
than 700 in 1993-the number of staff members has grown to an
annual average of thirty-nine. The present selection procedure
renders the top thirteen students in the rising second-year class
eligible for Review membership. Any law student who at the end of
her fourth semester of study has attained a cumulative grade-point
average at least equal to the first-year cumulative average of any
student in her class who was extended an invitation to staff membership also must be invited to join the staff. The Board of Editors must
choose at least thirteen additional staff members based on the writing
competition. The remaining members of the staff are selected using
a combination of the writing competition score and grades. The
candidates having been offered the chance to decline staff membership, the new staff is announced at the opening of the academic year
without any indication of the means by which the individual candidates were selected.
94. The writing competition originally was conducted in early October, a full six weeks
after the opening of the academic year and just before mid-term examinations.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
The Board of Editors

From 1926, when Samuel Elton Vest was named the North
CarolinaLaw Review's first student editor-in-chief and Charles Raper
Jonas its first student assistant editor, through 1959, the selection of
editors involved no exercise of discretion by the members of the
Review or the law faculty. "Selection," indeed, is an inapt term, for
the editorships were dictated entirely by the class rank of the four
leading members of the rising third-year class. The second-year
student ranked first in his or her class automatically became editor-inchief of the Review. The three second-years ranked second, third, and
fourth in the class became associate editors. All others were eligible
to serve as ordinary Review "editors,"'95 but held no title and
performed merely perfunctory editorial duties.
As discussed above,96 during the academic year 1958-59, a
committee of the law faculty carefully studied the selection and
organization of the Review's staff 9 Led by Professor Daniel Pollitt,
the committee persuaded the faculty that grounding Review editorships in class rank did not necessarily ensure the journal's eminence
as a repository of legal scholarship. Success on law school
examinations, the committee argued, is not necessarily the mark of a
successful law review editor. After considering the matter at length,
the faculty approved the committee's recommendation that the four
principal editors of the Review be selected by the faculty from eight
nominees of the current editors. Academic standing was no longer
the sole criterion; to become a Review editor, a candidate was
expected to possess qualities of leadership, editorial and critical
competence, and administrative ability. Most important, he or she
was to be a writer of skill and finesse. The first three editors-in-chief
chosen under the new regime, E. Osborne Ayscue, Jr., James Y.
Preston, and Julius L. Chambers, eased the Review's transition from
rigid adherence to grade-point averages in the selection of editors:
each possessed well-honed powers of written expression and led (or
nearly led) their classes scholastically.
On observing the Review's masthead, the reader of today is
confronted with an array of no less than six editorships, two of which
B.
95. See supra note 86.

96. See supra notes 87-92 and accompanying text.
97. See Henry Brandis, Jr., The Law School, 37 N.C. L. Rlv. 58, 66 (1958).
[Vol. 73
are held by several persons at once." It was not until the late 1960s
that members of the Board of Editors began to assume these positions
of specialization. By 1972, the Board of Volume Fifty consisted of the
editor-in-chief, an articles editor, three associate editors, a managing
editor, and a business manager. The articles editor, whose position
had been recently created to stem and cull through the growing tide
of unsolicited professional articles the Review constantly received,
assisted the editor-in-chief in planning the portion of each issue
dedicated to professional scholarship. The associate editors continued, as they long had, to supervise the writing of casenotes and
comments by second-year staff members. The managing editor was
responsible for promulgating the Review's publication schedule, and
for dealing directly with the printer to ensure the journal's timely
appearance. The business manager, as his title implied, maintained
the Review's books of account and its list of subscribers, sold
advertising space, and attempted to keep the journal solvent.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the size of the Board of Editors
more than doubled (from seven editors in 1972 to sixteen in 1991),
and specialized Board positions continued to proliferate. The
widening girth of professional articles during these years was largely
responsible for this trend. 9 By 1980 the position of "associate
editor" had been eliminated, and the Board consisted of articles
editors, note and comment editors, and research editors working
under the leadership of the editor-in-chief and managing editor.
In the early 1980s two leading candidates emerged for the
position of editor-in-chief Fearing that the rejected candidate for the
Review's principal chair might refuse another editorship position
entirely, the Board of Editors, with the approval of the faculty,
created the post of executive articles editor. The holder of this new
editorship, the Board anticipated, would serve as assistant to the
editor-in-chief for purposes of managing the Review generally, and
would assume all responsibility for soliciting articles from and making
offers of publication to professional contributors. The executive
98. The editorships in Volume 71 (1992-93) consisted of an editor-in-chief, an

executive articles editor, a managing editor, a publications editor, seven articles editors,
and five note and comment editors.
99. In 1957, for example, a professional article published in the Review consisted of
an average of 25 printed pages (the average length of a student casenote today). By 1991
law professors, judges, and practicing attorneys were offering the Review articles averaging
52 pages. Today it is not unusual for a given Board of Editors to publish several articles
that each exceed 100 pages of printed Review text. In manuscript form, such pieces
typically number more than 300 typed pages, and contain more than 500 footnotes.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
articles editor also would begin to supervise compilation of the annual

survey of developments in North Carolina law.
With the appointment of the Review's first executive articles
editor, the constitution and tenor of today's Board of Editors was
largely established." The Review's sheer size, coupled with the
tremendous volume of work it undertakes, have made it extremely
difficult for a single individual to manage all its affairs. Although
ultimate responsibility remains in the hands of the editor-in-chiet the
Review is in truth led jointly by the four members of the so-called
"executive board" (editor-in-chiet executive articles editor, managing
editor, and publication editor), working as a team. The editor-in-chief
continues to preside at all meetings of the full Board, and represents
the Review in its dealings with the dean, the law faculty, and the
alumni of the law school. The editor-in-chief and the executive
articles editor together plan the volume of the Review for which they
are responsible. The executive articles editor monitors the receipt of
professional articles and makes offers of publication to their authors.
The managing editor presides at meetings of the staff, schedules the
actual production of each issue of the Review, and allocates research
and editing responsibilities among the various Board and staff
members. The publication editor holds primary responsibility for the
journal's financial health, and coordinates the technical aspects of
printing the Review. With the assistance of the other Board members,
and in addition to the general editing duties that are shared by the
entire Board, these four individuals supervise the Review's daily
operations.
C. A Matter of Diversity
The first female member of the North CarolinaLaw Review was
Daisy Strong Cooper, a member of the Class of 1926. Between Ms.
Cooper's tenure and the mid-1960s, a number of women served on
the staff of the Review, though none as an editor. The first woman
to preside over the Review was Doris R. Bray, of the Class of 1966,
whose career as editor-in-chief produced Volume 44, at 1192 pages
the lengthiest Review tome published to date. By the early 1970s,
100. In 1989 the Board of Editors of Volume 68 decided that the position of research
editor should be eliminated in favor of distributing research responsibilities among all the
articles editors and note and comment editors. The Board of Volume 69 likewise
eliminated the post of business manager, vesting the Review's financial affairs in the hands
of the publication editor, a new Board position designed to serve as a liaison with the
journal's printer.
[Vol. 73
women were represented regularly in all the editorships. With the

election of Teresa Wynn Roseborough as editor-in-chief of Volume
64, a pronounced trend emerged; in the eight volumes published since
the fall of 1985, the Board of Editors has been approximately equally
divided between women and men. As of 1993, four of the eight
immediately preceding editors-in-chief, five of the eight executive
articles editors, and four of the eight managing editors of the Review
were women. For the first time in 1989-90 (Volume 68) women held
all three positions on the executive board, and would have done so
again the following year had not the new position of "Publication
Editor" been filled by a man. Thus, in recent years the Review has
been staffed and edited by an almost equal number of men and
women.'' As women have matriculated into the Law School, they
have competed for and obtained positions on the Review as a matter
of course, in complete parity with their male classmates.
With respect to African-American representation the Review has
not been so fortunate." The problem is difficult to pinpoint in a
system that identifies candidates to their evaluators only by social
security number, but the lack of minority participation on the Review
has been disconcerting. The frustration has been amplified because
of the indirect role the journal played in desegregating the law school.
In McKissick v. Carmichael,"' decided in 1951, the United States
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered the law school to
cease denying admission to African-Americans solely because of their
race." 4 Writing for the court, Judge Morris Soper emphasized that
101. Three recent volumes of the Review attest to the general trend toward equal
gender representation on the staff and Board of Editors. The Board of Volume 71
consisted of nine women and seven men; of 45 staff members, 27 were men and 18 were
women. For Volume 70, the Board of Editors consisted of nine men and seven women;
of 43 staff members, 24 were women and 19 men, For Volume 69, there were ten women
and six men on the Board of Editors; the 43-member staff consisted of 21 women and 22
men.
102. With only the Review's masthead as a guide (no written records of the matter
exist), it is of course impossible to determine how many African-American law students
have served on the Review over the past four decades. At least three, however, have
served the Review, the state, and the country with great distinction: The Honorable Henry
E. Frye, a member of the Review for Volumes 36 and 37; Julius L. Chambers, a member
of the Review for Volume 39 and editor-in-chief of Volume 40; and Teresa Wynn
Roseborough, a member of the staff of Volume 63 and editor-in-chief of Volume 64.
103. 187 F.2d 949 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 341 U.S. 951 (1951). For an examination of
the McKissick decision, see Dickson McLean, Jr., Note, ConstitutionalLaw-"Separate but
Equal" Test in GraduateEducation, 30 N.C. L. RE v. 153 (1952).
104. 187 F.2d at 950. McKissick followed Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), in
which the Supreme Court emphasized that legal education "cannot be effective in isolation
from the individuals and institutions with which the law interacts." Id. at 634. The Court
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
the North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central
University) had no law review:
The members of the [University of North Carolina law]
Faculty have shown scholarly capacity in writing legal
articles contributed by them to the North Carolina Law
Review, which has been issued since 1923 [sic], and to the
Law Reviews published by other law schools of good
standing. The North Carolina Law Review is published by
the University of North Carolina Press, under the management of the faculty of the Law School. It serves as a
medium of scholarship, working toward the improvement of
the law; and it also serves as a factor in the legal training of
the abler students who, by reason of their facility of expression and their ability to make the necessary research, are
deemed qualified to make contributions to the publication.
Those who are chosen for this purpose have the opportunity
to cooperate and engage in discussion in the preparation of
the articles for publication and thereby receive training and
experience of considerable educational value. Colored
students of the Colored Law School do not share in this
opportunity. They are allowed to contribute and two or
three105have done so in the past, but none since the last

war.
Partly on the basis of the intangible advantages offered by a law

school possessing its own law review, Judge Soper concluded that the
legal education offered by the law school at the North Carolina
College for Negroes was "clearly inferior" to that afforded by the allwhite law school in Chapel Hill." Given the journal's prominence
in McKissick, the dearth of participation by African-American
students has been a source of frustration for the Review and for the
law school as a whole. Efforts to change the status quo will doubtless
continue.'O
continued:
The law school to which Texas is willing to admit petitioner excludes from its
student body members of the racial groups which number 85 percent of the
population of the State and include most of the lawyers, witnesses, jurors, judges,
and other officials . ... With such a substantial and significant segment of
society excluded, we cannot conclude that the education offered petitioner is
substantially equal.
Id.
105. McKissick, 187 F.2d. at 950-51.
106. LIL at 950.
107. Asian-Americans and other persons of Asian origin, Native Americans, and
persons of Hispanic origin have become staff members and editors of the Review roughly
[Vol. 73
V. THE REVIEW AND THE LEGAL COMMUNITY
In his reflections on the Review's first five decades, Dean Henry

P. Brandis, Jr., attempted to describe the benefits of law review
experience by citing the careers of University of North Carolina
School of Law alumni who had served on the journal during their
years in Chapel Hill." No survey can examine the myriad contributions to the nation's legal, governmental, and educational institutions rendered by thousands of North CarolinaLaw Review members
over the past five decades. The paragraphs that follow necessarily
resemble an incomplete laundry list. If they emphasize those alumni
who have obtained positions of public trust, it is simply because such
successes are easy to discover and document.
Since 1972 a number of former Review staff members and editors
have become judges of state and federal courts across the country.
Two occupy the bench of the United States Court of Appeals: J.
Dickson Phillips, Jr., whose achievements as dean and professor of
law at the University of North Carolina School of Law are described
elsewhere in this volume; and David B. Sentelle. Judge Phillips is a
senior member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit, having been appointed in 1978 by President Carter. Judge
Sentelle serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit, to which he was appointed by President Reagan
after service as a federal district judge in the Western District of
North Carolina. Three of the present justices of the Supreme Court
of North Carolina were members of the Review during their years in

Chapel Hill: in order of seniority, they are Chief Justice Burley B.
Mitchell, Jr., and Associate Justices Henry E. Frye and Willis P.
Whichard. The number of present and former United States district
judges, judges of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and of the
Superior and District Courts of North Carolina, and jurists in other
states who received significant training in legal research and analysis
from service to the Review, is too great to list here.
Former Review members have served important academic
institutions in faculty and administrative positions. William B.
Aycock, now William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor of Law emeritus at
the Law School, became Chancellor of the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1957, ten years after serving as editor-in-
in proportion to their relatively small numbers in the law school community.

108. See Coates, supra note 5, at 973-74.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
chief of the Review. He resigned as Chancellor in 1964 and spent the

next thirty years teaching property, federal jurisdiction, and other
subjects. Julius L. Chambers, editor-in-chief of the Review in 1960-61,
was named Chancellor of North Carolina Central University in 1992.

Some forty Review alumni are teachers of law in universities around
the United States; three of them, former dean Robert G. Byrd, S.
Elizabeth Gibson, and John C. Boger, teach at the University of
North Carolina School of Law.
At least seventy-five legislators in North Carolina alone, several
Members of Congress, a Governor and Lieutenant Governor of North
Carolina, and approximately two dozen past presidents of state bar
organizations are alumni of the North Carolina Law Review. It is
impossible to describe in detail the varied and illustrious careers of
leaders of the practicing bar who have emerged from the ranks of the
Review. Of equal significance is the number of Review alumni who
have entered the public-service arms of the legal profession, serving
as federal and state prosecutors, public defenders, state attorneys
general, and legal aid lawyers.
VI. REFLECTIONS
Addressing the graduating class of the Law School at Commencement on May 16, 1976, former University Chancellor and Kenan
Professor William B. Aycock briefly reminisced about Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes's first experience of law study at the Harvard Law
School. In the years immediately following the Civil War the law
presented itself, Aycock observed, as "a ragbag of details."'" Yet
"where others found only unrelated instances" Holmes managed to
convert his knowledge "into the organic tissue of wisdom.""
Although the extent to which law students actually manage to
accomplish this conversion may be impossible to measure,"' experience teaches that those who have the opportunity of serving and
guiding a professional journal of legal scholarship usually manage to
grasp at least some of the elemental principles that are the heartbeat
of the law. If the actual practice of law often seems to consist of
myriad details, a task bereft of time for enjoying the forest's sweep,
the former law review member knows that there may somewhere be
method in the madness.
109. WILLIAM B. AYcocK, SPEECHES AND STATEMENTS 414 (1989).
110. Id. at 415.

111. See id
[Vol. 73
There are those who feel that young men and women, not yet
even out of law school, are not experienced enough to select articles
and otherwise provide leadership for a legal journal of national
influence. This writer's response is that any author is fortunate to
have the editorship of such persons as William B. Aycock, J. Dickson
Phillips, Jr., Robert G.Byrd, or Julius L. Chambers, to mention only

some of those from whose work a large number of law school alumni
have benefited.
For the author of this article, and for nearly all the Review
alumni with whom he has spoken, serving the North Carolina Law
Review was uniformly a positive experience. The skills acquired
through staff membership-sharpened powers of analysis; refined
writing skills; increased knowledge of research materials-in virtually
every case have made us better lawyers sooner than we might have
been without them. Although the scholarly activities associated with
law review work are not often duplicated in law practice, their
practical value should not be dismissed. The law review member, by
working to prepare scholarly articles, comments, and casenotes for
publication, acquires a breadth of legal knowledge that may prove of
practical value in her subsequent career. Cyrus F. Lee, a highly
respected practitioner in Wilson, North Carolina, and editor-in-chief
of half of Volume 25, has written:
Working on the Law Review was a tremendous learning
experience. There is no doubt that the discipline required
to analyze the cases and compose and put together a student
note was the very best training in brief writing and in the
preparation of legal memoranda for presentation to the trial
courts ....
112
If the staff member's mind is of an idealistic turn, moreover, she may

take pleasure in the knowledge that she has advanced the frontiers of
the law and has contributed to the Review's ability to promote and
justify positive societal change.
112. Lee, supra note 51, at 2.
THE NORTH CAROLINA JOURNAL OF

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND COMMERCIAL REGULATION
AND INTERNATIONAL COURSE OFFERINGS
JERRY W. MARKHAM
Jerry Markham is currently a member of the UNC law

faculty and advisor to the North Carolina Journal of
International Law and Commercial Regulation.
Professor Markham is originally from Kentucky. He
graduated from Western Kentucky University in 1969 and
from the University of Kentucky College of Law (where he
was editor-in-chief of the law review) in 1972.
He
subsequently completed an LL.M. at Georgetown University.
He practicedas an attorney with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He was also an
attorney and partner at the Washington, D.C. firm of Roers
and Wells. He joined the UNC law faculty in 1991 and
teaches corporatefinance, business associations,international

business transactions, and international litigation. He has
written widely on commodities and securities regulation and
has worked extensively with internationalbusiness matters.
He has been a lecturer in Montevideo, Uruguay and has
visited at the University of Jean Moulin-III in Lyon, France
He has been instrumental in recent efforts to expand the
University of North Carolina School of Law's international
curriculum.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, one of the fastest-growing sectors in the curricula

of American law schools has been international law. The University
of North Carolina School of Law has long sought to keep pace with
this growth, but only in recent years has the curriculum accorded full
weight to this expanding area of the law.' Nevertheless, the law
1. The late Professor Seymour W. Wurfel noted:

During the nineteenth and most of the first half of the twentieth century
the University of North Carolina School of Law could not have been
[Vol. 73
school's commitment to providing broad educational opportunities in

the field of international law has been a longstanding one, as
exemplified by the fact that the North CarolinaJournalof International Law and CommercialRegulation is about to celebrate its twentieth
anniversary.
INTERNATIONAL LAW COURSES
The law school's first public international law course was taught
in 1945 by Professor John P. Dalzell, but international course
offerings remained scarce for many years.2 In 1960, seminars were
offered in international law and air law. The air law seminar was
concerned with international as well as state and federal legal issues
in civil and military aviation.
The international curriculum was expanded in 1963 with
Professor Seymour W. Wurfel's seminar on international business
transactions, which he later supplemented with a course in comparative law. Seminars on international institutions and the international law of war were added a few years later.
The 1970s saw the addition of a seminar on the European
Economic Community and one on international business. The next
decade witnessed further additions to the international curriculum in

the form of seminars on the United Nations, international business
and comparative law analysis of selected EEC member nations, and
courses on admiralty, ocean law, and comparative constitutional law.
In recent years, course offerings at the law school have included
international law, comparative law, international business transactions,
international litigation, and seminars on the European Union and
3
national security issues.
characterized as a hotbed, or even a lukewarm bed, of international

legal activity. The faculty and students were fully occupied with
domestic legal matters. With the end of World War II and the return
of Henry P. Brandis to the law school from extensive naval officer
service, this earlier orientation soon changed to include lively activity in
matters international. During the dynamic fifteen years of the Brandis
deanship there was a vigorous expansion of the international legal
program.
Seymour W. Wurfel, A Retrospective and Prospective View of the Journal on its Tenth
Anniversary, 10 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. v, v (1985).
2. Id. Professor Wurfel also noted that William B. Aycock, a member of the class
of 1948, "[flor forty years ... has been an unassuming but vital force in developing the
international legal program at the University of North Carolina." Id.
3. Professors Michael L. Corrado and Richard Rosen also will be team-teaching a
seminar on Russian Law in the Spring of 1995. They will be assisted by Paul Varul, a
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES AND EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
The law school also has expressed its interest in international law
in other forums. For example, it became a charter member of the
Student International Law Societies, an organization sponsored by the
American Society of International Law.4 The law school's chapter of

the society "adopted the name of John J. Parker in honor of that
distinguished North Carolina federal jurist, a true internationalist."'

The law school began participating in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition in 1963. In its first year in
that event, the law school's moot court team reached the finals in
Washington, D.C.6 In 1984, the law school's team won the regional
championship in the Jessup Competition,7 and in 1987 the School's
team placed third in the national competition and won the MidAtlantic South Regional.8
More recently, the law school has developed exchange programs
with universities located abroad. A formal exchange agreement has
been entered into with the Universit6 Jean Moulin in Lyon, France.
Two of the law school's professors, Joe Kalo and I, taught at the
Universit6 Jean Moulin in the spring semester of 1994, and the law
school has exchanged students with Lyon since 1991 under this
program.
The law school has entered into or is negotiating informal
exchange agreements with other foreign universities, including the
University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, the Katholieke
Universiteit Nijmegen in the Netherlands, the Universidad de Costa
Rica, and two universities in Mexico. The law school also sent a
delegation to Russia in 1994 to explore liaisons with Russian law
schools. Moreover, the law school is seeking to add resident guest
lecturers from countries as diverse as Estonia and Eritrea. In 1993,

the law school entered into a sister school relationship with the
professor from Estonia.

4. Wurfel, supra note 1, at v.
5. Id.
6. Id.
7. The members of this team were Stuart B. Dorsett, 3. Daniel Fitz, Malcolm D.
Griggs, Sherri Z. Rosenthal, and Lauren C. Stevens. The faculty advisor was A. Mark
Weisburd. The 1986 Jessup team received an award for the best memorial in the
Appalachian Region.
8. The members of this team were C. Mark Holt, Jacques S. Whitfield, Jennie M.
Wilhelm, and Cindy York. Their coach was Janet M. Ceropski and the faculty advisor was
A. Mark Weisburd.
[Vol. 73
University of Tartu, Estonia, through the American Bar Association

Central and Eastern European Law Initiative program (CEELI). In
1994, UNC joined with the American Bar Association, fifteen other
American law schools, and eight African law schools to establish the
African Law Initiative, which is modeled on the successful CEELI
program.
Foreign students from Russia, Australia, Israel, England, and
other countries have.attended or audited courses at the law school in
recent years, and a number of individuals from abroad have visited or
spoken at the law school. The school currently has a scholar in
residence from Japan.
THE JOURNAL-ITS BEGINNINGS
For convincing proof of the law school's long-term commitment
to providing educational opportunities in the field of international law
one need look no further than the North Carolina Journal of
InternationalLaw and Commercial Regulation. Founded in 1975, the
Journal is now in its twentieth volume. Professor Seymour W.
Wurfel, one of the Journal'sfounding fathers, has told us that it was
formed by a small group of students headed by Henry M. Burwell.'
Burwell prepared an elaborate proposal for the creation of the
Journal.' Among other things, he noted that there were approximately 110 foreign-owned businesses operating in North
Carolina." He also stated:
As an extension of the University of North Carolina School
of Law, the journal would serve two purposes. First, it
would broaden the image of the school and the university by
providing energetic and aggressive North Carolina attorneys
and businessmen with a publication concerned with the
practice of international law in the Southeast. Second, it
would keep the law school in contact with the elements of
the business and legal community which are forging ahead
9. Wurfel, supra note 1, at v-vi. The original document cites Mr. Burwell's middle
initial as "C." Since Mr. Burwell's actual middle initial is "M," that initial will be used
throughout this essay.
10. Henry M. Burwell, The North Carolina Journal of International Law and
Commercial Regulation: A Proposalfor Founding an International Law Journal at the
University of North CarolinaSchool of Law (July 28,1975) (unpublished document on file

with the North CarolinaJournalof InternationalLaw and CommercialRegulation).
11. Id. at i.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
in the expansion of international commercial transactions in

North Carolina. 2
Burwell asserted that the Journal would offer a unique and
broadening educational opportunity unavailable in a classroom. He
stated that the Journal would allow participation in an organization
in which students bear the responsibility for publication. He also
believed that it would "provide an opportunity for more students to
share the rewards derived from self-discipline and personal effort in
a demanding and vigorous extracurricular activity."' 3
At the time of the Burwell proposal, "by careful count, there
were precisely 18 such journals being published by American law
schools. One school of thought was that this was more than the
market could bear."' 4 Professor Wurfel later noted that
[t]here were no funds, either appropriated or available, for this
purpose, no office space in the Van Hecke-Wettach complex, no
overwhelming student demand, and minimal interest on the part
of the North Carolina bar. It would have been easy to say 'No.'
After huddling with Messrs. Brandis, Dalzell, Aycock and Dean
Robert Byrd, the answer given was 'Yes." 5
Professor Wurfel also recorded that "[t]he sympathetic administration
found a cranny or two, a couple of ancient typewriters, a few spare
dollars, and the Journalwas in business with 'Buzz' Burwell as its first
Editor-in-Chief. 6 Professor and Librarian Mary Oliver expanded
legal materials, within budgetary limitations, in the
international
17
library.'
PUBLICATION BEGINS
The first issue of the Journal was printed in a plain white wrapIt was 107 pages in length and contained three articles, one
per.'8
12. Id.
13. Id.
14. Wurfel, supra note 1, at vi.

15. Id.
16. Miriam M. Nisbet was the managing editor of the Journal'sfirst volume. Eugene
A. Reese, Jr., was the business editor, the articles editors were L. Holmes Eleazer, Jr., and
John G. McCormick; the associate editors were M. Anderson Howell and John A. Swem;
recent development editors were Dillon H. Coleman and Stephanie J. Grogan; and the
research editor was John T. Kennedy. The staff was composed of Charles R. Allegrone,
Laura A. Banks, David B. Hamilton, and Laura L. Yaeger.
17. Wurfel, supra note 1, at vi (footnote added).
18. The Journalhas changed its stripes several times. Generally, it has maintained a
blue and white motif. After the initial volume, blue seems to have dominated for some
time, but in recent years white has made a comeback.
[Vol. 73
note and a recent developments section.9 In an introduction to this

first issue, Governor James E. Holshouser, Jr., noted that North
Carolina was then ranked among the top thirteen states in export
sales and fifth in agricultural exports. There also were more than 130
foreign firms operating in North Carolina, and the Governor pointed
out that there were thousands of jobs in North Carolina created by
export trade. 20 The Governor welcomed the Journal, and asserted
that it would provide a service needed by North Carolina.21
The editor-in-chief of the second volume of the Journal,Miriam
M. Nesbitt, expanded its length to more than 200 pages in two issues.
The staff was increased to twenty-five, in addition to eight editors.
The editor-in-chief of the third volume, Frederic H. Davis, continued
this rapid growth as the Journal grew to almost 300 pages. That
expansionary pace continued for some time. Indeed, Kathleen Ann
O'Brien, the editor-in-chief of Volume Ten, saw her pages soar to
over 750.2
FACULTY SUPPORT
The first faculty advisors to the Journal were Seymour W.

Wurfel, John P. Dalzell, and Jonathan A. Eddy. This lineup changed
19. In a foreword to the first issue, the editor-in-chief Henry M.Burwell stated:
Attorneys, businessmen and bankers are the major participants in an international business transaction. The businessman identifies the opportunity and the
banker and attorney help raise and protect the capital necessary to act upon it.
All three elements of the trade community have a need to be informed about the
national and international regulatory environment within which an international
business transaction must be conducted.
Henry M. Burwell, Foreword,1 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. vii (1976). Appropriately,
the first article in the Journal,which was written by a Charlotte attorney, was a guide to
engaging in international business. Michael A. Almond, A Guide to Transnational
Business Activity, 1 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. 1 (1976).
20. Governor James E. Holhouser, Jr., Introduction,1 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG.
v (1978). Although such missions are commonplace today, Governor Holshouser noted
that Governor Luther H. Hodges of North Carolina was the first governor to lead a trade
mission abroad on behalf of a state. Id.
21. Id. at vi. Volume Five of the Journalcontained a contribution from another North
Carolina governor, James B. Hunt, Jr. He reported on a North Carolina trade mission to
Japan and China in the Fall of 1979. James B. Hunt, Jr., Report on Trade and Industry:
Mission to Japan and China October23-November 8, 1979, 5 N.C. J. OF INT'L L. & COM.
REG. 387 (1980). The Governor also noted that Japanese companies had announced plans
to build plants worth a total of $57,000,000 in North Carolina. Id. at 387.
22. The other editors-in-chief have been: Robert C. Klose, Mary Patricia Azevedo,
Kathleen T. Weaver, Joseph S. Schwertz, Jr., Howard Mark Labiner, Robert Jay Fortin,
Barbara Rand Morgenstern, Laurie Susan Truesdell, Mark D. Martin, Robert G. Shimp,
Emmanuel Kojo Bentil, Michael L. Grubb, William Peak Janvier, Henry Michael
Perlowski, and Julia Anderson Reinhart. The current editor-in-chief is Jennifer M. Eck.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
after five years with the retirement of Professor Wurfel. A special

issue of the Journalwas then dedicated to "Colonel" Wurfel,' "who
inspired the student enthusiasm necessary for the Journal'sfounding,

who shepherded the original proposal through faculty approval, and
the Journal's principal advisor during its formative

who [was]
,24
years.
To assure that Professor Wurfel's contributions to the Journal
would not be forgotten, an annual award was established in his name.

The Seymour W. Wurfel award is awarded in April of each year
... to the third-year student who has, during his or her third
year, best fulfilled the standard of service beyond the call of duty
observed by Seymour W. Wurfel as the Journal's first faculty
advisor: unselfish dedication of time and spirit to the Journal,
persistence in the face of discouragement and enthusiastic
helpfulness to other staff members.O
The first Seymour W. Wurfel Award was presented in 1978 to the
Journal'sarticles editor, Kenneth F. Ledford.26
In the period of transition that followed Professor Wurfel's

retirement, "Dean Kenneth Broun personally provided the guidance
and support that assured the further development and expansion of
27
the Journal."
Faculty advisor changes also continued over the
years. Amos D. Dawson III replaced Jonathan A. Eddy, and he in
23. Professor Wurfel had retired from the Army as a Colonel before joining the
faculty of the law school. He had a deep and abiding interest in international legal issues.
He published an extensive number of reviews of books dealing with international issues,
and he produced a book entitled Foreign Enterprisein Colombia: Law and Policiesthat
was published by the University of North Carolina Press. Professor Wurfel also studied
at the Hague Academy of International Law and at the College of the City of London.
William B. Aycock, Dedication, 3 N.C. J. INt'L L. & COM. REG. vii (1978).
24. Preface, 3 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. iv, iv (1978). In a dedication in the
special issue, Professor William B. Aycock noted that Professor Wurfel had also acted as
faculty advisor to the John J. Parker International Law Society and to the Jessup
International Moot Court Team. Aycock, supra note 23, at ix.
Professor Wurfel had advised his students that "[j]ust as a trial lawyer spends 75% of
his time analyzing facts and only 25% analyzing law, so an international lawyer spends
75% of his time analyzing economic, political and social factors, and only 25% analyzing
law." Preface,supra, at iv.
25. 4 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. (copyright page) (1978).
26. Id. The subsequent Wurfel Award winners are Grace Elizabeth Taylor Hodges,
Becky Lynn Bowen, Haynes Pell Lee, Carey Michael Johnson, Leslie R. Carter, David L.
Milford, David Alan Spuria, Randy Gerald Vestal, Frank DeArmon Whitney, David
Jamison Laing, Robert G. Shimp, Emmanuel Kojo Bentil, Fred H. Jones, Michael L.
Grubb, William Peak Janvier, William Harding Latham, Henry Michael Perlowski, and
Julia Anderson Reinhart.
[Vol. 73
turn was replaced by Thomas A. Graham. Then, with Volume Six,

the sole faculty advisor became Kenneth Broun, dean of the law
school, but he too was soon replaced by Arthur Mark Weisburd and
Harry E. Groves. Professor Weisburd then assumed this role solely
in 1982 and remained as the faculty advisor until 1993, when Professor
Jerry W. Markham was appointed as his replacement.'
THE GROWTH COMMITEE
The Journal initially recruited its staff solely through writing
competitions, an "egalitarian policy."29 In 1986, however, the
Journal'sboard of editors established a "Growth Committee" of five
editors to reconsider that policy and other aspects of the Journal's
operations. The Committee's assignment was to "prepare the Journal
for the next decade., 30 As a result of the Growth Committee's
work, the Journal's Board of Editors approved a new selection
process for members on the Journal staff. The Board agreed to
extend offers for staff positions automatically to all second-year
students in the top fifteen percent of their class. A fall writing
competition was to be used to acquire an additional fifty percent of
the staff The Growth Committee also sought to increase the size of
the Journalstaff from twenty-five to approximately thirty-five.3
These procedures were subsequently implemented. Today, the
top fifteen percent of the second- and third-year classes are invited to
join the Journal staff Membership may also be gained through a
writing competition held each fall, and the winning note in that
competition is published in the Journal. In 1993, nineteen students
were selected to join the Journalfrom the writing competition and an
equal number joined on the basis of their class standing.
The number of student editors was increased to thirteen as a
result of the Growth Committee's report.32 The Growth Committee
also noted that the Journalhad "grown from a one-issue publication
of 107 pages to a three-issue publication averaging 600 pages annually
28. Professor Weisburd has taught public international law at the law school for many
years and was in the Foreign Service before attending law school.
30. NORTH CAROLINA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND COMMERCIAL
REGULATION, THE JOURNAL INTHE
1990s: THE REPORT OF THE GROWTH COMMITrEE
(1986) (unpublished document, on file with the North CarolinaJournal of International

Law and Commercial Regulation [hereinafter JOURNAL IN THE 1990S].
31. Id.
32. There are now 14 student editors.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
with subscribers in over fifteen countries." 33 The size of the Journal

continues to fluctuate in the range of 600 to 700-plus pages. In early
1994, the total number of subscribers to the Journalwas 416. Those
subscribers were located in forty-seven states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and nineteen foreign countries.'
JOURNAL MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS
In the first year on the Journal, a student staff member must

write either a note35 or a comment36 of publishable quality,37 and
must complete cite checking and other publication tasks that he is

assigned.3" A senior staff member (a third-year student in her second
year of Journalmembership) must write a second note of publishable
quality if she wrote a note (rather than a comment) during her first
year.39 Similar requirements are imposed on members of the
editorial board.
Academic credit is awarded to students who join the Journal
during their second year and either remain as senior staff members or
33. JOURNAL IN THE 1990s, supra note 30.

34. The Growth Committee's 1986 report also noted that the increased size of the
Journal had required the purchase of a computer to replace its ancient typewriters. Id.
Today, the student editors are assisted in their work by two computers, two laser printers,
Lexis and Westlaw terminals (with printers) and a telecopier. They also enjoy their own
quarters in the basement of the law school, where the student editors have their own
carrels and where the editor-in-chief has her own "private" office (which she often shares
with one or two other editors).
35. A note is a piece that discusses the impact of a particular recent case, statute,
regulation, or executive order upon the existing law. The case note, for example, usually
includes a discussion of the facts of the case, the background law necessary for deciding
the case, the significance of the decision, and a conclusion about the impact of the case.
Such a discussion cannot be addressed adequately in less than 20 pages, double-spaced,
including footnotes or endnotes.
36. A comment is a much more comprehensive exploration of the law, usually examining in detail the interrelationship of several statutes and cases within a particular field. A
comment often examines policy concerns arising from the interplay among laws. Such a
comprehensive study typically requires a minimum of 100 triple-spaced pages of writing,
including footnotes or endnotes.
37. "Publishable quality" is the standard that all student pieces must meet to be recognized for academic or honors credit. The determination of whether a piece is publishable
is made by the editor-in-chief, in conjunction with the faculty advisor. Factors considered
include the quality and clarity of writing, the substance of analysis, the structure of the
paper, the level of research, and quality of footnoting and bluebooking style.
38. Membership on the Journal is officially conferred once the student has completed
all writing, research, and production assignments given during the academic year.
39. If the student wrote a comment during the second year, no further writing
requirement is imposed. Senior staff must also complete cite-checking and other
assignments.
814
[Vol. 73
serve as members of the board of editors during their third year.

Board members receive three credits toward fulfilling the requirements for the J.D. degree and senior staff members receive two
credits. Journal staff members may also meet honors requirements
through their membership on the Journal. To do so, in addition to
attaining a certain grade point average, a student must complete
either two publishable-quality notes or one publishable-quality
comment.
REPRINTS AND AWARDS
In 1980, the publication Lawyer's Brief awarded the Journal its
Most Useful Article award for a publication on the drafting of
international sales contracts.' Articles from the Journal regularly
have been included in the InternationalLawyer, which is published by
the American Bar Association. Articles from the Journal also have
been reprinted in Germany and Australia, as well as on the EASI
Access Program which allows electronic access to sources of international and commercial law. The Journalnow is available on Westlaw
and LEXIS as well. Other reprints from the Journal have been
included in a leading casebook41 and other texts and periodicals.42
BAR ASSOCIATION INVOLVEMENT
The Journalhas long sought to involve the North Carolina Bar

in its publications and activities. In 1976, "several editors of the
Journaland members of the John J. Parker Society of International
Law decided that one way to provide North Carolina attorneys an
opportunity to learn about some of the specialized legal problems
involved in exporting would be to sponsor a conference."43
Thus began the Annual Southeastern Conference on International Law and Commercial Regulation.'
The first such con-
40. Mary Patricia Azevedo, Foreword,5 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. i (1980).
41. RALPH HAUGHWOUT FOLSOM Fr. AL., INTERNATIONAL BusiNEss TRANSACIIONS:
A PROBLEM-ORIENTED COURSEBOOK (2d ed. 1991).
42. In 1993, the Journal entered into a contract with Fred B. Rothman & Co. to
handle the sale of back issues. That firm will reprint any issues out of print, and it will
make the Journalavailable on microfilm early in 1995.
43. Preface,4 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. v (1979).
44. Professor Wurfel noted:

A Conference Steering Committee, which included representation from the North
Carolina bar, was established, and the practice of publishing the proceedings of
this Conference in the Journalcommenced. Speakers for this Annual Conference
have been drawn from the international bar, nationwide. The impetus for this
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
815
ference was held on October 27, 1978, at the Morehead Building on

the main campus and was attended by approximately 100 persons.45
The conference, appropriately entitled " 'Drafting an International

Sales Contract: Problems and Remedies,' was designed to introduce
some of the basic legal problems an attorney confronts when his or
her client decides to market a product abroad. In addition, several
specific problems were explored more extensively."'
These conferences were held for several years on a number of
47 Conference
topics and they were often pubfished in the Journal.
topics were developed by steering committees composed of North
Carolina attorneys and business people.' In addition to the conexpanded activity of the Journal came primarily from the dedicated students
comprising its staff. This fusion of interest of the Journaland the North Carolina
bar has been substantially beneficial to both.
Wurfel, supra note 1, at vi.
45. Preface,4 N.C. J.INT'L L. & COM. REG. v (1978). This program was encouraged
by Professor Seymour Wurfel and Dean Robert G. Byrd. Id. at vi. The Journal also
received support from the Dana Fund for International and Comparative Legal Studies.
Id.
46. Id. at v. It was the publication of these papers that led to the awarding of Most
Useful Article Award by the Lawyer's Brief. Mary Patricia Azevedo, supra note 40, at i.
Participants in the various Annual Southeastern Conferences have included Alfred
McCormack, a professor at Columbia; Michael A. Almond, a North Carolina attorney; Jon
R. Bauman, a Texas attorney; Vincent D. Travaglini, Director, Office of International
Finance and Investment, United States Department of Commerce; Michael A. Henning,
a partner in the International Division of Ernst & Ernst, a large accounting firm; Edward
E. Dyson, a partner at Baker & McKenzie; William C. Edwards, Jr., Vice President,
International Department of Wachovia Bank and Trust Co.; and Wade M. Gallant, Jr., a
North Carolina attorney.
47. Volume Ten also contained the proceedings of the Third Annual Southeastern
Conference on Corporate and Securities Law. Southeastern Conference on Corporateand
Securities Law, 10 N.C. J.INT'L L. COM. REG. 107 (1985). Papers from a symposium on
the international War on Drugs held at the University were published in Volume Fifteen.
Symposium, Battling Drugs: Is the War Working? 15 N.C. J.'
INT'L L. & COM. REG. 487
(1990).
48. Financial support was provided by, among others, the North Carolina World Trade
Association, The North Carolina Bar Association and the Smith Richardson Foundation.
Financial support to the Journal has also been provided by many generous individuals.
They were recognized in Volume 16 of the Journal in the following classifications:
Benefactors-FredericH. Davis (Louisville, Kentucky); Roxanne S. Jansen (Atlanta,
Georgia); Patrons-ClaireJohnson Sauer (Wexford, Pennsylvania); Ernest Cobb McLean
III (Atlanta, Georgia); Friends-Eugene Clyde Brooks (Savannah, Georgia); Kathleen W.
Cannon (McLean, Virginia); Barbara Morgenstern (Goldsboro, North Carolina); David A.
Neal (New York, New York); Judith L. King (New York); Laura E. Stevenson (Mableton,
Georgia); Linda Jo Imboden (New York); David Spuria (Dallas, Texas); Gregory J.
Schmidt (Frankfurt, Germany); Cathy A. Stricker (Hermosa Beach, California); Brett R.
Turner (Charlottesville, Virginia).
Supporters of the North Carolina Journal of
International Law and Commercial Regulation, 16 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG.
(masthead) (1991).
[Vol. 73
ference on the drafting of international sales contracts, conferences
were held on the antitrust aspects of international transactions, a

practitioner's guide to international business ventures, advising the
foreign client, current developments in international law, and
international aspects of computer law."
Symposia on a number of topics were also published by the
Journal,and the authors frequently included members of the North
Carolina bar, government officials, and a broad array of other
individuals interested in international law issues. The topics of these
symposia have included international arbitration, banking and foreign
investment, political restraints on East-West trade, trade with Arab
nations, Canada, and the Caribbean, a practitioner's guide to
international trade law, relations with Canada and Mexico, grey
market imports, international trade and finance, and the Omnibus
Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988.50
SOCIAL OCCASIONS
Finally, it should be noted that the Journalhas not ignored its
social obligations to students and faculty. The Journal holds an
International Beer Tasting Mixer with the faculty and a Chili Cookoff
after the new board of editors is elected each year. The Journal's
board of editors also sponsors welcoming parties for the staff each
fall, and last year it co-sponsored a mixer with the board and staff of
the North CarolinaLaw Review.
CONCLUSION
As the Journalapproaches its twentieth anniversary, it can reflect
with pride on what its student editors and staff have accomplished.
The Journalis by any measure a sophisticated and valuable research
source for those practicing international private law. It has also
provided students at the law school with an opportunity to improve
their writing and editing skills, as well as to contribute to this
important and growing area of the law.
49. Unfortunately, these annual conferences eventually proved to be too expensive

and were discontinued.
50. Among the contributors to these proceedings were Joel Davidow, Director, Policy
Planning, Antitrust Division, United States Department of Justice; Donald E. deKieffer,
General Counsel, United States Trade Representative; Linda F. Potts, Deputy Director,
United States Office of Policy, International Trade Administration, Department of
Commerce; and several international attorneys.
THE HOLDERNESS MOOT COURT BENCH
TRACY HAMRICK DAVIS
Tracy Hamrick Davis holds both a bachelor of arts

degree and a JD. from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. While a law student, she was a member of both
the North Carolina Law Review Board of Editors and the
Holderness Moot Court Bench. She is now an associatewith
the Raleigh, N.C. firm, of Smith Helms Mulliss & Moore,
LLR
Through a series of changes driven both by personality and
practical considerations, the moot court program at the University of
North Carolina School of Law has matured from a sporadic extracurricular activity into an institutional asset of which the law school is
justly proud. This essay recounts the history of the Holderness Moot
Court Bench and its development within the law school.
THE EARLY YEARS
In his comprehensive article A Century of Legal Education,1
Professor Albert Coates chronicled the early years of the law school,
often mentioning the school's moot court program in its various
incarnations. The first professor of law at the University of North
Carolina, Judge William Horn Battle, was named to the law professorship in 1845 and personally conducted moot courts to further the
instruction of the school's first ten students. The University catalogue
for 1845-46 provided:
A Moot Court will be held occasionally by the Professor, for
the discussion by the Students, of such legal questions as he
may propose. The Students will also be required from time
to time to draw pleadings and other legal instruments, and
be instructed in the practice of the Courts.2
1. Albert Coates, A Century of Legal Education, 24 N.C. L REv. 307 (1946).

2. Id. at 330 (quoting N.C. U. CATALOGUE, 1845-46, at 16).
[Vol. 73
According to Professor Coates, these moot court activities were listed

consistently in the university catalogue from the law school's inception
in 1845 to its closure during Reconstruction
After Judge Battle's initial professorship, teaching responsibilities
in the law school briefly devolved upon his son, Kemp Plummer
Battle, and then shifted to Professor John Manning in 1881.'
Professor Coates reported that under Manning, the "Moot Court was
... carried forward and expanded. Regular sessions lasting three
hours were held every Saturday night and 'every student in the Law
School ha[d] frequent opportunity for practicefl.' " Professor
Manning's successor was the law school's first dean, Professor James
Cameron MacRae, and under his leadership the moot court again was
expanded. The 1907-08 edition of the university catalogue announced:
[T]he Moot Court has become an important factor in legal
educational methods, in familiarizing the student with the
practical side of law. It is the purpose of the University
Court to acquaint the student with the legal details so
necessary to be acquired, yet so difficult of access; and, in
order to facilitate this work, the Court has been divided into
two divisions, Civil and Criminal, each with its own judge
and other officers. Sessions of both courts are held weekly,
and, through regular assignments of cases, every student of
the School has frequent opportunities for practice. The
work embraces preparation of cases for trial, drawing of
pleadings, selection of jurors, examination of witnesses,
arguments on law and facts to judge and jury, and preparation and argument of appeal,-all according to the forms of
practice in the North Carolina Courts.'
Under the school's second dean, Lucius Polk McGehee, the moot
court was reorganized and given new direction. Dean McGehee
reported in 1918 that "[t]he moot court has never afforded an
adequate outlet for the interest and energy of the students outside the
class room."7 The program was committed to the able hands of
Assistant Professor Oscar Ogburn Efird, who, along with Professor
Maurice Taylor Van Hecke, was one of the first professors to come
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Id.
Id. at 332-33.
Id. at 334 (quoting N.C. U. CATALOGUE, 1894-95, at 74).
Id. at 343 (quoting N.C. U. CATALOGUE, 1907-08, at 106).
Id. at 358 (quoting N.C. U. REcORD, 1918-19 (Dec.), at 56).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
to the law school with "modem law school training." Professor

Efird was charged with the task of reorganizing the moot court into
"law clubs."9 In fact, Professor Efird reportedly "turned the more or
less spasmodic moot courts, with their mock trials too often degenerating into a mockery, into law clubs, organized in the form of
appellate courts for the investigation of authorities, the preparation
of briefs, and the argument of cases on appeal."' Professor Coates
suggested that this lack of cohesion was due in large part to the
fragmented nature of the student body-many of the students then
enrolled would try to "cram a two-year course into one year or less,
[or would attend] one term only, or a summer term, in the effort to
learn enough to pass the bar examination, and with a short-lived and
floating student body cramped for time and space."'1 Still, the
atmosphere was more than conducive to lively moots and engendered
a fraternal camaraderie among students interested in either
grandstanding or debate.
The 1920s brought more change. Professor Atwell Campbell
McIntosh reported in 1923 that
[t]wo or three years ago, as a substitute for the Moot Court
system, the students were organized into groups, known as
Law Clubs, for practice in the investigation and management
of legal problems. These have been reorganized this year
under the direction of Mr. Coates, and they are proving a
valuable opportunity for individual work and research on the
part of the students. There are seven of these clubs, each
named for some prominent lawyer in the history of the state,
Iredell, Ruffin,
Gaston, Pearson, Manning, MacRae, and
12
McGehee.
With the law school's progress toward more stringent entrance
requirements and a more regulated curriculum, the moots gained
structure and began to factor more prominently in the curriculum. By
the late 1920s the Law Clubs operated as follows:
[F]irst year students investigate authorities, prepare briefs
and argue cases involving questions of law arising in their
courses of study. These cases are framed by members of the
faculty and the arguments are presided over by a court
consisting of one faculty member acting as Chief Justice and
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Id. at 381.
Id.
Id. (citing N.C. U. RECORD, 1919 (Dec.), at 56).
Id. at 383.'
Atwell C. McIntosh, EditorialNotes, 2 N.C. L. REv. 30, 35-36 (1923).
[Vol. 73
two third-year students acting as Associate Justices. At the

end of each year the winners of these preliminary arguments
argue the final case of the year before members of the Bar.
Membership in these Clubs is voluntary. Last year fifty-four
students out
13 of sixty joined the clubs, filed briefs, and made
arguments.
The newly instituted clubs operated under the umbrella of the
Law School Association, which also was a new organization, then
under the leadership of the "newest and youngest member of the Law
Faculty," 4 Professor Albert Coates. With typical understatement,
Professor Coates recalled that it was "perhaps natural" that he should
f[a]ll heir to the law clubs in 1923, with less practical
experience than any of his colleagues, [and that he should]
feel a poignant need of bridging "the gap between the
classroom and the courtroom, the law school and the law
office, the law teacher and the lawyer"-words of eloquence
or grandiloquence according to the point of view, and that
he should organize the students into a Law Student Association in the effort to achieve these objectives.1
The Law School Association, whose membership included every
law student, sponsored a highly successful lecture series that frequently brought prominent lawyers, judges, and scholars to the law school
and served as the infrastructure for moots. The lecture series most
often addressed topics related to trial preparation or the presentation
of appellate arguments, and speakers included North Carolina
Supreme Court justices and North Carolina lawyers. Because the
single lecture series soon was deemed inadequate, it was expanded to
include presentations lasting two or three days in order to "present a
thorough analysis of current types of law practice with illustrative
problems."' 6 This series was in turn itself modified to become a
"series of clinics conducted through a law office, a trial court and an
appellate court organized and operated in the law school."17 These
law clubs "federated in the Supreme Court of the Law School
Association,""i at which stage the top students prepared briefs and
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
Coates, supra note 1, at 381-82 (quoting N.C. U. CATALOGUE, 1927-28, at 263).

Id. at 382.
Id. (referencing N.C. U. CATALOGUE, 1927-28, at 263).
Id.
Id. at 382-83.
Id. at 383.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
argued cases on appeal before justices of the state supreme court,

judges from the state trial courts, and members of the state bar. 9
TRANSITIONAL YEARS-1950-65
As the reputation of the law school began to reach further
beyond the borders of the state, the moot court program came to
serve as an additional means for carrying the North Carolina banner
to other legal centers. Dean Brandis reported in his review of the
1951-52 academic year: "For the first time, in 1951, this law school
entered the moot court competition sponsored nationally by the
Association of the Bar of the City of New York and sponsored in this
region by the Bar Association of the District of Columbia."2 That
first national team was assembled on the spur of the moment and
consisted of the editor-in-chief and two associate editors of the North
CarolinaLaw Review.
Professor William B. Aycock recalls the day in 1951 when Dean
Brandis walked into his office and, after commenting that it would be
nice for the law school to field a team in the upcoming National Moot
Court Competition, asked Professor Aycock if he could pull such a
team together.21 The competition had been instituted a few years
before, but the law school had yet to participate. Professor Aycock
went down to the Law Review office and spoke to Paul Johnston, the
editor-in-chieft and to the two associate editors, Ernest DeLaney and
Robert Giles, to tell them first that a team had been requested and
then to ask if they would join the team. Despite the short notice, the
editors proved game and quickly prepared their brief and arguments.
The 1951 appearance and the team's excellent performance would be
the first of many for the law school. Dean Brandis reported:
Our team.., proved to be exceptionally able in presenting
an appellate argument. In winning the regional competition
they successively defeated the University of South Carolina,
Wake Forest, and the University of Virginia. Moving on to
New York, they defeated Notre Dame and St. John's
University before losing to Georgetown in the semi-final
round.22
19. Id.
20. Henry Brandis, Jr., The Law School (FromSeptember 1951 to December 1952), 31
N.C. L. REV. 81, 91 (1952).
21. Telephone Interview with William B. Aycock, Kenan Professor of Law Emeritus,
University of North Carolina School of Law (Aug. 11, 1994).
22. Brandis, supra note 20, at 91.
822
[Vol. 73
Professor Aycock served as an advisor to this first final-four team and
to several of the teams that followed.

Competition with other schools aside, the law school frequently
experimented with the best means by which to impart practical skills
in appellate advocacy to students, and the moot court activities
appeared in a number of different incarnations. After being conducted through the Law School Association, the moot court came
sometimes to be listed as a class, which at various times was offered
only to second-year students, or to the two upper classes, or only to
first-year students. At other times it was a purely extracurricular
activity, and the intraschool competitions had the qualities of an
intramural event. Not until the complete reorganization of the
program in 1966 did it take the form it has today.
REINVIGORATION-INCEPTION OF THE HOLDERNESS MOOT
COURT BENCH
In the spring of 1966, the moot court program was reborn. A

generous and permanent endowment was given to the law school by
the Acre Foundation in memory of Mr. William H. Holderness of
Greensboro. The Holderness family left to the law school the
decision where best to direct the funds, requesting only that they be
used to further some useful and important purpose. The decision to
institute a significant moot court program was reached by Dean
Dickson Phillips, Jr., and the law school faculty. As Dean Phillips
stated in the annual report, the gift would be
used by the school to provide continuing financial support
for a comprehensive three-year appellate moot court
program known as the Holderness Competition. The
purpose of this program is to make a concerted attempt at
substantial development among our students of the critical

lawyer 2skills of oral advocacy and argumentative legal
writing. 3
The law school's decision indicated a notable modification of its
approach to legal education because, while the curriculum then
included moot court as a class, the new program offered students a
greatly expanded opportunity to develop more basic and practical
skills while still in law school. This expansion of the breadth of
students' education represented, to many, a shift in focus away from
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
theory and what might be termed "pure law" toward an approach

more conducive to students' early development of practical skills.
Raleigh attorney Roger Smith, then a third-year student, recalls
the day he was invited to Dean Phillips's office and asked to
spearhead the creation of a new moot court program.24 After Smith
brainstormed with other third-year students, the concept of the
Holderness Moot Court Bench was born and subsequently approved
by the law school. The Tar Heel Barristerreported that
[p]lans recently formulated by a group of interested students
under the guidance of Pro Richard H. Robinson call for the

creation of a Moot Court Bench which will direct the entire
advocacy competition program. It will consist of students
who have manifested an interest in the program and whose
academic performance indicates intellectual ability and
leadership potential.'
Serving along with Smith, the Bench's first chief justice, were Phil
Baddour, R.W. Harrison, Jr., Arthur Hays, Frank Martin, John
McMillan, Tim Nichols, Fred Riley, Charles Shaffer, Jerry Spivey,
Gerald Thornton, Ben Warrick, and Hill Welford.26 The Tar Heel
Barristerwent on to note that "[t]he basic revampment and expansion
of the program will include vesting of all administration and supervision of the program in the students, the creation of a variety of types
of competition, and the general elevation of the quality of the
program."'27 The Bench undertook to sponsor its first competitions
that year and, as Smith remembers, the effort proved most interesting.2
The first Holderness Competition, which was designed to select
the next year's Bench from among the second-year students, sparked
heated controversy. Smith recalls that he and his fellow Bench
members wanted to draw on the emerging issues of the day while
drafting the problem and record.29 To focus on the debate concerning free speech and pornography and to attract students' interest, the
Bench drafted a pornography case that offered the no-fail combina-
24. Interview with Roger W. Smith, partner with Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove, in
Raleigh, N.C. (Aug. 10, 1994) [hereinafter Smith Interview].
25. Endowment to ProvideNew Moot CourtProgram,TAR HEEL BARRISTER (Chapel
Hill, N.C.), Oct. 1966, at 1.
26. Id. at 1, 3.
27. Id. at 1.
28. Smith Interview, supra note 24.
29. Id.
[Vol. 73
tion of "steamy sex and the First Amendment."3 The problem

addressed the constitutionality of a statute punishing publication of
obscenity in connection with the French novel Story of 0.31 The
problem, which included quotations from the novel's most graphic
scenes, was distributed by the Bench to students and the competition
began.32
Word of the competition's subject matter soon reached the
faculty. Professor Frank R. Strong challenged Smith's and the
Bench's choice of problem as indecent, argued that the problem's
selection represented bad judgment on the part of the Bench, and
suggested, but did not insist, that the Bench rework the problem. The
Bench was surprised by the opposition and saw great irony in what
they perceived as a burgeoning movement to censor their censorship
problem. Smith remembers that the Bench felt "challenged rather
than cowed" as they convened an emergency meeting to determine
what to do, before finally electing to let the competition proceed.33
Shortly thereafter, Smith was summoned to Dean Phillips's office and
informed that the law school had concerns about the problem,
especially because representatives of the Holderness family would be
invited to attend the first rounds of arguments as special guests.
Dean Phillips suggested that the Bench reconsider its choice of topic
and select a somewhat milder issue for the inaugural arguments. The
Bench again revisited the issue in light of this new information, and
although members were concerned about possibly offending a family
to which all were grateful, they reaffirmed their choice. The
competition was completed, and a new Holderness Moot Court Bench
selected. The first competition for first-year students also was
conducted that year, involving more than 200 participants, and was
successfully completed without reported incident. 4
THE HOLDERNESS MOOT COURT BENCH TODAY
Membership on the Bench is a high honor. Thirty-five students

earned membership on the Bench in 1993-94, though the number
30. Id.
31. PAULINE RIAGE, STORY OF 0 (Sabine d'Estr6e trans., Ballantine Books
paperback 1973) (1954). Though it received acclaim from varied and respected commentators, the novel juxtaposes raw and unusual sexual scenarios with unsettling psychological
glimpses into the minds of "0" and her lovers which could prove unnerving to the
sensitive or unwary reader.
32. Smith Interview, supra note 24.
33. Id.
34. Id.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
fluctuates from year to year. In light of the intensive research and

preparation required to compete for membership and then as a team
member, members of the Craven Bench or any other team receive
one hour of academic credit for their efforts. Students compete to
gain membership on the Bench in their second year of law school and
can seek places on any of the six teams presently fielded by the law
school.
The National Team
The National Team is the oldest of the law school's moot court
teams, having first officially represented the law school in 1951. It
focuses exclusively on issues of constitutional law that are framed in
the form of an appellate record by the Young Lawyer's Committee
of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the
American College of Trial Lawyers. Recent topics ranged from the
First Amendment and forced AIDS testing to intellectual property
and the copyright doctrine of "fair use." The National Moot Court
Competition was first sponsored by the Association in the late 1940s.
The National Team competes in two teams of three members.
Each team operates independently of the other to the extent required
by the rules and prepares briefs and arguments unaided by professors
or fellow students. The teams do, however, have the benefit of
insight and guidance from their faculty sponsors and the patience and
interest of faculty members willing to act as judges for practice moots.
The team practices rigorously in the fall semester and competes at the
regional level at the courthouse of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia. The final two teams
progressing through the regional round win places to compete in the
National Competition in New York City. To determine the winner
in the regional competition, the final teams argue to an en banc panel
of judges from the Court of Appeals and the Eastern District of
Virginia, and from the Virginia state appellate and trial courts. After
having undergone this round, few third-year law students forget the
experience. The outgoing National Team selects its new members in
the Spring Constitutional Competition and also names the eight
runners-up to the Craven Bench.
The Invitational Team
Like the National Team, the Invitational Team also fields two
teams of three members. These students are selected in the fall of
their second year by the outgoing Invitational Team and, in the spring
[Vol. 73
semester, attend the invitational competition of their choice. Like the

National Moot Court Competition, the competitions follow the
traditional appellate advocacy format in which competitors submit
briefs and then argue to panels of judges. The teams regularly
participate in the Jerome Prince Evidence Competition sponsored by
the Brooklyn School of Law and also compete in other competitions
that focus on such diverse topics as family law, securities law,
intellectual property, environmental law, labor law, antitrust, torts,
and contracts.
The InternationalTeam
Known as the Jessup Cup International Moot Court Team, this
team of four students is selected in the fall. The team competes in
the Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition held
during the spring in Washington, D.C. The Jessup Cup is an old and
prestigious competition sponsored annually by the American Society
of International Law and the International Law Students' Association.
Like the National Moot Court Competition, the Jessup Cup uses a
traditional appellate format.
The Client Counseling Team
The three-member Client Counseling Team also is selected in the
fall of students' second year in a competition organized by the
outgoing team. Team members must become adept at quickly

assessing legal issues and communicating their advice to clients. Prior
to the competition, the team is informed of the general topic to be
addressed, which can be as broad as "criminal law" or "employment."
With only this information in hand, team members are introduced to
their client and must, within thirty minutes, encourage the client to
relate his story while drawing out and developing the relevant facts.
On the basis of this information, the team members assess the issues
and give the client appropriate legal advice. In addition to competing,
the Client Counseling Team often participates in the law school's
annual Family Law Day by offering a counseling demonstration to
fellow law students and their families.
The Negotiation Team
The four-student Negotiation Team is selected in the fall of
students' second year and competes, as third-year students, in the
following fall semester. Competing in two teams of two students
each, members of the Negotiation Team develop their abilities to
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
select and control information, to perceive their opponents' limitations

and motivations, and to create convincing reasons for promoting their
solutions. Unlike the appellate competitions, the judges do not
interact with the competitors. Past topics have included corporations,
employment discrimination, and family law.
The Environmental Negotiation Team
In keeping with the law school's expanding environmental law
curriculum, the Holderness Moot Court recently formed an Environmental Negotiation Team to take part in a national competition. In
the spring of 1994, the four-member team reached the semi-finals in
its first appearance in the national competition. The Enviromnental
Negotiation Team's competition format is similar to that of the
Negotiation Team, but also emphasizes the unique emotional and
economic positions of the parties as well as the applicable (and oftchanging) regulations involved in environmental disputes. The most
recent topics have focused on issues of public land use and environmental racism.
The Craven Bench
The members of the Craven Bench are selected in the Spring
Constitutional Competition, which is conducted by the outgoing
National Team. From a large field the team selects the top six
competitors to join the National Team and names the next eight to
the Craven Bench. These members shoulder much of the responsibility for the prestigious J. Braxton Craven, Jr., Invitational Moot Court
Competition.
The Craven Competition was first instituted in 1977 and named
in honor of Judge J. Braxton Craven, Jr., of the United States Court
of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. A longtime friend of the law
school, Judge Craven died in 1977 after long service on the bench.
Judge Craven frequently lectured at the law school, and students
appreciated his classroom style. One student interviewed for the
December 1967 edition of the Tar Heel Barristerremarked that Judge
Craven's " 'real life illustrations' of cases he had decided made the
student realize the importance of some seemingly insignificant
details." Another student "commented on Judge Craven's sense of
[Vol. 73
humor," noting," 'Even when he joked, there was an important point

to be made.' "
The Craven Competition sends invitations to present arguments
on issues of constitutional law to all accredited law schools and
consistently fills the available thirty-two slots with participants from
many of the most respected law schools in the country. The studentrun competition requires extensive preparation to draft a challenging
problem and appellate record. The competition is at present overseen
by Judge Craven's former law clerk, Burton Craige Professor of Law
Elizabeth Gibson, and other professors at the law school also offer
their insight and advice as the problem and record take shape.
The competing teams converge on the school in the early spring
to compete before three-person panels of judges from both state and
federal courts and attorneys practicing in the Triangle area. The
Bench relies on UNC law alumni to participate in the judging, and the
competition is for many graduates an opportunity to revisit old
stomping grounds and to renew acquaintances with former classmates
and professors. For the competing students, the Craven Competition
offers not only the opportunity to test their mettle against other
worthy teams but also the chance to visit one of most heralded college
towns in the country. Competitors generally arrange to have
sufficient extra time in Chapel Hill to make side trips to the shops
and watering holes of Franklin Street. In addition to the Craven
Competition, the Bench sponsors a banquet at the end of the year to
report the progress of the teams, to announce members selected to
the Order of the Barristers, and to offer a final thanks to the
professors who have advised the teams throughout the year.
CONCLUSION
In light of its past, the present success of the Holderness Moot

Court Bench should surprise no one. That it figured prominently in
the early days of the law school is clear. As Professor Coates noted
in 1946,
[the] story of the present office, trial and appellate practice
work reaches back through various phraseologies to the
Blackstone Law Club of 1893, and the catalogue announce-
ment in 1845 of a "Moot Court... held occasionally by the
35. Judge Craven Teaches Con Law, TAR HEEL BARRISTER (Chapel Hill, N.C.), Dec.
1967, at 1, 4.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
to
Professor" and of "pleadings and other legal instruments"
6
be drawn "from time to time" by the Students.
As Moot Court Chief Justice Roger Smith predicted when the
Holderness Moot Court Bench first was christened, the Bench has
become a "student-run moot court competition in which students...
compete enthusiastically while they improve their skills in brief
writing, legal research, and oral advocacy."'37
Predictions and histories aside, the changing nature of the
Holderness Moot Court gives it vitality. The competitions give life to
problems otherwise committed only to paper and offer students the
chance to speak, challenge, defend, and persuade. The subject matter
of the competitions always is timely, and the periodic restructuring of
team formats and selection procedures facilitates keen competition.
Moreover, the Bench, unlike the highly individualized performances
more often demanded and rewarded in the law school, requires
teamwork. It immerses its members in situations demanding both
democracy and diplomacy as competitors learn to abide by the rules
and move through the procedures of the most elevated courts in the
nation. The program also enables its members to develop the skills
to deal effectively with the most fundamental face-to-face lawyerclient interactions. This combination of a stable foundation and the
yearly influx of energy and ability brought by new Bench members
makes the Bench strong and the program useful. All indications are
that the Holderness Moot Court Bench will carry on in a manner
befitting its impressive history.

37. Holderness Competition Success as Moot Court Grows, Improves, TAR HEEL
BARRISTER (Chapel Hill, N.C.), May 1967, at 2.
STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
1945-95 t
WINSTON B. CRISP
Winston Boyd Crisp, a 1992 graduateof the UNC School

of Law, is Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. Crisp attended
Johnson C. Smith University, in Charlotte, where he received
his B.A. in history, summa cum laude,in 1989. He graduated
from the UNC School of Law in 1992. While a law student,
he was a PatriciaR. Harris Fellow, president of the Black
Law Students Association, minority recruitment coordinator,
a member of the Holderness Moot Court Bench, a justice of
the law school honor court, and a columnist with the law
student newspaper. He was recognized with an award for
excellence in trial advocacy by the North CarolinaAcademy
of Trial Lawyers. He was inducted into the James E. and
Carolyn B. Davis Society, the FrankPorter Graham Society,
and the Order of the Barristers. Since graduating,he has
touched the lives of new generationsof law students through
his work as Assistant Dean. He was recognized in 1994 for
his outstandingwork in that capacity,when he was selected as
runner-up for the UNC-Chapel Hill Student Organization
Advisor of the Year Award.
In 1995, the School of Law is a very different place than it was
in the spring of 1945. Then, the student body was small and
homogenous, made up of some fifty students with similar backgrounds
and interests. Fifty years later, the student body is over 700 strong
and boasts a diversity that includes not only people of different races
and sexes, but of different cultures and nations. The growth and
development of student organizations in the School of Law, as
expressions of our students' interests and creativity, have mirrored
this change. From a handful of organizations catering to common
needs, the School of Law today boasts over thirty organizations
designed to create a supportive environment for the expression of

both shared and individual ideas. This Article is not intended to be
t Most of the material used in compiling this Article has been taken from the Tar
Heel Barrister,the North CarolinaLaw Record, and the North CarolinaLaw Review.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
an individual history of each and every student organization that has

ever existed in the school, but rather will chronicle the growth and
development of student organizations as reflections of the student
body's changing make-up and range of extracurricular interests.
During the twenty-year period from 1945 to 1965, although the
student population grew tremendously, there existed only a small
group of student organizations because student areas of interest
remained relatively unchanged. The organizations of that time were
the Law Student Association, the Moot Court Program, the Law
Wives Association, three legal fraternities, the Young Democrat and
Young Republican Clubs, the Barrister's Speakers Club, and the
North CarolinaLaw Review. As the student body population began
to diversify in the latter half of the 1960s and in the 1970s, new
interests gave birth to organizations such as the North Carolina
Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation, an
expanded Moot Court Bench, and organizations designed to address
the needs of minority groups and women. A host of other organizations have since come into existence, all designed to meet new and
different areas of student interest.1
I.
STUDENT GOVERNANCE
The Law Student Association

From 1945 until 1964, the organization responsible for student
self-governance in the law school was the Law Student Association
(LSA). This organization consisted of all law students and was
affiliated with the American Law Student Association, a national
organization. The main purpose of this group was to develop an
extra-curricular program of legal education for the students of the
school. LSA was responsible for almost every facet of student extracurricular life, from developing an orientation program to fostering
better relations with alumni.
A four-person executive department, consisting of the President,
Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer, directed the LSA. These
officers were responsible for the execution of all policies and decisions
of the LSA Legislature. In addition to the executive officers, the
legislature included the presidents, vice presidents, and class represen-
1. The activities of the North CarolinaLaw Review, the North CarolinaJournalof

InternationalLaw and CommercialRegulation, and the Holderness Moot Court Bench are
considered elsewhere in this symposium and will not be discussed in this Article.
[Vol. 73
tatives of all three classes, and the editor-in-chief of the North

Carolina Law Review. The LSA also had a Judicial Department
which was made up of the Law School Supreme (Honor) Court and
the Law School Solicitor and Assistant Solicitor. The Judicial
Department maintained jurisdiction over and prosecuted all alleged
violations of the University Honor Code.
The LSA was involved in the lives of law students in many
different ways. In a typical year, the LSA boasted committees dealing
with athletic activities, elections, relations with the Dean and faculty,
the library, new student orientation, job placement, public relations,
social affairs, speakers, publications, student loans, and building needs.
The end of World War II resulted in a large influx of new
students. One of the most important areas of LSA involvement in the
late 1940s became new student orientation. The orientation committee, under the direction of the LSA Vice President, worked closely
with the faculty to develop a program designed to welcome new
students and help acclimate them to the school. This program
included an annual reception for the entering class and assistance with
registration and other necessary activities carried out by upperclassmen.
The LSA also invested considerable time in arranging lectures by
lawyers, faculty, judges, and public officials. The LSA wanted to give
students the advantage of special experience and insight to supplement conventional classroom work. Over the years, the LSA was
able to bring many outstanding speakers to the law school who spoke
on a wide variety of topics. These outstanding speakers included
Governor J.B. Ehringhaus and Justice Stanley Reed of the United
States Supreme Court in 1949; Robert Storey, President of the ABA,
in 1952; Justice William 0. Douglas of the United States Supreme
Court in 1955; Robert F. Kennedy (then the Counsel for the Senate
Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field) in 1957; Chief Judge John J. Parker of the United States
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1958; Senator Sam J.
Ervin, Jr., in 1959; and Judge J. Spencer Bell of the United States
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1962.
Job placement has always been of great interest to law students.
During the years of the LSA, the law school had no formal placement
activity. To fill this perceived gap in services, the LSA placement
committee worked to collect information regarding openings for
young attorneys and summer internships for current students. This
information was published free to law students in the law school
placement bulletin. The placement committee also sponsored an
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
833
annual placement letter to the alumni. This group worked closely

with the Dean and Law Alumni Association to open more opportunities for graduates.
Athletics played a major role in student life in the late 1940s and
1950s. The University Intramural Office annually awarded a Campus
All Sports Trophy to the organization or school that performed the
best in intramural competition. The School of Law received this cup
four times and placed second another three during the 1950s. Teams
were fielded annually in football, bowling, badminton, soccer, tennis,
horseshoes, and handball. The LSA appointed a student intramural
coordinator to oversee the athletic teams that represented the school.
The LSA also was heavily involved with efforts to strengthen ties
between students and alumni. In 1953 LSA members helped to found
the Law Alumni Association. They continued to work with the
association to sponsor an annual Law Day for alumni and began an
annual dinner for alumni of the North CarolinaLaw Review Board of
Editors. In 1952 the LSA began publishing the Tar Heel Barrister,a
law school newsletter designed to keep the alumni informed as to the
activities of the school. This newsletter continued to be published
until 1968, when it was replaced by the Law School Record.
LSA work was critical in the day-to-day operation of the school.
The organization was responsible for assigning work space to
individual students, carrying on public relations tasks for the school,
supervising and caring for the lounge areas, working with library staff
to improve service, and helping the faculty develop plans for building
expansion. They helped administer moot court and supervised the
use of student activities fee money. The LSA also worked with Duke
and Wake Forest to send students to a seminar at the United States
Department of Justice each year.
In addition to these activities, the LSA held social activities of
many different sorts. They sponsored an annual spring banquet and
awards dinner, a Barrister's Ball each spring, and held an annual law
school picnic.
The Student BarAssociation
In April 1964, the Law Student Association officially changed its
name to the Student Bar Association (SBA). The work that the LSA
had done continued with new strides being made in a number of,
areas, including placement, building concerns, and service to fellow
students.
[Vol. 73
In 1966 the SBA kicked off what then president Dwight Wheless
termed "A Year of Service."'2 The Tar Heel Barristerwas expanded
and the SBA produced a larger version of the annual placement guide
in order to increase service to the alumni. More social events were
held in order to alleviate some of the stress of school. The SBA also
began a duplicating and photocopying service for all students, and
began plans to establish a scholarship loan fund for students who were
not ordinarily eligible for scholarships.
The year 1969 was one of change for the SBA. It drafted and
approved a new constitution that changed its structure. The new SBA
dissolved the student legislature and replaced it with a board of
governors that was made up of the President, Vice President,
Treasurer, Secretary, and a president and two class representatives for
each class. This structure remains in place today. The SBA also won
a longstanding battle to allow students to be represented on faculty

committees. Students were formally appointed to the faculty, library,
curriculum, grading and examination, and building-use committees.
In another move to become a greater part of the actual administration
of the school, students began evaluating faculty performance at the
end of each semester. On the placement front, the SBA replaced the
student placement brochure and helped to create individual students'
r6sum~s.
At the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s, the SBA
became deeply involved in student recruitment efforts. In the early
1970s the SBA helped both Women in Law and the Minority Students
Association host recruitment weekends to attract more women and
minority students. Today, the SBA remains involved in recruitment
efforts through its support of the Prospective Students Association, an
organization that works with the Assistant Dean for Admissions and
provides tours and counsel for potential applicants.
The 1976 school year saw an increase in SBA activism and a
heightened desire to be involved in school policy decisions. Dissatisfied with the status quo, the SBA took on new challenges aimed at
improving the school. In addition to its normal activities, the SBA
began to undertake efforts to replace existing placement initiatives
with a full-time placement service. In an effort to improve studentfaculty relations, the policy of excluding students from faculty
meetings was challenged. This controversy extended into the next
2. Service is Theme for S.B.A.'s Year, TAR HEEL BARRISTER (Chapel Hill, N.C.),
Oct. 1966, at 1.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
year and resulted in an unsuccessful lawsuit under the Open Meetings

Law.3 The SBA closed out the year with lobbying efforts designed
to convince the faculty of the need for a clinical program.
By the beginning of the 1980-81 school year, the SBA had
evolved into what is substantially its present form. Although still run
by a board of governors, the group had become an umbrella
organization for a number of associated, independent student
organizations. Each organization affiliated with the SBA maintains
its own constitution and leadership, but is connected to the larger

organization through the disbursement of student funds. The SBA
also continues to serve as the official representative for student
concerns. SBA committees are now involved in intergovernmental
relations, host an annual talent and variety show, administer student
parking permits, and advise the Dean and her staff on student issues.
During the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, the SBA has
worked with students to develop means by which student interests can
be addressed and nourished. The SBA of the 1980s supported the
formation of a number of new organizations, and increased its efforts
to advocate on behalf of students. Through refinements in its
organizational structure, the SBA works in many ways to provide a
supportive environment for students. Today, the SBA cooperates
with faculty and staff on all levels and provides invaluable resources
to the entire community.
II. LEGAL FRATERNITIES

Many of the social and service needs of the UNC School of Law
student body have been addressed by the three legal fraternities that
have existed here since 1945. Although only two of the three remain
in existence today, all have played major roles in the extracurricular
life of law students. Originally, all three legal fraternities operated
much like social and service fraternities on the undergraduate level,
complete with "pledging" and "initiation." In fact, there was so much
interfraternity rivalry and competition for membership that, in 1958,
the LSA created a fraternity council to set rules and regulations for
the conduct of the three groups. Today, the two remaining organizations are open to all interested students and no longer engage
in such extensive pledging and initiation practices.
3. See Student Bar Assoc. v. Byrd, 293 N.C. 594, 239 S.E.2d 415 (1977).
[Vol. 73
Phi Delta Phi

The first of the legal fraternities founded at the law school was
Phi Delta Phi. This group, which began at UNC in 1919, was
originally involved in both service and social activities for the
members of the law school community. In the late 1940s and on into
the middle to late 1970s, that mission remained relatively unchanged.
Then, in the late 1970s, the UNC chapter of Phi Delta Phi gradually
shifted its focus to social activities. Today, the group characterizes its
primary mission as that of a social organization that "allows law
students to relax and escape the everyday pressures of law school."'4
In the late 1940s, Phi Delta Phi concentrated its service efforts in
a number of different areas. The -organization raised funds for a
scholarship for law students and provided prelaw education for college
and high school students. In addition, Phi Delta Phi was responsible
for co-hosting the annual Barrister's Ball, the spring formal dance for
the law school. Other noteworthy activities were a biannual golf
tournament that raised money for scholarships and charities, research
projects to gauge the local need for legal assistance, and surveys
designed to highlight the need for pre-legal education at the college
level. As the 1950s and 1960s passed, Phi Delta Phi continued to
provide services aimed at increasing the visibility of the legal
profession through research projects and charitable acts.
In the late 1970s, the members of Phi Delta Phi began to see the
need for increased efforts to reduce stress and provide a more
comfortable atmosphere for law students. The increased size of the
student body and the increased competitiveness among students
tended to create law students who could at times be overly serious
and obsessed with academics. To combat this trend, the organization
began to develop more programs designed to relieve tension and
foster community. Some of the events that resulted from this shift in
focus were the annual Thanksgiving dinner, tailgate parties before
home football games, an end-of-the-year banquet, and frequent
parties and social receptions.
Phi Alpha Delta
The second and largest of the legal fraternities was the Phi Alpha
4. UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOL OF LAW, STUDENT AFFAIRS
MANUAL, 1993-1994, at 11 (1993) (on file with the University of North Carolina School
of Law).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Delta International Legal Fraternity, which began at UNC in 1921.

Phi Alpha Delta has always been a service-oriented organization that
prides itself on providing service to both the law school and the
Chapel Hill community. Some of this group's earliest law school
service activities included holding mock trials for students interested
in trial advocacy, hosting speakers, and organizing a textbook
exchange.
As the law school population grew and changed during the 1960s,
Phi Alpha Delta changed along with it. In 1961, the fraternity
became co-ed, although female members were labeled "sister
associates." The fraternity also led the way in discussing issues of
racism. The expansion of the student body into a larger and relatively
more heterogenous group also brought with it a service view that
began to encompass the entire Chapel Hill community. Service
activities were expanded to include food and clothing drives. A lack
of student interest in the fraternity resulted in a number of years of
inactive status in the mid-70s, but by 1977 the organization had
reactivated and was once again functioning as it had in the past.
Today, the Ruffin Chapter of Phi Alpha Delta is one of the most
active student organizations in the school, providing service to the
campus and community in many different areas. The tradition of
organizing annual food and clothing drives continues, and the
fraternity now also hosts an annual Red Cross Blood Drive. Phi
Alpha Delta also participates in fund drives to provide needed
services for the law library and helps to support the Orange County
Women's Shelter. In 1993, the organization started a Law Related
Education program reminiscent of the effort undertaken by Phi Delta
Phi in the late 1940s. After receiving training at the law school, law
students work with students in local area schools to introduce legal
concepts.
Delta Theta Phi
Delta Theta Phi, founded in 1924, was the third legal fraternity
established at UNC. Its members operated more like members of a
traditional college fraternity than did the other two legal fraternities.
Most of the activities sponsored by Delta Theta Phi were for the
benefit of its membership and not focused toward the general student
body. Typical activities for Delta Theta Phi included sponsoring an
annual trip to the United States Supreme Court and hosting speakers
of interest to the group. The UNC chapter of Delta Theta Phi
became inactive in 1978.
III.
[Vol. 73
SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS
Student Bar Foundation

One of the oldest service organizations in the law school is the
Student Bar Foundation. It began in 1969 when the SBA instituted
a fundraising project designed to provide scholarships to students
whose financial needs were not being adequately met. A Scholarship
Fund Committee was created and began the job of raising the
necessary funds to award full-tuition scholarships. The Committee
formed a tax-exempt corporation to facilitate the fundraising effort-the Student Bar Foundation (SBF). The incorporated foundation was run by a nine-member board of directors consisting of the
four SBA executive officers and five appointees chosen by the SBA
Board of Governors. In October 1970, the SBF awarded its first two
full-tuition scholarships to first-year students. By the next year SBF
was able to award twelve full-tuition scholarships to deserving law
students.
In 1972, the board of directors altered its program by splitting the
available money among six full-tuition scholarships and four lowinterest loans. The award of loans rather than scholarships helped to
keep money available for the long term. In 1973 the ratio of loans to
scholarships was fifteen to four, and by 1974 SBF had made the
transition from a scholarship organization to one solely supplying lowinterest loans to needy students.
Today, SBF works in conjunction with the Carolina Student
Credit Union to continue to provide low-interest loans. Moreover,
SBF serves as a source of information concerning alternative funding
sources, and is developing a child-care grant program to assist law
students with child-care expenses.
Public Interest Law Fellowships
The Student Bar Foundation was not the only organization that
developed out of the need to give financial assistance to members of
the student body. By the 1976-77 school year a great many students
became interested in working in public service jobs during summer
vacations. To help support these students, the SBA began an effort
to raise money for student-funded fellowships that would assist
students with their financial burdens and enable them to forego
better-paying jobs in order to pursue public service work. By the
summer of 1978, students had raised enough money to help three
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
students take summer jobs. This effort was well received by the
student body and plans were made to continue the organization.
Public Interest Law Fellowships (PILF), as the organization came
to be called, now engages in fundraising year-round in order to
provide for one or two $2,500 summer fellowships and a number of
smaller grants. The organization is still student-funded and raises
money in two ways. Each fall, PILF members solicit goods and
services from faculty and staff members to be sold at an auction that
has become one of the most enjoyable events of the school year.
Furthermore, PILF conducts a pledge drive that solicits donations
from students, faculty, and staff During the 1993-94 school year
PILF raised almost $8,000 for student grants.
North CarolinaLawyer's Research Service
In 1976, in response to a desire to have more interaction with
practicing lawyers, students formed a non-profit organization designed
to provide research assistance to local lawyers. The North Carolina
Lawyer's Research Service (NCLRS) accomplished the goal of
allowing students to gain valuable research experience, while at the
same time providing a much-needed resource for practicing attorneys.
Completely run by a student board of directors, NCLRS contracts
with local attorneys to conduct research and summarize that research
in memoranda. Upon receiving a request from an area attorney, the
board of directors assigns a project to a student member, supervises
that work, then supplies a finished project to the attorney. In 1995,
NCLRS continues to provide assistance to the legal community and
remains a popular source of practical experience for students.
Prisoner'sRights Project
The Prisoner's Rights Project was formed in 1978 by students
interested in the informal clinical part of Professor Dan Pollitt's
criminal law seminar. Students responded to problems and questions
raised by inmates in the state prison system. After the seminar
ended, students worked with the North Carolina Civil Liberties
Union, the SBA, and the Student Bar Foundation to form an
organization for students who wished to continue working with and
learning about the criminal justice system. That year, twenty student
volunteers corresponded with inmates, helping them find answers to
some of their questions and solutions to many of their problems.
Today, the Prisoner's Rights Project is engaged in a variety of
activities. It sponsors speakers who address criminal justice issues.
[Vol. 73
It has developed a Women's Prisoner's Rights Project. During the

1992-93 school year, students created a Death Penalty Project, which
provides assistance for inmates on death row, and helps draw
attention to current developments related to capital punishment law.
Professor John Boger is the group's advisor.
National Lawyers' Guild
The National Lawyers' Guild began in 1979 when a group of
UNC law students joined with students from Duke and North
Carolina Central University to work on the North Carolina Legal
Assistance Project. These students volunteered their time and effort

to local legal assistance agencies to provide service and to gain
meaningful "real case" experience. Later, this group became an
officially recognized chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. The
group now sponsors speakers programs on topics of special current
interest to its membership. In May 1994 the group sponsored a
number of students who traveled to Miami to assist Haitian refugees.
The Environmental Law Project
Growing interest in environmental issues led UNC students to
form the Environmental Law Project in 1979. Originally, the
organization focused on research concerning environmental
regulation. It also hosted speaker programs, but soon began to
expand into a service organization. In 1982 ELP published its first
Environmental Guide to North Carolina. The guide was an eightypage booklet that described the functions of the various state agencies
that regulated different aspects of the environment. Today, the
organization continues efforts to educate North Carolinians and
provides assistance to those working to protect the environment.
Recent ELP projects have included research on environmental racism
and expanded education efforts.
CarolinaAIDS Legal Assistance, Amnesty International,and Child
Action
In the 1990s, almost every UNC Law student is in some way
involved with a community service project. New service organizations
continue to spring up as students channel their efforts to aid those in
nearby communities and around the world.
Three new organizations have formed since 1990. In 1992, a
group of students began to assist local AIDS patients who needed
wills and powers-of-attorney. Originally called the Carolina AIDS
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Wills Project, Carolina AIDS Legal Assistance now is affiliated with

UNC Hospitals and works under the supervision of Professor Alice
Ratliff A local chapter of Amnesty International found new vigor in
1993. This group assists political prisoners around the world through
letter-writing campaigns. The third new group, Child Action, was
founded during the 1993-94 school year. It provides education and
engages in service activities to assist children. Child Action also helps
to recruit and train volunteers for the local Guardian Ad Litem
program, and educates the law school community on areas of concern
to children.
IV. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Law students have long sought to supplement the law school's

formal legal education with other activities designed to enhance their
readiness to enter legal practice. The activities of The North Carolina
Law Review, The North Carolina Journal of InternationalLaw and
Commercial Regulation, and the Holderness Moot Court Bench are
discussed elsewhere in this issue. Another organization that assists
students in developing research and oratory skills warrants special
attention here.
The UNC Trial Lawyers Association
In 1992, the UNC Trial Lawyers Association was created to assist
students interested in developing litigation skills. Students solicited
funds and assistance from the North Carolina Academy of Trial
Lawyers and began presenting speakers to interested students in the
fall. In the spring of 1993, the group held an intra-school trial
advocacy competition and sent the winning team to the ABA Mock
Trial Competition in Richmond, Virginia. The next fall, in addition
to sponsoring two teams for trial competitions, the organization
hosted a weekend trial advocacy seminar for all interested law
students. The group plans to increase the number of teams travelling
to trial competitions in the years ahead.
V. STUDENT AND FAMILY SUPPORT GROUPS
Women In Law
By the early 1970s, the number of women enrolled at the School
of Law had increased significantly. In 1973, a group of female law
students founded Women in Law to provide mutual support and to
recruit more women to attend law school. The group visited area
[Vol. 73
colleges to speak with college students about law school, and provided
speakers on topics such as interviewing skills and women's issues.
In 1974, the group held its first on-campus recruiting program for
area college women. Nearly fifty college students attended. In 1975,
Women in Law published a handbook on women's legal issues. The
group continues to publish the handbook with the help of a grant
from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. In 1980, Women in Law
began a family violence clinic at the law school to provide students
with practical experience while providing service to abused women.
Furthermore, Women in Law sponsors seminars on safety and other
issues of current interest. The group also founded and runs a
Domestic Violence Project in cooperation with the Orange County
Women's Center.'
BLSA, AILSA, and the Lambda Law Students Association
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the law school was engaged in
an effort to increase the population of African-American students.
African-American students began to meet in informal groups for
many of the same reasons that led to the founding of Women in Law.
These students provided support and encouragement for each other
and began recruitment activities with the support of the SBA. By the
beginning of the 1973-74 school year, African-American students had
formed the Minority Students Association and were actively involved
in recruitment efforts. Supported by SBA funds and by the Law
Student Division of the ABA, the group hosted an on-campus
recruitment weekend for African-American students. The weekend
soon became an annual event.
In 1981 the organization changed its name to the Black American
Law Students Association and became affiliated with a national
organization of the same name. The name was shortened to the
Black Law Students Association (BLSA) in the late 1980s.
In 1994, BLSA continues to be actively involved in minority
recruitment and annually visits a number of colleges in North
Carolina to recruit prospective students. In addition, BLSA members
travel to New York City and Atlanta each year to attend recruitment
fairs, assist the Assistant Dean for Admissions with the annual
5. A more detailed account of the contributions of women to the law school is

contained in another Article in this issue. See Laura N. Gasaway & Judith W. Wegner,
Women at UNC and in Law Practice,73 N.C. L. REV. 707 (1995).
1995]
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Minority Law Day Program, and work closely with the Dean to foster
increased diversity and cultural awareness.
The American Indian Law Students Association (AILSA) was
founded in 1984 and engages in activities similar to those of BLSA.
In addition, the UNC AILSA chapter works closely with the
Carolina
6
Indian Circle, an organization for UNC undergraduates.
During the 1992-93 school year, a heightened sensitivity to issues
of sexual orientation led to the establishment of the Gay and Lesbian
Law Students' Association. These students meet informally to
provide support for gay and lesbian law students and to increase
awareness about homosexuality among the law school population.
The group changed its name to the Lambda Law Students Association
in 1994. Lambda works closely with B-GLAD, the undergraduate gay
and lesbian organization, to promote tolerance and understanding
across the entire university campus.
The Christian Legal Society
In 1974 a group of Christian law students formed the Law
Student Fellowship. In 1977 the organization changed its name to the
Christian Legal Society. Affiliated with a national organization of the
same name, CLS works to integrate faith with the demands of the
practice of law. The group holds prayer and fellowship meetings and
sponsors talks on the subject of Christianity and the law. CLS is
nondenominational and welcomes all students interested in Christian
fellowship.
Second Careers in Law and ParentsActive in Law School
By the early 1980s, the student body included an increased
number of students who entered law school after pursuing careers in
other fields. These students felt less at home with social programs
designed primarily for younger students who had recently completed
college. Students founded Second Careers in Law (SCIL), a group
chartered to foster social interaction among older students and to
enable its members to provide shared support during the transition
back to student status.
Subsequently, members of SCIL who were also parents formed
a separate group called Parents Active in Law School (PALS). This
6. More information on minorities and their contributions to the School of Law is

detailed in another article in this Symposium. See Charles E. Daye, African-Americanand
Other Minority Law Students and Alumni, 73 N.C. L. REV. 677 (1995).
[Vol. 73
group sought to provide support to students faced with the dual

pressures of parenthood and law school. PALS programs focus on
discussion of such topics as day care, special financial needs, family
health insurance, and "family-friendly" career options. These
organizations continue to be closely connected through their common
members.
VI.
OTHER STUDENT INTERESTS
The Young Democrat and Republican Clubs

Law students in the late 1940s were extremely interested in
politics. One of the ways that UNC law students participated in the
political arena was with active membership in the Young Democrats
and Young Republicans clubs at UNC. Although neither organization
was technically a law school organization, they deserve mention here
because of the high profile that law students maintained in the clubs.
Well into the decade of the 1960s, law students provided guidance and
leadership to their undergraduate counterparts, frequently serving as
officers in the organizations and holding meetings in the law school
building. Both groups were active in party politics, disseminating
campaign material, sponsoring speakers, and holding political rallies.
Although both organizations are still active on campus, law students
have not played a significant role in their activities since the 1960s.
The John J. ParkerInternationalLaw Society
When the United States was involved in the Korean Conflict and
the escalating cold war with the Soviet Union, law students began to
take an increased interest in international affairs, particularly
international law. In 1962 students formed the International Law
Club, which was soon renamed the John J. Parker International Law
Society in honor of Judge John J. Parker, a North Carolina resident
who served as a judge at the Nuremburg trials. This organization
sought to foster and promote interest and participation in the study
of public and private international law. The Society was affiliated
with the American Student Society of International Law and
coordinated activities with the national group. In addition to
sponsoring speakers and engaging in discussion and research of international law topics, the group participated in the Phillip C. Jessup
International Moot Court Competition sponsored by the American
Society of International Law. The Society sponsored student
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participation in this event until 1970 when the Moot Court Bench
began to provide credit for participation.
After a brief period of inactivity during the late 1980s, the
International Law Club has reemerged as an active organization. In
addition to sponsoring speakers, it provides students with information
concerning study-abroad programs and employment opportunities in
the field of international law.
The FederalistSociety
During the 1986-87 school year, law students formed the
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy. This organization seeks
to investigate the role of law as one of the organizing forces of society
and to provide a focal point for discussion by people of conservative
and libertarian views. In addition to holding discussion meetings, the
Federalist Society is active in sponsoring annual programs known as
"Golden Issues Symposia." The symposia seek to present speakers
or debates on important social issues, which have included recycling
and solid waste management, affirmative action, freedom of religion,
and the intersection of law and politics.
OtherActivities
In addition to participation in law school organizations, law
students expend a great deal of energy engaging in other activities on
the campus and in the community. Students participate in tutorial
programs, athletic teams, choral groups, debate societies, community
organizations, charitable enterprises, political organizations, and many
other activities. Since the 1940s law students have been and continue
to be integral parts of their communities. As the School of Law
prepares to enter the second half of the 1990s, law students are
finding more and more ways to add to the rich history of student
involvement in extracurricular pursuits. One can only guess at the
types of activities that the next fifty years will bring.
Law Alumni Service to the Public and the Law School
LAWYERS TALKING:
UNC LAW GRADUATES AND THEIR SERVICE TO THE STATE
WALTER H. BENNETT, JR. AND JUDITH WELCH WEGNER
Walter H. Bennett, Jr., is a member of the UNC law

faculty and co-founder (with Judith Wegner) of the UNC Law
School Oral Historyproject. Bennett was born in September
18, 1943, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He attended public
schools there and worked during the summers as a
construction worker and on his grandfather's tobacco farm
near Danville, Virginia. He graduatedfrom Washington &
Lee University and served in the United States Army as an
artillery officer in Vietnam. He received an M.A. in English
from the University of North Carolinaat Chapel Hill and a
J.D.from the University of Virginia in 1972. He subsequently
received an LL.M. from the University of Virginia.
Bennett began his legal careerwith the Charlotte law firm
of Casey and Daly, PA., engaging largely in the practice of
constitutionaland environmentallaw. He left the firm in 1977
to become a North Carolina district court judge for the 26th
judicial district in Mecklenburg County. He devoted a good
deal of his judicialservice to juvenile cases. He later returned
to private practice with the firm of Bennett & Lawson.
Bennett joined the UNC law school faculty as a clinical
supervising attorney in 1986. He teaches in the areas of civil
lawyeringprocessandprofessionalresponsibilityand oversees
the work of law students in the school's civil clinic. He has
adopted a novel approach to teaching professional values
through a seminar on the oralhistories of lawyers andjudges.
He recently received a major grant from the W. M. Keck

Foundation to expand his "intergenerationallegal ethics"
program and to disseminate information about the program
to law schools across the nation.
Dean Judith Welch Wegner is profiled elsewhere in this
symposium. She has worked closely with ProfessorBennett
in developing the "intergenerationallegal ethics" program,
and has been privilegedto know a number of the outstanding
1995]
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lawyers and judges whose lives are discussed in the following

article.
This history of the University of North Carolina School of Law
would be incomplete without a sense of the students who passed
through our doors and the lawyers they have become. These
students-and the contributions they have made throughout their lives
to people of diverse communities, states, and nations-are our reason
for being. The opportunity to know and work with them is one of the
many gifts the state and its people have given to those of us lucky
enough to live a part of our lives affiliated with our University and its
School of Law. One of the gifts we and our students wish to give the
state, the legal profession, and indeed the world, is a compilation of
life stories of those lawyers who began their professional lives here at
UNC. Our hope is that these stories will provide insights, inspiration,
entertainment, and education to our colleagues at the bar and future
generations of law students-just as they have done for us.
This essay has two parts. In the first part we will discuss the
genesis and development of the UNC Law School Oral History
Project, an effort begun in 1992 to learn about (and document) what
makes some lawyers "good lawyers," and to share these insights with
our students. This effort grew and flourished. Initially, it took the
form of an oral history seminar taught by Professor 'Walter Bennett.
It has subsequently blossomed into the UNC "intergenerational legal
ethics" initiative, as we have reflected upon the profound learning
that has occurred. We now see this initiative as an intriguing way to

learn and teach about professional values, a wellspring that has
touched our students' hearts and minds with insights into the true
nobility of the legal profession. The W. M. Keck Foundation has
recently awarded a substantial grant to the UNC School of Law to
support our efforts to expand the program design and share core ideas
with colleagues at law schools around the country.
In the second part of this essay, we include short histories of
thirteen UNC law graduates, all of whom have contributed in significant ways to the legal profession, their clients, and the state. All of
these lawyers (and more than forty others)' were interviewed by
1. North Carolina judges and lawyers interviewed to date as part of the UNC Law
School Oral History Project include the following: Judge James H. Pou Bailey, Raleigh;
Judge George Foust Bason, Raleigh; Judge Dexter Brooks, Lumberton; Judge Franklin
T. Dupree, Jr., Raleigh; Judge Sam Ervin, III, Morganton; Justice Henry Ell Frye,
Greensboro; Judge Shirley L. Fulton, Charlotte; Judge Hamilton Hobgood, Louisburg;
Judge Robert H. Lacey, Newland; Justice I. Beverly Lake, Wake Forest; Judge Patricia
(Vol. 73
Professor Walter Bennett or by UNC law students serving as research

assistants or participating in the law school's oral history seminar
during the last three years. Space does not permit us here to recount
the life stories of all those interviewed to date or to identify the many
other distinguished lawyers and judges who have been suggested for
future interviews. Instead, we have selected a range of lawyers and
judges whose lives exemplify different forms of public service in hopes
that these colleagues reflect the diversity and range of contributions
made by UNC Law graduates over the years. Each short history
includes Professor Bennett's summary of salient observations drawn
from oral history transcripts as well as excerpts from those transcripts
themselves. We only wish that we could convey on these pages the
rich tone and nuance of the life stories shared by these fine lawyers
in their own voices. We hope in years to come to publish a more
comprehensive compendium of life histories and to share lawyers'
(and our own) reflections in other varied media (including talks,
tapes, and "reader's theater" productions).
Love, Chapel Hill; Justice Harry C. Martin, Chapel Hill; Judge James B. McMillan,
Charlotte; Justice Burley B. Mitchell, Jr., Raleigh; Judge Elreta M. Alexander Ralston,
Greensboro; Judge William Scarborough, Charlotte; Judge Frank W. Snepp, Jr., Charlotte;
Judge Hiram Ward, Denton; Judge Gregory A. Weeks, Fayetteville; R. Mayne Albright,
Raleigh; Charles L. Becton, Raleigh; Daniel T. Blue, Jr., Raleigh; Doris R. Bray,
Greensboro; Marcellus Buchannan, III, Silva; W. H. S. Burgwyn, Jr., Woodland; Albert

A. Corbett, Smithfield; Roy W. Davis, Jr., Asheville; James K. Dorsett, Jr., Raleigh; James
E. Ferguson, Charlotte; James C. Fuller, Raleigh; Ellen W. Gerber, Winston-Salem; Joseph
Grier, Jr., Charlotte; Fred B. Helms, Charlotte; Katherine S. Holliday, Charlotte; Horace
R. Kornegay, Greensboro; Robert A. McMillan, Raleigh; Barry Nakell, Chapel Hill; B. B.
Olive, Durham; Anne R. Slifkin, Raleigh; Norman B. Smith, Greensboro; McNeill Smith,
Greensboro; Wade M. Smith, Raleigh; H. Hugh Stevens, Raleigh; Mary Ann Tally,
Fayetteville; Howard F. Twiggs, Raleigh; D.J. Walker, Burlington; Melvin L. Watt,
Charlotte; James A. Wellons, Jr., Smithfield; Claud R. Wheatley, Jr., Beaufort; and Leslie
J. Winner, Charlotte. These judges and lawyers hail from numerous law schools, live in
diverse communities, and engage in different forms of law practice. Many are well-known;
others are not. Some are retired; others have many years of professional service yet
before them. Readers who wish to suggest other candidates to be interviewed as part of
the UNC Law School Oral History project or who are interested in how this model could
be adopted in other locations are invited to forward recommendations or inquiries to
Professor Walter Bennett at the UNC School of Law. Transcripts of all oral history
interviews are available through the Katherine R. Everett Law Library at UNC and
through the Southern Oral History Collection at UNC's Wilson Library.
1995]
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849
I. THE UNC LAW ORAL HISTORY PROJECT: TEACHING

PROFESSIONAL VALUES THROUGH
INTERGENERATIONAL CONVERSATION
As part of its traditional emphasis on legal ethics, the UNC Law

School has had a well-established policy that legal ethics should be
taught both on a pervasive basis (as an integral part of core courses
in torts, contracts, and so forth) and in an advanced course in
"professional responsibility," which must be taken by all students as
a requirement for graduation. Success in both these areas has varied
greatly, depending upon the emphasis given to ethics in individual
classes and the attitudes of students. Over the past several years, a
consensus developed among the faculty that new ways should be
explored to enhance the teaching of legal ethics, both by intensifying
efforts in the classroom and finding new ways to connect ethical issues
with real life experience.
Toward that end, in 1992 the faculty completed a revision of the
curriculum and made a significant commitment to improving the core
curriculum in legal ethics. All students were then required to take
professional responsibility in their second year of law school in
smaller classes conducive to discussion. Students were also urged to
select a section of the course that corresponded to their particular
interests. A broader array of options were made available, ranging
from sections of the traditional course to sections focusing on criminal
practice, public interest practice, law and morality, and civil litigation.
At the same time, Professor Walter Bennett, with the encouragement of Dean Judith Wegner, began experimenting with a significantly different instructional approach. Professor Bennett had joined the
law faculty in 1986 as a clinical supervising attorney after a number
of years as a practicing lawyer and trial court judge. He had
incorporated instruction in legal ethics in his clinical teaching and had
taught a section of the traditional professional responsibility course in
which he had incorporated a variety of supplemental readings and
other strategies for increasing the level of engagement within the
class. While he met with some success, he found that in the traditional classroom setting there remained among students a strong
resistance to discussion of moral and ethical problems beyond the
narrow context of professional rules. There seemed to be a learned
wariness toward value-laden issues and a belief that such issues only
confused legal thinking and hindered opportunities for success both
in law school and in the profession as a whole. Further, there seemed
to be among students either a lack of (or lack of ability to express) a
850
[Vol. 73
moral vision of their own lives and of their futures in the legal
profession and a cynicism about the moral stature of the profession
and their ability to change it.
During this same period, Dean Wegner began more intensive
efforts to work with practicing lawyers and judges to understand the
"professionalism problem" being discussed by both practicing lawyers
and legal educators across the country. Dean Wegner undertook a
number of initiatives on this theme, including use of oral history
techniques to understand the personal and professional development
of ninety-five-year-old alumna Katherine Robinson Everett, experimentation with mentoring programs that matched law students
and practicing lawyers, study of adult learning theory and its bearing
on successful approaches to continuing legal education, and commencement of empirical studies relating to lawyers' perceptions about
sources and responses to the problem of professionalism.
In 1992, Professor Bennett and Dean Wegner decided to try a
nontraditional approach to teaching law students about the values of
the profession. After consulting with other members of the law
faculty and with UNC faculty members in the Department of History,
Professor Bennett developed a seminar in the "Oral History of
Lawyers and Judges." The seminar has now been offered on four
occasions, with quite extraordinary results.
As originally conceived, students enrolled in the seminar
undertake field work in gathering oral histories of selected North
Carolina lawyers and judges. Students are instructed in the techniques of gathering and maintaining oral histories, drawing on the
expertise of UNC history faculty. Each student selects a lawyer or
judge of particular interest to him or her, keeps a journal of reflections and experiences, researches and interviews that individual, helps
refine tapes and transcripts for deposit in UNC's Katherine R. Everett
Law Library and the UNC Southern Historical Collection, makes an
oral presentation to the class, and writes a seminar-quality paper on
the life story collected.
The seminar began with three basic goals: to expose students
first-hand to the lives and work of lawyers and judges; to engage
students in the real-life ethical and moral dilemmas of working
lawyers and judges as told by them; and to gather and store professional history and the life stories of members of the profession in
North Carolina. While the seminar achieved these objectives, it was
soon obvious to Professor Bennett that something much more
powerful was occurring as well. Student resistance to discussion of
values and moral issues, which had been so stultifying in the tradition-
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
al professiofial responsibility classroom, dissolved in the intimate

setting of the oral history interview. The interviews themselves and
the process of synthesis and critique that occurred afterward forced
students to look at their future in moral terms and engaged them in
a deep examination of the nature of the profession, their own reasons
for becoming lawyers, and their own moral stance vis-a-vis the person
they interviewed. Frequently the experience for the student was
inspirational and invigorating in terms of career and life purpose. In
every case, it was cause for serious reflection.
We believe that the key to this success is the intergenerational
connection in the oral history interview between the interviewing
student and the practicing or retired lawyer or judge. In that setting,
where the professional tells his or her life story, discusses parents,
ancestors and mentors, and relates hopes, aspirations and failures,
issues of personal morality and professional values naturally arise.
Interviewees discuss where they learned their values, what moral and
ethical qualities lawyers should possess, and the reasons for the
decline in ethical standards in the profession. It is almost impossible
for a student who takes his or her life and career seriously to see and
hear these matters discussed by a member of the profession without
engaging those issues personally.
Professor Bennett has also discovered that the tapes and
transcripts of the oral history interviews provide an excellent resource
for introducing ethical and professional value issues in continuing

legal education courses for practicing judges and lawyers. Hearifng the
voices and reading the words of their fellow lawyers and judges on
these very basic issues seems to encourage people attending CLE
courses to reflect more openly on issues of professional ethics and
values and to share opinions with their peers.
II. SELECTED LIVES: UNC LAWYERS IN SERVICE TO THE STATE
This essay provides an opportunity to turn the rich and growing

resource of oral history transcripts to yet another use-that of crafting
and sharing history itself. Indeed, this use is the more usual one for
histories such as these. Oral history techniques have been used in
recent years by historians as a way of recreating events, or at least
capturing perceptions of key events that have shaped our lives and
times. Such techniques are particularly useful in portraying events not
generally captured by means of a paper record. Professor Jacquelyn
Hall and her colleagues involved in the Southern Oral History
Program at UNC have used such techniques with great success, for
[Vol. 73
example, in their prize-winning study of mill town life in North

Carolina, Like a Family. While lawyers are in many ways members
of a "public profession," their private thoughts and insights are often
veiled from view in the interests of their clients. They are often
observers of critical events in the personal lives of their clients and
the public life of their day. Within the constraints of confidentiality,
much can be learned of history by tapping their insights.
The life stories that follow are drawn from student interviews that
sought to tap those insights about lawyers' and judges' own personal
and professional lives, rather than about those of their clients.
Student interviewers spend at least two sessions with an interviewee,
inquiring about a host of topics: their background and training
(ancestors, parents, childhood influences, education, teachers, law
school, mentors); lawyers' work; judges' work; what makes a good
lawyer or judge; professionalism; sources of character and values;
issues of gender and race; thoughts on balancing personal and
professional lives; failures, flaws, and critical events; the image of the
profession; pride in the profession; memorable cases or events; and
war stories of various sorts. Interview transcripts may exceed 100
pages. Of necessity, the stories that follow can touch only a few high
points. They are framed to capture critical themes and insights and
to illuminate the development and values of those discussed. Much
more lies preserved in the tapes and full-blown transcripts, available
for further study and for future generations.
Thirteen lawyers and judges are profiled here, in alphabetical
order: Robert Mayne Albright, Judge George Foust Bason, Judge
Dexter Brooks, James K. Dorsett, Jr., Judge Franklin T. Dupree,
Justice Henry Ell Frye, James C. Fuller, Ellen W. Gerber, Judge
Patricia Hunt Love, Robert L. McMillan, Jr., Justice Burley B.
Mitchell, Jr., Wade M. Smith, and Judge Gregory A. Weeks. Each
has contributed in a different way to the public life of the
state-through service as a judge, private practitioner, public
defender, corporate attorney, legislator, legal aid lawyer, prosecutor,
criminal defense lawyer, litigator, civil rights lawyer, or architect of
law reform. Each summary seeks to capture something of the forces

that shaped the subject's values and influenced his or her life's work;
each also includes some important observations in the subject's own
words. We hope that these brief life histories and other future
publications featuring other lawyers and judges will intrigue and
inspire you. Reflect on the lives of these lawyers and the way those
lives were shaped by the School of Law. Remember, along with the
storytellers, and enjoy.
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A "PROGRAM FOR PROGRESS"

Robert Mayne Albright was born in Raleigh on April 5, 1910,
and grew up in and around Raleigh. His mother was one of the few
women he knew who had a college education (she graduated from
Women's College in Greensboro) and was a great dreamer and lover
of books. She instilled in him a reverence for education and the
virtue in helping those less fortunate than oneself Though Albright's
father was not as highly educated as his mother, he also had a
reverence for education. He was a skilled writer and helped his son
learn how to write and to speak publicly. He also instilled in Albright
ideals of high achievement and service to the state and to others.
In Raleigh, Albright grew up in close proximity to the state
government and people who worked in it. He developed a great
respect for the workings of government and a belief that he could
help people. He went to college at UNC and described UNC as
being a hot bed of political activism when he was an undergraduate.
Dr. Frank Porter Graham was there, and Albright credits the
influence of Dr. Graham and the University of North Carolina with
shaping his political ambitions and ideology.
Albright felt Chapel Hill was a great training ground "in the nuts
and bolts of political activity, both in the schools, in the classroom, in
the campus organizations, and the opportunities that you have to
participate in real politics." He served as secretary and later as
president of the student body while he was there. He formed the
UNC chapter of the Young Democrats Club of America, and
members of that group, including Albright, were allowed to attend the
National Democratic Convention when Franklin Roosevelt was first
nominated for President.
The Roosevelt presidency also had a great impact upon
Albright's political outlook and ambitions. He felt that Roosevelt's
New Deal "was a marvelous program that came along and touched all
ROBERT MAYNE ALBRIGHT:
phases of political, social, and economic life. .
. [H]aving an
opportunity to work with it and watch it develop and see what it was
is enough to inspire you to at least try in politics."
Albright described Dr. Frank Porter Graham as "a small rather
unkempt figure with a wonderful personality and mind, completely
unselfish and dedicated to the state and the nation and the individual
citizens. He was an inspiration for more people than anybody I know
of unless it was FDR." Albright said further of Graham:
He could have done anything and did not want any honor at
all. A more modest man never lived than he did. But a
[Vol. 73
more faithful public servant would be hard to find than...

Dr. Frank. I think I was most fortunate in being very close
to him through my undergraduate years and graduate years
both in Chapel Hill and in knowing him there.
Albright attended law school at UNC and graduated in 1936 at
the age of twenty-six. He was then appointed to the position of
Director of the North Carolina State Employment Service. At that
time, he was the youngest director of such a state agency in the
United States. He was in charge of 500 people scattered throughout
seventy-five offices around the state. He describes his work as
"matching jobs with men."
Albright left that job in 1942 for the United States Army. He
served as an officer in Europe in the civilian personnel division of the
Army, working with the supply, classification, and training of troops.
He also acted as an intermediary between the Allied military
government and the Italian government established by the Allies in
opposition to Mussolini. He was decorated by the new Italian
government and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the army,
receiving four battle stars during his stay in the army from 1942 until
1946.
When he returned to the United States, Albright resumed his
post as the Director of the North Carolina State Employment Service
and stayed there approximately a year. In 1947, he married Miss
Frances Stanley.
Both Albright and his wife joined the United World Federalists
Organization. The slogan of that organization-which counted a
number of prominent North Carolinians as members-was "world
peace through world law." Albright was the North Carolina director
of the group in 1947. He said of his work in the group: "Its ultimate
purpose and aim, of course, is world peace and how it can be brought
about. And law can do a great deal about bringing it about, and
does, I think. [The group] encouraged the ideal of world law."
In 1948, Albright decided to run for Governor. To do this, he
had to challenge powerful party bosses and the state political
machine. As described by Albright, Furnifold Simmons and 0. Max
Gardner were running the political machine in the state at the time.
Albright wrote a number of articles for the State magazine attacking
Max Gardner and the Simmons "machine." His main target was the
old, back-room politics method of selecting gubernatorial and other
candidates handled by the political machine.
Albright's campaign slogan was "Program for Progress." He
urged public debate on all issues, a higher salary for teachers and
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greater investment in the state education system, a state minimum

wage law, wider coverage of workmen's compensation and unemployment compensation, repeal of the anti-closed-shop law, and a
comprehensive health program. He campaigned by hitching a trailer
to the back of his car, and he and his wife traveled to every county in
the state. Soon he adopted the additional campaign slogan, referring
to his trailer: "Hitched to no machine."
Of the 1948 campaign, Albright said, "It was the impossible
dream, but it was worth trying. And we gave it a good try.... We
covered the state thoroughly and met all the kinds of people there
are. There are all varieties here. It was a marvelous experience."
Albright also spoke about espousing liberal causes in the campaign:
"There's always been a liberal streak in North Carolina. It's always
been secondary to the main one, but it's kept the main one honest,
and it's kept them moving forward." Albright also felt that his
campaign brought a lot of young people into politics for the first time
and that "his greatest contribution for the state political history was
to bring eager young people, mostly Democrats, into the political light
of the state."
After the gubernatorial campaign, Albright entered the practice
of law at age thirty-eight with the Raleigh law firm of Arendell,
Albright & Green, and continued to practice law for thirty-four years.
He spent a good deal of his time as an attorney representing some of
North Carolina's trade associations and, particularly, architects. He
authored the bill that made it possible to create trade corporations in
North Carolina. Albright felt that this bill went a long way toward
improving professional practice among a number of professions,
including architects, engineers, contractors, and veterinarians. For his
efforts in that area, he was awarded the Jefferson Lauriat Award by
the North Carolina Association of Professions in 1979.
Albright was also active in lawyers' professional organizations.
He was president of the Wake County Bar Association, and he feels
that through the work of such professional associations, the standards
of the professions are raised and maintained. He strongly endorsed
the ethical codes of the professions and urged lawyers to support and
heed the Code of Conduct governing the bar.
Part of Albright's work during this time was with the American
Civil Liberties Union; he helped to found the North Carolina Chapter
of the ACLU. Almost all of his ACLU-related legal work was pro
bono and focused largely on racial integration of churches and
schools. As a result of that work, he received the W. W. Finlater
[Vol. 73
Award in 1986 from the Wake County Chapter of the North Carolina
Civil Liberties Union.
During the racial turmoil of the 1950s and '60s, Albright was
frequently in the forefront. He was one of the first persons to speak
out publicly in support of the Brown v. Board of Education decision,
and he did so in front of a large audience at Broughton High School
in Raleigh. His statement was considered bold at the time, and he
believed it had a calming influence on some of the feelings of the
people who were there. He was instrumental in raising money
(through his church in Raleigh) to establish the Malcolm X Liberation
University in Durham, an enterprise that ultimately failed. Albright
saw it as a good way to provide equal opportunity for black North
Carolinians and to promote a "peaceable world." He was also a
member of the Urban Crisis Committee in Durham during the 1960s,
a group formed in a number of southern communities in an effort to
improve relations between the races by working primarily through
churches and schools.
In 1963 Albright ran for Congress in the Fourth Congressional
District against Congressman Harold C. Cooley. He recollected that
Cooley was a thirty-year veteran of Congress who was hard to beat
and had unlimited money. Albright espoused the liberal principles of
tolerance and public service, and again he felt that he brought a lot
of young people into the political process who would not have been
there otherwise. Once again, he lost.
Albright has been a very devoted alumnus of UNC-Chapel Hill.
He was the first chairman of UNC's Annual Giving Campaign, the
fund that is now the Carolina Fund. In 1985, as a result of his
dedication and work for the University, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal from UNC for his lifetime devotion.
Albright had a few words to say about lawyers and public service:
Albright: [T]he commitment to public service has been
growing generally throughout the whole population, and the
lawyers of course have had their part of it. They haven't
been outstanding. They haven't been the great leaders of
the liberal part of it, but some of them have been. All of
them have moved forward a great deal from where we were.
The law is not a liberal profession, exactly.
I mean, you don't look to the lawyers for great liberal
leaders. The general bulk of lawyers are more conservative.
It's a rather conservative profession. It feels it has a role in
conserving the values that we have and does not want to experiment. There's always been a streak in North Carolina
of lawyers who were more liberal than most and who
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
colored the water. They influenced the general times. [0.

Max] Gardner was one. [John C.B.] Ehringhaus was one to
a limited degree. Of course Jim Hunt, Terry Sanford are
conspicuous examples of those that moved ahead of the legal
profession.
Interviewer: What do you feel are some of the reasons why
lawyers often defend the conservative tradition? Do you
think it's due to legal training or law school?
Albright: No, I think it's because money plays such an
important part in liberal movements.... I don't mean you
don't have wealthy liberal leaders particularly. But I mean,
there are the money issues that attract the lawyers, and
[those] issues are not always liberal issues by any manner or
means. We've moved slowly. I think we've moved along
well in North Carolina. I'm proud of our North Carolina
record generally, but we have been a conservative state.
Today, Albright is in his eighties. He is still revered among the
older liberals in the state who were active in the 1950s and '60s during
the civil rights days as one of the pioneers in pushing progressive
ideas and as one of the leading disciples of Frank Porter Graham.
JUDGE GEORGE FOUST BASON: CHAMPION OF CHILDREN
George Foust Bason provided remarkable service as a juvenile

court judge in Wake County and was probably the leading juvenile
court judge in the state over the last ten to fifteen years. He is now
retired and living in Raleigh.
Bason was born on February 9, 1926, into an old North Carolina
family. His mother was Hannah Ashe, and through her, he is a
descendant of Samuel Ashe, who wrote the opinion in Bayard v.
Singleton.2 Bason grew up in the home of his grandfather, S. A.
Ashe, who was a lawyer who practiced little, spending most of his
time as a newspaper editor and historian. There is a monument to S.
A. Ashe on the State Capitol Square. He was the last surviving
commissioned officer of the Civil War and lived to be ninety-seven
years old.
Judge Bason is characterized by commendable modesty. In
describing his family and its history in North Carolina, he said that
2. 1 N.C. 5 (1787). This was one of the earliest cases in United States history in
which the provisions of a state statute were challenged as contrary to a state constitution.
By ruling in favor of the North Carolina Constitution, Samuel Ashe and the North
Carolina Supreme Court established the principle of judicial review in North Carolina
fifteen years before Marbury v. Madison established it in federal constitutional law.
[Vol. 73
though he grew up learning a lot about his family, he "tried to turn

it all off because it is not good for a young person. It's something to
be proud of, but it can cause wrong attitudes." Bason went to
Broughton High School and upon graduation entered the Navy and
took tests to qualify for Officer Candidate School during World War
II. As part of his training as an officer, Bason was sent to Georgia
Tech to study engineering and was commissioned as an officer after
the end of the war. Thereafter, he was discharged from the Navy and
transferred his college credits to the University of North Carolina.
At UNC Bason changed his focus to pre-law and law. He earned
his bachelor's degree in 1949 from Chapel Hill and his law degree in
1951. Thereafter, he clerked for Judge Don Gilliam, who was the
only federal court judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
After clerking with Judge Gilliam, Bason went into practice with
James H. Pou Bailey (later, Judge Pou Bailey) in the firm of Bailey
& Bason. Though they were very different people, George Bason and
Pou Bailey had a mutual respect for each other. Pou Bailey was
quoted in a newspaper article concerning his old law partner:
"George is a person of almost infinite patience. He also has got more
concern for people-as-people than any other person that I have ever
known."
When the court reorganization occurred in North Carolina in
1966, five district court judgeships opened up in Wake County. In
1968, George Bason ran for one of the positions. He was elected, and
thereafter Chief Justice R. Hunt Parker of the North Carolina
Supreme Court appointed him Chief District Court Judge. As was
the practice at the time, all of the district's judges rotated through the
various civil and criminal courts. For the first six years that he was
a judge, Bason did the same thing. However, after experience in
juvenile court, Judge Bason determined that it would better serve
children if judges with a particular interest in juvenile court remained
there. Judge Bason took himself out of the rotation to other courts
and began doing all of the juvenile court work in Wake County.
Because of the emotional toll juvenile court takes on judges, this was
quite an undertaking for one person.
There was much work to be done, and Judge Bason pursued it
with remarkable energy and persistence. He soon found there was a
serious inadequacy of mental health facilities for children in Wake
County. Dorothea Dix Hospital had an adolescent unit by 1976, but
there were only ten beds there. He began to see in juvenile court a
never-ending procession of children with special needs and no way to
deal with them. As a result, many of the children languished in
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detention facilities with no treatment component. Judge Bason

appointed attorneys to represent those children so they would at least
have their day in court. Though he pushed state and county agencies
to provide appropriate treatment, because there were still virtually no
treatment facilities available, he eventually, "in despair," had to send
many of the children to training school. However, he did not rest

with this solution.
Judge Bason called a press conference in his courtroom for two
o'clock one Monday afternoon to decry the lack of treatment facilities
for juveniles. (He picked Monday afternoon because the General
Assembly did not come back into town in Raleigh until eight o'clock
Monday evening, and court reporters were looking for something to
do on Monday afternoon.) This ploy gave him the exposure he
wanted, and his message was delivered to the citizens of Raleigh in
the Tuesday morning papers. His action eventually resulted in a
legislative initiative that addressed the problem of lack of treatment
facilities for children across the state. Unfortunately, the bill died in
committee.
Having failed adequately to address the problem through his own
judicial powers and the state legislature, Judge Bason took a bold and
imaginative step for a state district court judge: He persuaded a
group of attorneys to institute a class action suit against the state to
force the state to provide treatment for disturbed children. The result
of this endeavor was the famous Willie M. case,3 which was brought
against the State of North Carolina in Federal District Court in
Charlotte before Judge James B. McMillan. Based upon the woeful
lack of treatment facilities for juveniles, the state eventually settled
the case, and the Willie M. program was initiated to provide residential and non-residential treatment for children who were mentally ill,
retarded, or emotionally disturbed and who had an accompanying
behavior disorder characterized by aggressive conduct.
Another innovative action taken by Judge Bason as a juvenile
court judge was his ordering the county to pay the cost of treatment
in an out-of-state institution for a child when the county and the state
failed to provide appropriate treatment. He based this action upon
his authority to order the state or county to provide or pay for
appropriate treatment for a child when the parents themselves were
financially unable to do so. Facilities for such treatment were often
3.
1982).
Willie M. v. Hunt, 90 F.R.D. 601 (W.D.N.C. 1981), aff'd, 681 F.2d 818 (4th Cir.
860
[Vol. 73
very expensive. The county appealed his order to the North Carolina
Supreme Court, and Judge Bason was eventually reversed, though
there were strong dissenting opinions.
During Jim Hunt's first term as Governor, Judge Bason was
instrumental in passage of a bill setting up the Juvenile Code Revision
Committee to rewrite the juvenile code for the State of North
Carolina. Judge Bason was appointed by the Governor to chair that
committee. The resulting revisions were among his best work. The
new North Carolina Juvenile Code was a great advance over the old
version and, when it was adopted, was a very progressive code for its
time. One of the most important features of the code was the
prescription that juvenile court judges impose the least restrictive,
appropriate treatment for the juvenile. Only after all other options
had either failed or were found to be clearly inappropriate could a
delinquent juvenile be detained in a training facility. The impulse of
some juvenile judges to use incarceration as the "easy" solution was
ended. Judge Bason continued his diligent work in juvenile court for
many years, serving as the principal judge handling juvenile cases in
Wake County from 1974 until he retired on September 1, 1991, at the
age of sixty-three.
Judge Bason admits that the time he spent as a juvenile court
judge took an emotional toll. He explains one of the situations which
led to his retirement:
One very traumatic experience was in the '80s, early '80s.
I had an occasion to put a young black boy in a detention
home-I can't remember if it was pre-trial or after the
hearing and waiting for some disposition alternatives to
appear-anyway, he wasn't stable.... And he attempted
suicide by hanging. His defense attorney, a very outstanding
woman, and I tried very hard to get him transferred to the
adolescent unit out at Dorothea Dix where they had suicide
precautions. *Theydenied him admission, even after a fresh
suicide attempt. Two days later, he succeeded.... Anyway,
that had a profound effect on me.
Judge Bason's compassion made him an outstanding judge, but the
toll it took on him emotionally led eventually to his decision to step
down as a juvenile court judge.
Judge Bason received a number of awards for his work on the
bench. In 1990, he was recognized by the Governor's Advocacy
Council on Children and Youth as one of the state's leading advocates
for children. He has also received the highest award given to judges
by the National Court Appointed Advocates through Wake County's
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Guardian Ad Litem Services. He was the first judge honored, on

November 2, 1990, for outstanding contributions to the needs of
children by the Friends of Black Children.
At the time of his interview, Judge Bason was serving on the
Board of the North Carolina Center on Crime and Punishment and
examining ways that organization could reduce the present prison

population. He also chaired a task force to study the developmentally
disabled in the adult criminal system and in the juvenile justice system
and to make recommendations for change. He has been the vicechair of the North Carolina Supreme Court Society, a group that
collects mementos associated with the Supreme Court of North
Carolina. He said of his work as a juvenile court judge: "I have had
a wonderful opportunity to do exactly what I wanted to do-the
opportunity to try to serve in what clearly is an area of need. I will
never regret it."
JUDGE DEXTER BROOKS: LOYALTY TO COMMUNITY, SERVICE TO
THE STATE
Judge Dexter Brooks, a Lumbee Indian and Superior Court judge

from Robeson County, North Carolina, was born on May 15, 1943, in
a very small community called Union Chapel, about five miles north
of Pembroke. His father taught at the Union Chapel School, and the
family resided in a home on property that was originally owned by a
man named John Brooks-a white man who was a soldier in the
Continental Army, and who had purchased the property with a
pension he received from his service in the Revolution.
The Brooks family moved into Pembroke shortly after Brooks
was born and lived next to a church called The Gospel Hall. The
pastor of that church was Venus Brooks, a first cousin of Dexter
Brooks. Judge Brooks described the family as "very close-knit." Two
uncles lived in the neighborhood as well as Reverend Venus Brooks.
There were a lot of other relatives in the area around Pembroke.
Judge Brooks described his mother as "amazing."
Back in those days, everybody was poor, and so you didn't
buy a lot of things from stores because you tried to produce
in some fashion pretty well everything you needed. For
example, my mom would can a lot of vegetables and tomato
juice and all kinds of foodstuffs. She would make her own
soap, and she would make a lot of jams and jellies. The
family would go huckleberry picking or hunting and we
would go out into the woods and pick these huckleberries
and she would make them.., into jam.
[Vol. 73
His mother was from a place called Saddle Tree, about ten miles from
Pembroke. She was raised on a farm and taught never to throw
anything away. He recalls that his maternal grandmother had several
grapevines on her farm, and the grandchildren were taught that when
they ate grapes, they were to save the hulls for use in jams.
During his childhood in the triracial community in Robeson
County, the schools were strictly segregated on the basis of race.
South of Brooks's community on Jones Street, there was a neighborhood of black people who attended a separate school, and across the
railroad tracks there was a neighborhood of white people who had
their own separate elementary school. Judge Brooks described life in
the triracial setting:
As far as social relationships between the people of different
races, they were generally quite limited. There was a little
between us and the black kids because they were right down
the street. And there was a Black church and an Indian
church that kind of backed up to each other. And there
were a lot of pine trees in the back of the Indian church.
And I remember sometimes playing with those little black
kids there under those pine trees.
Judge Brooks recalls that when he was growing up, there was
quite a bit of discrimination against Native Americans, and many jobs
and professions were closed to them: "People used to say that an
Indian could be a teacher, or a preacher, or a farmer. And you had
to find yourself, or fit yourself, into one of those categories as far as
your life's work." Later he began to hear about a category called a
"public worker," referring to people who were good at carpentry and
other odd jobs and who could hire themselves out to neighbors to
assist in building houses, barns, and outbuildings. However, during
his childhood it was unheard of for a Native American to think of
being a lawyer.
Judge Brooks recounts a story of the career limitations that
affected him as a child. He remembers a man named Brantly Blue,
a very prominent Lumbee Indian, who grew up in the town of
Pembroke, served in the Second World War, and thereafter attended
Pembroke State University and received a bachelor's degree. Blue
wanted to attend law school, so he wrote to the University of North
Carolina to apply for admission. He was told that Carolina did not
accept Native Americans. Blue had to leave the state to attend law
school, and never returned. Judge Brooks said this story was typical
of Native Americans seeking professional training in the first half of
1995]
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the twentieth century. As a result, Brooks' never met a Native

American lawyer or a judge when he was growing up.
The triracial community had some benefits. Judge Brooks
explained that the Lumbee Indians were able to insulate themselves
from discrimination in Pembroke because it was predominantly an
Indian community. However, if an Indian from Pembroke went to
Lumberton to a movie, he or she was required to sit upstairs, and
upstairs there were two sections-one for Blacks and one for Indians.
In the triracial community, even the segregated were segregated.
Judge Brooks's description of the Indian schools in his area
further illustrates the disadvantages he and other Native Americans
faced. Though his parents both taught in the public schools, his father
had not finished college and his mother had completed only the
eleventh grade. This kind of educational background was very
common among teachers in the Indian schools. He explained:
The reason for this is that the Indian schools back then were
quite poor, and they were basically only what the Indians
themselves could piece together. And because most people
worked on the land, they were not always able to attend
school. And so [my father] was even a little late getting
started to school because of the pressures on his family-his
dad's family-as far as poverty....
And in the Indian
schools back in those days, you could teach without having

a college degree. So it was kind of like bootstrapping. As
the Indian schools got better, the requirements for teaching
correspondingly increased.
Brooks performed well in high school, particularly in mathematics
and sciences. There was a good deal of emphasis on space
exploration and science education at the time, and he began to think
he might pursue an education in those areas. In addition, his father
took a keen interest in math and encouraged his son to pursue that
field. Because Brooks had visited North Carolina State University as
a member of the 4-H Club in his community, he became interested in
it as a place to attend college.
Brooks also considered Pembroke State University, the primarily
Lumbee Indian school in his community. Most Pembroke students

went there to prepare themselves to teach. He compared the catalogs
at Pembroke and North Carolina State and felt North Carolina State
had more to offer. It took some courage, however, to leave his
community at that time to go to school in Raleigh. He knew of no
one else who was planning to leave the community to attend college,
though he tried unsuccessfully to persuade an acquaintance to attend
[Vol. 73
North Carolina State with him. When he attended North Carolina

State, blacks were not admitted. Brooks found himself "one of two
brown faces" and the only Lumbee Indian on the campus. The only
other minority students were a few Asians.
Being such a small minority apparently helped. When asked
whether he experienced discrimination at North Carolina State while
he was there, he said:
No, not really. Although this was in the early to middle
'60s, and so it was at the height of the civil rights movement
there. I remember a lot of the business establishments on
Hillsborough Street would not serve blacks. I remember
one in particular ... where they were adamant about not
allowing black people to patronize their business. But I
guess being Indian ... there was just so few of us, I guess,
nobody was concerned about it.
Brooks graduated from North Carolina State in 1965 with a
degree in electrical engineering and volunteered for the Army. He
took basic training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and then artillery
training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He was assigned to the First Cavalry
Division and shipped out to Vietnam as a Private First Class. He says
of his service in Vietnam:
The conditions were quite hard. I mean, life was tough....
Sometimes you felt like an animal because of the dirt and
the grime and such. And then in the monsoon, that was
really bad.... I don't regret going, and I know there's a lot
of people didn't go. But I personally know that everybody
owes an obligation . . . to the community . . . or their
country.
While in Vietnam, Brooks decided he wanted to return to
graduate school in math rather than engineering. He wrote to a
professor at North Carolina State, was admitted and subsequently
enrolled. He completed a master's degree, and began work on his
doctorate. This was in the early '70s when the civil rights movement
and antiwar movement were very active on college campuses. The
Cambodian invasion occurred, and protesting students were slain at
Kent State. Brooks was very affected by all of this. He became more
aware of civil rights issues and, in particular, how they pertained to
Native Americans.
One of the events that sparked Brooks's interest most strongly in
the late 1960s was the protest-invasion of Alcatraz Island by a number
of Native Americans. One of them was a Lumbee Indian named
Dean Chavers. Brooks knew Chavers's family. The basis of the
1995]
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protest was the Indians' claim that the title to the island should have
reverted back to Native Americans when the government closed
Alcatraz Prison and ceased using the island. They also wanted to
start an Indian university on the island to study Native American
history and culture. The incident heightened Brooks's interest in his
own identity and heritage, and he began to study Native American
culture and history. He also began to recall stories that he had heard
as a child from his elders.
This process led Brooks to conclude that he was wasting time
studying math. What really interested him was his "Indianness." He
devised a plan to travel across the country and teach at various
schools, but he eventually realized that what he really wanted to do
was to return to Robeson County and work to improve the conditions
for people there. He dropped out of North Carolina State and got a
job teaching at Southeastern Community College in Whiteville, North
Carolina, the closest job he could find to Robeson County. He then
began to involve himself in some of the issues surrounding his people
and their heritage. He was particularly interested in a controversy
that developed at Pembroke State and in which he later took a part:
"Old Main" was the first brick building in the Indian
community. [It had been] a centerpiece in the Indian
culture because the funerals of leaders were held there, and
any time they had meetings to talk about important issues,
that was generally where they met. [And all] of the Indian
schools would converge on [Old Main at] Pembroke State
College and we would have all kinds of contests like athletic
contests, spelling contests, reading contests, math contests
.... So Lou Barton, who was an Indian historian, wrote an
article for the Robesonian, and it was entitled the
"Indianization of Pembroke State University." And when I
read that article, I saw that the point he was making is that
there seemed to be a conscious effort on the part of some
people to divorce the school from its roots or tradition, and
that's when I realized the importance of the building. Had
they been successful with its destruction, you, in effect,
would have been saying there was no real attachment of the
school anymore to the community and that there was no real
reason for the University to even memorialize any Indian
tradition at all. . .. For example, in '72, Jim Holshouser
came to Pembroke and he was running for governor on the
Republican ticket. . . . It was a very dramatic-a very
dramatic night. We had an overflow crowd.... I made a
speech that night, and I remember agonizing over what I
was going to say all day because back then I'd never
[Vol. 73
considered myself a very outgoing person.... So I remember when I spoke that night, the crowd was on its feet
chanting. It was an incredible feeling on my part, and I
remember after I spoke, Dennis Banks, who's one of the
founders of the American Indian Movement, he came up
and he spoke. And Dennis is very, very articulate and quite
the orator. And he gave this great speech, and then he gave
a challenge to Jim Holshouser, sort of to the effect, "Are
you willing to tell the people tonight that you are going to
work to save this building?"
And so Jim HoIshouser came up to the stage, and he
pledged to the group that if he were elected governor, that
Old Main would not be destroyed.
Brooks's interest in political change eventually led him to law
school. He was the first Native American to enter the UNC School
of Law, and the first to graduate. His real passion while he was in
law school was working on a project with Professor Barry
Nakell-work that enhanced the significance of what he was learning
in class because he was putting his knowledge to immediate use.
Brooks also tried to recruit other Lumbee Indians to come to the
UNC law school. Two of those he recruited were Arlie Jacobs and
Gary Locklear.
When asked whether he liked law school, he stated, "I did,
because I felt like I had finally found something that I really wanted
to do in the sense that I saw that the years I had put into studying the
political situation in Robeson County, learning the politics, I decided
that law was the ideal profession for me if I was going to effect any
kind of change."
Judge Brooks was asked about the values that he felt were
important for a lawyer or a judge. He responded:
The first is integrity. So many people in the legal profession
kind of lose their way. And I guess it's kind of like there is
so much pressure to succeed or so much pressure to win,
sometimes some people succumb to this idea of winning by
any means or winning at any cost. Maybe it's because we
see so much of that in society. I guess.., some people have
this philosophy in sports that winning is everything. I mean,
kids don't participate in sports simply to enjoy what they do.
They're driven to win.
So you take that kind of attitude and put it in the legal
profession, you can see people cutting corners. That's the
worst thing you can do because if an attorney loses his
reputation for integrity, he really has nothing left....
I've
always felt that the worst thing that could happen to
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somebody was that they lost a reputation or were perceived

as being dishonest. Because if you're litigating against a
person who you feel is dishonest.., there's no camaraderie.
And also, you never extend any courtesies. You know that
you can't trust the person, and you know that anything they
say can't be believed. So you hold a person like that at a
distance.
Brooks practiced law from 1976 until 1989, when he was
appointed Superior Court judge. He views his appointment as the
result of a compromise between former Governor Jim Martin, the
General Assembly, and the Lumbee community following the murder
of Julian Pierce, a Lumbee Indian who was running for Superior
Court judge. The Governor and General Assembly agreed to create
an additional judicial seat for the district and to appoint a Native
American to that seat.
Judge Brooks is a devout Christian. He said of his faith:
I would hate to be a judge and not be a Christian. And I'm
not saying that everybody has to be a Christian to be a
moral person. I'm very tolerant of religious beliefs. One of
the bedrock principles of Christianity is the doctrine of free
will, that you can't force that choice on a person. So, if a
person wants to be a Jew or a Muslim or Buddhist, you
know, I respect that decision.... I think that the essence of
Christianity is the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you."
Judge Brooks also discussed the changing racial dynamics in
Robeson County. He noted the desire and need of the Indian
community to maintain some racial identification and explained that
as the basis for the Native American preference for separate schools
and separate churches. He also noted the growth in opportunities for
Native Americans in Robeson County.
[T]here's more freedom in the country now. People feel
freer to talk to all kinds of different people, and there's
more communication between the various racial groups. I
know when I grew up as a kid in the town of Pembroke, you
had almost no contact with people of other races. If you
[have] more communication between the different groups,
you [have] more understanding in the way everybody thinks,
and so the mood can only improve, and if you know a
person and sit down and break bread with them, it's a little
harder to dislike them.
[Vol. 73
JAMES K. DORSETr, JR.: "IT IS POSSIBLE TO LIvE GREATLY IN

4
THE LAW"
James Dorsett was born on November 15, 1916, in Spencer,

North Carolina, where he lived until he was eleven years old. His
father was the owner of a small bank in Spencer, and Dorsett grew up
in the house that his father built. He talked about the grammar
school he attended in-Spencer and the emphasis there on doing your
schoolwork and on good behavior:
I believe that it's important to have instilled in you behavior
and courtesy and that school is a privilege and that you're to
take advantage of it. I might add that my mother had been
a Latin teacher. She was a strong believer in reading and in
studying and doing your homework.
Dorsett described his parents as being very devoted and kind and
said the family was very close. Both parents took pains to instill
values in the children:
I think they put very substantial effort toward inculcating in
both my sister and myself what they deemed to be very
important values. One that I quickly remember is they did
not believe in gossip. They emphasized that at our table.
We did not gossip. I think that has'been a helpful thing.
My mother, having been a teacher, believed strongly in the
value of reading. Both of us developed habits of reading a
good many books. Of course, in those days, in the summertime, in a small town, there was not too much in the way of
distraction. There was an opportunity to read books. My
father was a great believer in not exaggerating and not
falsifying in any way. I know he was constantly saying, "Do
not deviate from the truth, even if it hurts."
4. The quotation is taken from James K. Dorsett Jr.'s oral history interview and is
a slightly modified version of the original by Oliver Wendell Holmes in a speech to the
undergraduates of Harvard Univeristy on February 17, 1886, entitled "The Profession of
the Law." THE OCCASIONAL SPEECHES OF JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 29
(Mark DeWolfe Howe ed., 1962). The Holmes quote is worthy of repeating in context:
Of course, the law is not the place for the artist or the poet. The law is the
calling of thinkers. But to those who believe with me that not the least godlike
of man's activities is the large survey of causes, that to know is not less than to
feel, I say-and I say no longer with any doubt-that a man may live greatly in
the law as well as elsewhere; that there as well as elsewhere his thought may find
its unity in an infinite perspective; that there as well as elsewhere he may wreak
himself upon life, may drink the bitter cup of heroism, may wear his heart out
after the unattainable.
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Dorsett's parents also believed in the value of travel, and a trip

the family took out West when he was a child made a lasting impression upon him: "I think [travel] certainly livens your curiosity and
interest in different places, different types of people, particularly in
the West, just the beauty and rarity of the country, the mountains and
the great parks." He recalled his times in high school and later at
Davidson College as some of the happiest times of his life even
though, in some respects, they were the most trying because they
occurred during the Depression. He observed that the Depression
"promoted some understanding between people and consideration....
Because in those days when people were in [a] desperate
plight, they tended to reach out to each other and try to be helpful."
Dorsett talked a lot about the close community at Davidson
College, the close relationships between students and professors and
the professors' spouses and families. He was later a trustee of
Davidson for eleven years and in that position opposed Davidson
becoming co-ed. When the co-educational issue arose, his son, who
was a Davidson student, told him that he was wrong to oppose coeducation, that a number of students were leaving Davidson because
of that, and that his son was likely to be one of them. His son's
comments caused him to reconsider his position. He is now glad that
he did and that Davidson made the decision to admit women.
After Dorsett graduated from Davidson, he indulged his love for
travel with a trip to Europe. This was just before the outbreak of
World War II. Conditions in Europe made a lasting impression upon
him, particularly those in Germany where he observed that the
country had become very militaristic. He recalled sitting and talking
to some Jewish people in Vienna when members of the Gestapo-they were plain-clothed, but Dorsett now realizes that was what
they were-came and took the people away. He saw Hitler Youth
marching in Germany. He heard the chants of "I1 duce, il duce," at
the outdoor opera in Italy when Mussolini came dressed in his white
uniform decorated with ribbons and trappings. Dorsett found all of
this very frightening, fascinating, and at times infuriating (particularly
when the Gestapo took away the Jewish people). He left Europe
with a feeling that battles and wars lay ahead.
He was not certain he wanted to be a lawyer, but he decided to
go to law school with the idea that it seemed like a good option and
that if he didn't like it, he could quit. He did not like the grind of his
first year, but he liked his professors. He referred to the "great
seven" or "unmatchable seven," professors who had been at Carolina
for a long time and had the reputation of being outstanding teachers.
[Vol. 73
Dorsett does not think that law schools do a good job of teaching
ethics and professionalism to today's students. He believes his own
ideas on professionalism sprang from a jurisprudence course he took
at the law school from Dr. Frank Hanft:
[Dr. Hanft] was superb in everything he taught. It was a
course that really stimulated in me a strong pride in the legal
profession, going all through history and what it stood for.
We read in that course a great many of the opinions of the
great judges like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Cardozo and
Brandeis that I might not have read. It gave me an excitement about the profession and its importance and pride in
it that I might not have had without that.
After graduation, Dorsett took the bar and accepted an offer to
go to Washington, D.C., to work in the legal department of the
Southern Railway. He had just begun his job in Washington when
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He remembers hearing Franklin
Roosevelt's radio address following the attack. Dorsett held an
ROTC commission in the infantry from his days at Davidson, and the
day after Roosevelt's speech he received a telegram from the War
Department telling him to report to the infantry school at Fort
Benning, Georgia.
Dorsett recalled his training at Fort Benning as grueling. He was
a "hundred day wonder": up at four, four-thirty in the morning and
training hard all day in order to complete all basic training in a
hundred days. He graduated from infantry school in April of 1942
and went to Chicago for an intensive course in military intelligence.
He received a "top secret" clearance and was assigned to the Seventh
Corps. He did not know it at the time, but the Seventh Corps, as part
of the First Army, was already selected to be one of the corps to land
at Normandy. He joined his unit in early summer of 1942 and soon

shipped out for England on the Queen Mary, which had been
temporarily converted to a troop ship.
When he arrived in England, it was immediately obvious to
Dorsett that preparations for some unknown event were very intense.
He recalled events of Christmas Eve of that year (1942): "Those of
us who.., had top secret clearance were called by the General and
the Chief of Staff to a room where a huge map was unfurled and
where [we] took a pledge of honor to keep totally secret what [we]
were about to hear." When the map was unfurled, it showed that
there was to be an invasion of Normandy. Dorsett was made chief of
the counter-intelligence attachment for the Seventh Corps. He
crossed the English Channel in a landing craft and landed on the
1995]
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beach at Normandy. He later received a Bronze Star from the United

States Army and the Croix de Guerre from the French government
for his actions on D-Day.
Dorsett's unit also participated in the liberation of Paris. The
Seventh Corps went through Brussels and were the first American
troops to enter Germany through what he called the "secret line."
They ran out of gas near a little German town where the Battle of the
Bulge soon erupted. He recalled his unit going through Liepzig,
seeing the horror of some of the concentration camps, and finally
ending its march at the Elbe River with Russian troops on the other
side. Seeing the concentration camps had a profound effect on him:
It was really a feeling of absolute horror and disbelief I
remember in one that we went into and stayed awhile, just
simply looking through, there were-and this was still midspring-it was quite cold, and there were human bodies
stacked up in rows. I couldn't begin to tell you how many
bodies there were, but they were just simply out there
without any clothing whatever, frozen really because of the
weather. They were just like firewood, just piled one on top
of the other. It was so horrible that it was hard to just
absorb it in your emotions ....
But it really gave you a
feeling of horror and of hatred of the people who could have

done such a thing.
After the war, Dorsett intended to return to the Southern
Railway legal office in Washington, D.C. but was sidetracked by Dean
Maurice T. Van Hecke of the law school who persuaded him to talk
to Willis Smith in Raleigh who needed help in his law office. This
began Dorsett's association with what is now Smith, Anderson,
Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan, the firm that has been Dorsett's
professional home throughout most of his professional life.
Dorsett described the firm, which had five lawyers when he
joined, as a small firm by today's standards but large for the standards
of the time. He said of law practice in Raleigh:
It was a time when all of the lawyers knew each other well,
and you spent time talking with each other. There was, I
would say, a very high element of trust between lawyers that
you did many things, such as continuations, just on a
telephone call without going through legal documents. You
never had any worry about that. I think then because there
was less a sense of pressure that lawyers enjoyed each other
and enjoyed their practice more. At that time, the billing
was not strictly from the standpoint of billable hours. The
tempo was slower, and in the summertime in particular, it
[Vol. 73
was. But I think, too, that the lawyers knew the judges
better. You saw them more often, and there was just time
for more relaxed camaraderie than nowadays.
Dorsett stressed his view that this sort of closeness did not
interfere with quality or competency of representation. Rather, he
felt that lawyers' ability to get along with each other and with judges
in a more congenial manner made lawyering a better profession and
served clients better.
Dorsett noted the influence upon him of his elder colleagues in
the profession. He spoke in particular of Willis Smith, who had been
president of the North Carolina Bar Association and later became the
only North Carolinian to be president of the American Bar Association. Smith was a great believer in careful preparation and strong
ethical practice, and Dorsett feels that he was well tutored by Smith
and local judges and other senior partners in his law firm on how to
be a lawyer and maintain the standards of the profession. Dorsett
credited two other members of the firm who were senior partners,
Oscar Leach and John Anderson, both graduates of UNC law school,
as important teachers. Leach "was just a man of the strongest ethics
and a sense of seeking what was right, how something should be done,
and how it should come out in fairness to everybody. He was a good
tutor in that way." He credits John Anderson with teaching him how
to be an excellent litigator.
Dorsett also credits his father's emphasis on honesty with serving
him well as a professional:
I think it is an eternally valuable principle. And it was then,
it is now, and I trust always will be, because it's been my
experience at least that if your fellow lawyers or any person
that you are dealing with, whether they are on the other side
or not, that if they find that you do not mislead and you do
not falsify and that you will abide by what you agree to, that
it oftentimes not only promotes reaching a solution, but it
saves a great deal of time. Now of course ... everyone
encounters some people that are just adversarial by nature

and they aren't interested in factors like that and they're just
trying to run roughshod. But I think that [honesty] was and
is an important quality for all lawyers.
Dorsett believes that the principle of honesty and straightforwardness also helps in dealing with clients and impressing upon clients
the necessity to be truthful in their own accounts:
[A] lawyer must always have and preserve a certain degree
of independence from his client. It's not his mission to
humor a client or tell his client what the client may want to
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hear. Because certainly there are clients many, many times

who have a completely overboard interpretation of their
rights and of the wrongs, the assumed wrongs, of the people
on the other side. There are also ones who have motives
that go beyond the point of justice and fairness. And I think
it is not that this is always an easy thing. But I think it's
very important to try to calmly but clearly give your client
your true version of a case, of its rights and wrongs and of
its probabilities of success. And I do believe that following
that course preserves your own integrity and your duty as a
lawyer-it preserves some independence. Because you are,
after all, a member of the bar. And you are, that important
phrase, an officer of the court. I think clients do-certainly
the clients you want to have and keep-respect you for that.
Dorsett was a corporate lawyer in the truest sense, representing
business and business interests, not only across the state but nationally
and internationally. He was an executive vice president and general
counsel of Wachovia, and represented other banks as well. He was
also general counsel for the Flu-Cured Tobacco Cooperative and
believes that one of his main accomplishments in that capacity was
negotiating with tobacco companies a stabilization system to avoid
tobacco surplus and fluctuating prices.
Dorsett spoke very powerfully and poignantly about ethics and
the teaching of ethics. He lamented the shifting image of lawyering
from being a profession to being a trade. He said, "That's a
dangerous shifting because our whole obligations and our code of
ethics are based on being a profession." He expressed concern about
billable hours and the tendency in law firms to run up hours unnecessarily, particularly through abuse of the discovery system. He was
also very concerned about the image of the profession.
I think very few of the American people have a real
understanding of the role of lawyers and ... how essential
it is to carrying out a democratic society and having a system

of legislatures and congresses we have and just what
lawyers-not that they're perfect by any matter or
means-but what they have truly contributed to our whole
democratic system and its preservation in this country. It's
just immense. And I think that there are of course those
that do fully understand it. But by and large, many do not.
Sometimes I get in a little joust with people about the
thing of criticizing lawyers. I say, "Well, I want you to think
about something. I want you to sit down quietly and just
ask yourself, 'suppose we had no lawyers and no judges,
what would our country be like?' Would you like to live in
[Vol. 73
that kind of country?" And if you say, "Well, I still don't

like the system," then my question is, "What system would
you propose to take its place and what country in the world
has a better system, even with its imperfections?" And it's
a little bit like the jury system. We all know there are
miscarriages of justice, some of them by judges and by juries
and some misunderstandings. But by and large, no one has
come up with a better system.
Dorsett also believes that the adversarial nature of lawyers' work
makes attention to civility and courtesy among lawyers particularly
important and requires lawyers to balance their work with a sense of
fairness and reason:
I believe, too, that the more we can emphasize this
thing of civility toward each other and fairness, that we
really will enjoy our practice more, and we will ultimately
benefit our clients more. Because... [t]he thing about the
law that oftentimes is not properly understood and is in
great contrast to medicine-the doctor after all, when he has
a patient in a case, he is not in an adversarial position at all.
And he is dealing almost in a mysterious field, where the
patient knows essentially nothing about medicine, and they
just tend to take whatever he says; whereas most individuals
think they know right much about the law and have strong
ideas about it.... [I]t's just part of the system of justice to
have the adversarial sides presented to that impartial judge.

But it can stir a lot of emotions, and there are a lot of clients
who carry those emotions with them. They dislike lawyers
on the other side, and they dislike their opponents on the
other side without realizing that the role of the law, when
you think about it in all its phases, is to be the mediator of
very controversial difficult questions and issues. That's our
job. That's why it's so important that we come to it with a
sense of fairness and broadmindedness.
Dorsett ended the interview by referring back to the jurisprudence course he had at Carolina, which had such a tremendous effect
upon him. He said:
I would like to mention two sayings that have always
stuck in my mind. Again, I'm grateful for that course in
jurisprudence, because it broadened my thinking about the
law and gave me a pride in it. Again, I would urge that the
colleges, the law schools, try to emphasize that. Because
that will stick in the minds and emotions of lawyers. They
will have a sense we are a part of something that has gone
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on for many, many centuries and without which the great

things would not have been accomplished.
The two [sayings] that I was thinking about-again,
going back to that course-Justice Oliver Holmes said, "It
is possible to live greatly in the law." And then the one I
have often used because I think it is so true and so sweeping, and this is... from Dean Roscoe Pound. He said, "The
law is the greatest inheritance that the sovereign people
have. Because without the law, there would be no inheritance and no sovereign people." Anyone who will think
on that point will realize that the law has a great obligation
and deserves understanding and respect.
JUDGE FRANKLIN T. DUPREE: DOING JUSTICE "REGARDLESS OF
WHERB THE CHIPs FALL"
Franklin Dupree was born on October 8, 1913, and raised in

Angier, North Carolina, a town twenty miles south of Raleigh. He
lived in Angier until he was fifteen years old, when he left to attend
his last year of high school in Buies Creek because there were only
eleven grades available in Angier. Dupree then attended the
University of North Carolina and graduated in 1933. He searched for
a job teaching school or digging ditches or anything he could find, but
there was nothing to be had because of the Depression. In August of
1933, he talked to his father, who was a lawyer in Angier, about going
to law school. His father said that if Dupree was sure that was what
he wanted to do, "I'll stake you to it." Tuition at the UNC School of
Law was seventy-five dollars a semester, but that was a big expense
for someone in the 1930s in Angier.
Judge Dupree described his father and grandfather as genuinely
self-made men. His grandfather had been a businessman running a
sawmill and a gristmill, and his father helped run those businesses for
Dupree's grandfather. The two of them also ran a cotton gin. Judge
Dupree's father never attended grammar school. He attended high
school when he was twenty-one years old, then went on to the
University of North Carolina School of Law for two years, took the
bar examination, and became a lawyer. He practiced law for fifty-five
years in Angier. Judge Dupree described his father's relation to the
town:
He became something of a patriarch. Everybody knew him
and relied on him. He was just a good solid citizen. And he

had an opportunity to come to Raleigh and join a big firm
here, and he turned it down because he wanted to be a
lawyer for all those people, and that's what he did.
[Vol. 73
After Dupree graduated from law school, he went to work with

his father. Because it was during the Depression era, he said, there
was really nowhere else to go. He handled collection work for his
father for a couple of years, and when his father decided to open a
branch office in Dunn, Dupree went there. The idea was that he
would soon become self-sustaining there, but there was very little
business in Dunn. Judge Dupree described these as very hard times
for lawyers, and particularly lawyers just starting out like himself,
because few people had any money to hire a lawyer. Lawyers' bills
for fees, as well as other debts, went unpaid. Judge Dupree described
an incident that occurred when he was practicing law in Dunn that
illustrates the prevailing attitude toward personal debts during the
Depression. He was stopped at a filling station to fill his tank and
one of the more affluent citizens of Dunn came up, put his foot on
Dupree's running board and said, "Dupree, somebody was telling me
that when anybody sends you a bill, you haven't got any better sense
than to send him a check for it."
The Dunn project failed, and Dupree went back to Angier to
help his father and his father's partner. His father suggested that
Dupree might be interested in insurance defense work. He referred
Dupree to A.J. Fletcher, a lawyer in Raleigh, and Fletcher got
Dupree an interview with Colonel Dautry, head of the Atlanta office
of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company. Dupree bundled
up his bride-to-be and her sister, who went along as a chaperon.
They boarded Dupree's Ford coupe and went to Atlanta where he
interviewed with Colonel Dautry. Dautry told him that what he really
needed to do was to return to Raleigh and work for Mr. Fletcher's
law office, and he sent Dupree back to tell Fletcher that. Dupree and
Fletcher struck an agreement whereby Fletcher would begin to give
Dupree some of his work. One thing then led to another as Fletcher
started to give him more and more work. Gradually Dupree worked
his way into the practice of law with Fletcher.
Apparently this occurred more through surprise than planned
advancement. Judge Dupree recalled an incident when, as part of his
work for Fletcher, he was watching court calendars for Fletcher to tell
Fletcher when cases were calendared for trial. Dupree returned to
the office from court to tell Fletcher that a case was coming up on the
calendar and would soon be called. He offered to go down to the
courthouse and wait until the case was called so that he could inform
Fletcher and Fletcher would not have to lose valuable time waiting in
court. Dupree went to court and when he returned to the office to
tell Fletcher that the case was set for eleven o'clock, Fletcher said,
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"That's fine, you go down there and try it and let me know how it
comes out." And that's what Dupree did.
Dupree continued the relationship with Fletcher until 1943, when
he went into the service during World War II. He was characteristically understated about the details of his military service but had what
he called "a very distinguished career." He was in the Navy in World
War II, serving in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and rose to the
levels of ship executive officer and navigator.
As an executive officer in and around England and Scotland, he
was second-in-command of a flotilla of ships, moving them in and out
of harbor for repair and dry dock. He also had fairly extensive
service in the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to Midway, to Guam, and to
Okinawa. He spent much of his time supplying fire support from
ships to infantry who were on the beaches. He witnessed kamikaze
attacks and was off the coast of Japan when the first atomic bomb
was dropped.
After the war, Dupree resumed his work for Mr. Fletcher and
stayed there until 1948 doing exclusively Fletcher's work. He also
began to take over as the lawyer for some of the businesses which
Fletcher was starting. This legal work expanded rapidly, and in 1955
it was necessary for Dupree to take on a partner, G. Earl Weaver.
Additional partners were added and by the time Dupree left the firm
in 1970, the firm had six lawyers.
Judge Dupree said that his family had always been Republicans,
dating back to before the Civil War, when they were avowed
abolitionists. His great-grandfather voted for Abraham Lincoln and
had to do so by write-in ballot because in 1860 Abraham Lincoln was
not on the ballot in North Carolina. When the vacancy for a federal
judgeship came open in 1970, Judge Dupree said,
[it happened that... Mr. Nixon, a sometime Republican,
had been elected to the Presidency, and so I put my name
in the pot for this position. And one day when everybody
was looking the other way, I reckon somebody made a
mistake and appointed me, which resulted in that commission which you see up there, which is signed by the said Mr.
Nixon.
Actually, the appointment process was quite involved. There
were many meetings of Republicans in North Carolina, presided over
by Jim Holshouser (a UNC law school alumnus who later became
Governor) to decide upon a nominee. Senator Sam Ervin introduced
nominee Dupree to the Senate Judiciary Committee. After he was
appointed, the new judge wasted little time getting to work. The
[Vol. 73
swearing-in ceremony and the luncheon that followed were held at the
Raleigh Civic Club on top of the Sir Walter Hotel. Judge Dupree
participated in the festivities, speech-making, and glad-handing for a
while, then finally stood up and said, "As a citizen and taxpayer, I
don't think a federal judge ought to be down here wasting time and
money. I'm going to work." He left for his office and signed his first
order that afternoon.
Judge Dupree talked about why he became a judge and what he
likes about the job:
I had done everything [as a lawyer] that I was ever going to
do. I was just doing the same thing over and over again. I
could draw pleadings off the top of my head in all the stuff
that I was doing without ever looking at a statute book or
anything and just cite them book-by-book and page, if
necessary. And it was just old. It was a good living. I was
doing all right. Well, you don't get rich practicing defense
law, and that's what I did. But, I was sort of living out what
Dean Van Hecke told me when I was a freshman in law
school over there. He said, "You will work hard, live well,
and die poor." The only thing that remains for me to do,
which in the light of the present condition of my exchequer,
the only thing I have failed to do is to die poor. But when
I die, I will be poor. But I have worked hard, and I have
lived well, and one of the finest things about this position-the thing that I treasure more than everything else put
together-I don't care anything about whether people regard
you as being a judge; that doesn't mean anything to me.
The thing that has meant so much to me has been the
opportunity that it has afforded me to associate on a daily
basis with young men and young ladies.., and it's been just
a completely rejuvenating process. And for me it's been an
entirely different world that I have enjoyed separate and
apart from the law practice."
Judge Dupree said of his work as a judge and his work as a trial
lawyer, "When I go in the courtroom, I feel like I am at home. And
I love juries. I love jury trials. And I love the court family." He
ascribed to his father and to A.J. Fletcher, with whom he practiced
for so many years, the roles of mentors in teaching him how to
practice law and manage cases.
Though he was active in Republican politics and served as
Chairman of the Republican Party in Wake County before becoming
a judge, he said that it makes very little difference, ultimately,
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whether someone is Republican or Democrat when he becomes a

federal judge:
That doesn't make a lot of difference; when you take this
position, you cast aside all considerations of party affiliations, because if you're going to be a judge, you have got to
approach every case with the same open mind and the same
search for justice that you do in any such endeavor. There
is something that when you get appointed to this position
that sort of comes over you and imbues you with a desire to
do justice, to reach the right result, regardless of where the
chips fall. This is what I have striven for. I may not have
always done it, but this was what I was trying to do, and this
is what I believe all the other judges are trying to do.
Judge Dupree also spoke about the qualities one needs to have
to be a judge and a lawyer:
I think integrity, the will to be fair and apply the law as
written, regardless of the outcome of the thing. Probably I
would put that paramount. A judge needs to be intelligent,
not necessarily brilliant, he can use his law clerks for that.
But he needs to be intelligent. He needs to have a good
analytical mind, so that he can pinpoint the issue in a case.
There are so many lawsuits that give rise to a variety of
questions, but at the central core of most lawsuits there is
one overriding issue, the answer to which will give the
correct result. So a judge needs to be able to cut away the
chaff and go straight to the heart of the case, the issue which
the outcome really turns on. A judge needs to be considerate of all court personnel, the bailiffs, the marshals, the
clerks, and the deputy clerks, and the court reporters; he
needs to be considerate of the welfare of jurors. You know
a juror comes to this court, not because he had in mind that
this is something he wanted to do; he comes because he gets
a summons that says, "You will be there!"-the penalty for
noncompliance being, maybe, a jail term. So they come
kicking and screaming into court, but when they'get here,

they perform a service which is essential in the administration of justice, and they deserve to be treated like
human beings, and every consideration should be given to
their comfort and welfare while they're here.
A judge needs to be courteous with the members of the
bar. He needs to understand that he was once one of them
and that judges can make it awful tough on a lawyer if they
care to. But courtesy toward the bar I think is essential to
being a good judge. Of course, this quality of courtesy
should be practiced with witnesses. A judge should never
880
[Vol. 73
dress down a lawyer in open court in front of his client. If

the lawyer needs dressing down, if it can't be done at the
bench, then he should retire to the chambers with him and
tell him that this conduct will not be tolerated, and usually
that's sufficient. But never embarrass a lawyer before his
client. And whatever you do, never forget that once you
were one of them.
Judge Dupree also spoke about the importance of organizing and
running courts efficiently, and about steps he took to eliminate waste
of time by jurors who were summoned and not called. He prided
himself in running courts precisely and promptly and having people
where they are supposed to be. He said that in twenty-one years, he
has himself been late for court only one time and that was when his
car broke down. On that occasion, he was two minutes late. Judge
Dupree said:
You can set your watch by the time we run this court. And
I had people appreciate that-jurors. They know what to
expect, and they do it. Well, these are little mechanical
things, but these are things that I instituted here in an effort
to correct what I perceived to be terrible shortcomings in the
way it was done at the Superior Court level, and for that
matter, it was done that way in this court. Back when they
had just one judge and not a whole lot of work to do, this
court was run like Superior Court. It's not run like that
anymore-not since I have been here.
Finally, Judge Dupree said of his job and the work he does as a
federal judge that he appreciated the opportunity to talk about that
in the interview, but he thinks that law schools and other people-law
students in particular-place more importance on his work than he
does. With his usual modesty, he said, "I just don't, well, I just never
thought of it as being anything but just getting up and going to work."
JUSTICE HENRY ELL FRYE: "THE IDEA IS SERVICE"-HELPING
THE STATE LIvE UP TO ITS CREED
Henry Frye was born in August, 1932, in Ellerbee, North

Carolina, in a small white frame house on a tobacco farm of less than
fifty acres, about a mile from town. He was the eighth of twelve
children-six boys and six girls. His parents owned the farm where
he grew up and also farmed land belonging to other people in an
arrangement known as "farming by halves." (His parents furnished
the labor, the other party furnished fertilizer, and the profits from
crops were divided.) He and his parents, brothers, and sisters farmed
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tobacco, cotton, corn, watermelon, cantaloupes, and beans-as Justice

Frye says, "You name it."
Justice Frye described his family's ethic as one of hard work.
According to his father, everyone was to work from "cain't to cain't"
(which meant that you worked from when you "cain't see in the
morning until when you cain't see at night"). Justice Frye recalled on
occasion going to a saw mill early in the morning with his father to
load lumber which they delivered for a fee, and they had to wait for
the sun to come up so they could see to load the lumber. Frequently,
he would take a load of lumber to some location before he would go
to school in the morning.
Justice Frye recalled the principal of his grammar school who
apparently took an interest in all of the 300-400 children who
attended there. The school began a band, and Frye had a great desire
to play saxophone. To his disappointment, he was instead assigned
to play another instrument. He quit the band and was soon summoned to the principal's office. He was afraid to go, and when he got
there, the principal said, "What's this I hear about you quitting the
band?" Frye replied he didn't like his instrument, and the principal
said, "Let me tell you something. Winners never quit and quitters
never win. Now you go back out there and get that trombone or
whatever and start playing." Frye rejoined the band and continued
to play until there was a concert. After that the band instructor
suggested to him that perhaps his time would be better spent
concentrating on some other worthwhile endeavor.
Among the people in his community who influenced him as he
was growing up, Justice Frye remembers a man named Walter White
who was very active with the NAACP. He also admired Thurgood
Marshall and Clarence Darrow, but generally had an unflattering
image of lawyers since lawyers were not held in high regard around
Ellerbee among the people he knew.
I When he was in high school, Frye considered becoming a
pharmacist or a dentist. He went to College at North Carolina A&T
in Greensboro and took courses in chemistry and biochemistry, both
of which he very much enjoyed. At A&T, he came under the
influence of Dr. Isaac Miller, an excellent, young teacher who later
became president of Bennett College. Frye was active in ROTC,
participated in a number of plays that were produced between A&T
and Bennett College, and graduated from A&T with highest honors.
He was then commissioned as an officer in the Air Force.
While waiting to assume his commission, he tried unsuccessfully
to find work around Greensboro and extended his search to New
[Vol. 73
York. He finally had to settle for a job with a meat packing plant
owned by Armour & Company. There he worked in a slaughterhouse, handling the carcasses of slaughtered animals after they were
killed, putting them on racks, and cutting up the carcasses for various
cuts of meat. Justice Frye put a high value on this experience and
said that he made good money, built up his muscles, and learned a lot
about people.
It was after he entered the Air Force that he got his first positive
view of lawyers. Justice Frye said: "I just got the wrong impression,
I suppose [around Ellerbee], that most of them were very terrible
people whose job it was, as a lot of folks around there said, to 'lie
people out of trouble.' So I did not have a very high opinion,
generally, of lawyers." The lawyer in the Air Force who changed his
ideas about the profession was a young man who spent free time
teaching prisoners (military prisoners who were in the stockade) to
read and write. Justice Frye said, "This just sort of shocked me.
Here this guy is, this was in Japan, and of course on the weekend, all
the rest of us were going out and having fun, and this guy was
spending his free time doing this. That sort of changed my idea a
little bit." It sparked his interest about law as a possible career, and
he began to read about lawyers and their work.
About this time, Frye talked with Kenneth Lee, the black
attorney in Greensboro who was one of the first African-Americans
admitted to the UNC School of Law and who handled a good deal of
the early civil rights work in the Greensboro area. Lee further
convinced Frye that law was an honorable calling. Frye told Lee that
he had been discouraged about going to law school because he knew
that he did not have any connections to bring him business when he
got out to go into practice. Lee told him, "Don't pay any attention
to that stuff. You go down, and you do well, and you'll be all right."
Based on Lee's encouragement, Frye applied to law school at
Carolina and was accepted. He was the only African-American in his
law school class, but did not feel that caused him major problems. He
was married by that time and lived in Greensboro with his wife and
commuted to Chapel Hill. Though he would have expected to be

excluded from law school social life, he had no time for it anyway.
When Frye graduated from law school, he went to Greensboro
to practice and was sworn in before Judge Richardson Preyer. He
talked about some of his first cases, including one in which he
represented cafeteria workers at UNC-Greensboro who were on strike
and had no one else to represent them. He took the case for a
relatively small fee, which he said was all they had to pay. He clearly
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believes that a lawyer should be motivated by more than the prospect

of a fee in deciding whether to take a case. He spoke about the
importance of service:
[T]his is a little old-fashioned, I suppose, but I think of
a lawyer as being a person who is performing a service and
that your primary interest ought to be in performing a
service for someone, realizing that you need to be paid for
your work, but that you're working not just for the pay;
you're working because you want to perform a service. And
whether that's helping someone who needs to have a will
drawn or handling their estate or advising them about
various things or whether it's representing a big corporation,
or whatever it is, that the idea is service. Of course, the
servant is worthy of his hire. But the emphasis ought to be
placed on service; then the money is another thing.
I recall this elderly woman who was getting ready to go
to the hospital and she wanted a will drawn before she went
to the hospital. And the undertaker... who was her friend
...
called me and told me that this lady wanted a will, said
she had seventeen dollars, that's all she could afford, but he
called and asked me if I would do it for her. I told him,
yeah, I'd be glad to do it. So she came in, and I got all the
information and everything and told her to come back in a
couple of hours and I would have the will for her. And she
came back, and she was a lady who made a living as a
housekeeper, and so she brought the lady for whom she
worked with her, along with another neighbor to my office,
because she wanted them to be witnesses to her will. And
we did. And she went into the hospital, and she lived after
the operation, thank goodness. That lady sent business to
me as long as I practiced law. People were always coming
to me saying that this lady was the one who sent me. And
incidentally, later, about two or three years ago, she was
honored by Channel 2 [WFMY], the TV station in
Greensboro, as a person who cares for the community. She
was the kind of person who did a lot of work in the community, helping people and so forth, so she was one of the
people who was honored by them. I was there, and she
reminded me of that at that time.
He also spoke about other aspects of his practice in which his
service went beyond what is traditionally considered "legal work" and
in which the term "counselor" takes on broader meaning:
[T]hat was another enjoyable part of my practice-advising people concerning their estates and regarding
[Vol. 73
planning for the future and doing wills and estate planning
and things of that nature. I had several people who sort of
came to me on a regular basis, I think, not so much for legal

advice, but for practical advice-elderly people whose
children or grandchildren were not doing as they thought
they should, and they were trying to decide whether to name
them in their will, or whether to give the money to charity
or something, and what they could do to work with them
and to help them and that type of thing. I probably spent
more time than I should dealing with things of that nature.
While Frye was practicing in Greensboro, he was persuaded to
run for the General Assembly. At that time there had been no black
person in the General Assembly in this century, and he decided it was
time for somebody to try. Candidates ran at large for six seats. Frye
came in seventh. The sixth person to win a seat, who was the lowest
winning vote-getter, was James Exum, later Chief Justice of the North
Carolina Supreme Court. Frye decided to run again, and the second
time he ran he won, as he said, "fairly handily."
In the General Assembly, Frye found himself serving essentially
as the legislator for blacks across the state. There was, he said,
"virtually no dialogue between a lot of blacks then, and their
representatives in the legislature." The first thing Frye did was to
push through an amendment to abolish the literacy test as a requirement for voting, a bill that had special meaning for Frye because
he had personally been subjected to such a test. When Frye was
presenting the bill on the Senate floor, a white senator asked for the
floor and said the amendment had nothing to do with race. When the
senator finished, Frye rose to respond. He explained that the bill had
very much to do with race, that race was the primary reason for the
literacy test, and he gave his own, personal example to illustrate that.
He felt that his speech helped to get the bill passed.
Justice Frye said that he made a lot of friends in the General
Assembly and that a lot of people were very helpful to him. There
were still times, however, when he had to fight for his rights. He
remembered one incident in particular. Because of the seniority he
had accumulated, he was entitled by tradition to seventh pick of the
available offices in the General Assembly. The Chairman of the
Senate, who was in charge of assigning the offices, ignored him in the
pecking order, leaving him out of the office selection process
altogether. Frye complained, and several members came to him and
suggested that he not cause trouble. Frye said he was sorry, but he
felt he had to pursue his rights. He continued to make an issue of his
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exclusion, and finally the Chairman relented. Frye was allowed the
seventh pick of offices. Of course this meant that another member,
who had been allowed to choose that office in his place was ejected.
Frye received criticism for this, but said he had no regrets about
standing up for his rights.
While in the Senate, Frye was on the Appropriations Committee
and was assigned to a subcommittee whose job it was to visit statesupported institutions and examine how money was being apportioned. He found that in regard to orphanages, white orphanages
were receiving a disproportionate amount of the funds compared to
black orphanages. His subcommittee devised a formula that corrected
that.
In 1971 Frye organized the Greensboro National Bank. He had
observed in Greensboro that in every business he knew, whites were
in charge and blacks were either operating elevators or sweeping
floors or, if the business was a retail store, coming in as customers.
In banks all the tellers and officers were white. One day, he visited
the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, a very successful
black-owned business in Durham, and saw a very different situation.
Black people were walking about in suits and working, not only as
tellers, but as bank managers and executives. He visited the blackowned Mechanics' and Farmers' Bank in Durham and saw the same
thing. The contrast between those institutions and what he had seen
in Greensboro convinced him that something should be done. His
friend Kenneth Lee had organized the American Federal Savings and
Loan Association in Greensboro, which was controlled by black
people. Using this example as further inspiration, Frye began to
organize a bank that would be run by black people.
Justice Frye recounted the story of the bank's founding at some
length:
To give you some idea how much nerve I guess I
had-first of all, I didn't have any money, and everybody
told me that if you're going to organize a bank you've got to
have some money. I said, "Well, we'll get some money." So
I started talking to people and trying to get some interest in
it. The controller's office ... for the region for North
Carolina is in Richmond, Virginia. So [at] any rate, once I
got a group of people, a small group who were interested
enough to agree to put up a little money, I went to Richmond. I caught the bus, went up there, transacted my
business; I had to spend one night up there and then caught
the bus and came on back. At any rate, they told us we
needed $300,000 capital minimum in order to start. The
[Vol. 73
next time I went back, it was $500,000. The third time, it

was $700,000. I said, "We better hurry up and get started
because at the rate we're going, we never will get it." ... I
finally pulled some people together. I told them that what

we needed was 10 people, and I said that everybody has got
to have at least $10,000 except me. The minimum you had
to have according to the way we had it set up was $2,500 in
order to be an organizer. I said I would come up with
$2,500 somehow. So I got the other people, and I borrowed
some money,... and we put the money in an account.
We started working on it, and, after a period of time,
we were able to find a person from Richmond, Virginia, who
was a vice president of the bank up there-a black person,
you know, who was going to come in and run the bank for
us. We did our offering circulars and started distributing the
offering circulars. He called me and told me that he was not
going to be able to come because of some things that had
occurred at the bank [in Richmond] .... So we had to start
all over again. We had to tear up those offering circulars,
had to find somebody else.... [S]o when I found somebody
who was really qualified to do it, he said, "Well, do you
have the money to open the bank?" And of course I said
no. We can't get the money until we know who is going to
run the bank because people are not going to subscribe to
stock if they don't know who is going to be handling it.
Again, to make another long story short, I talked with Tom
Stores, who at that time was heading NCNB, which is now
NationsBank. He told me that there was a retired person
from his bank who would, he thought,.., be happy to work
with us in organizing the bank, who had a lot of great
experience and that type of thing, that it would be worth
talking to him, and so I did. So I talked with Mr.
Witherspoon, that was his name. He agreed to come in and
help us with the bank as really a consultant is what it
amounted to.... So we finally found a person who was not
near ready to run a bank but who at least had a good
background and we brought that person in. . . . [W]e
decided to make me the president of the bank even though

I'm a lawyer... but with the idea of training this person to
eventually become the president. So that's what we did, and
Mr. Wheeler who was the president of the bank in Durham,
Mechanics and Farmers Bank... agreed to take the person
down there for three or six months prior to opening the
bank to give him some experience in a small bank because
the guy came from Chemical Bank in New York. He did
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that. So ... we finally opened with me as president (and

working without pay, incidentally) and finally got started.
So it was $700,000 that we had to have in order to open
the bank; that is in the amount of stock actually paid in. So
the organizers came up with a little over $100,000, and then
we got the rest of it from other people who subscribed....
So we opened it, and I served as president for ten years.
Each year the income of the bank went up just a little bit,
not much-very slow; but it was an increase, it was going in
the right direction.... [It] was a real experience and one of
the things when we opened, we opened in a trailer. I
remember talking to a lady about putting some money in the
bank, and she said that she wasn't going to put any money
in there because the wind might come along and blow that
trailer away, and when we got a permanent building, then
she would put some money in that bank. She actually
thought we were going to keep all the money ... in that
trailer. She didn't know that ... it just flows through and
that type of thing. But we had a lot of interesting experiences with that. That's one of the things that I'm glad that I
did.
Frye was appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court in
1983. When he was asked by Governor Jim Hunt to assume the seat,
he thought it over and said he would need at least six to eight weeks
to wind up his law practice. Governor Hunt said, "I need you to be
on the Court in the next session," which was about three weeks away.
Frye had that long to wind up a law practice of twenty-one years.
Because he had a history of strong opposition to the death
penalty, when Justice Frye came to the Court he was confronted with
the issue of how he would react to death penalty cases. He finally
concluded that as long as the General Assembly had spoken and the
death penalty was part of the law, it was his duty as a member of the
Court to uphold it. That is essentially the approach he has taken. He
stated:
I have voted and gone along with opinions which have
upheld the death penalty in North Carolina and will continue to do that where I feel they have been tried in
accordance with the law, and the law has been followed...
I think the question as to whether it should be part of the

law is a policy question, which is for the Legislature. And
the Legislature has made it fairly clear-not fairly clear, it
has made it clear in North Carolina, as in some other
states-that that is part of our law. So at any rate, the key
now seems to be to have it administered so that only those
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who commit the worst crimes get the death penalty....

And it's about as good a system as you could get, if you're
going to have the death penalty as part of the law in North
Carolina.
Justice Frye was asked what sort of advice he would give to a
young judge on the Supreme Court, and he replied that it was good
to have a thick skin. He told a story about his own experience as a
young justice writing his first opinion. He wrote the opinion and
circulated it among the other justices for comment. Shortly
thereafter, Justice Harry Martin brought the opinion back to him.
Justice Martin had marked it up considerably and made a number of
suggestions and criticisms. He suggested that before the other justices
had a chance to read it, Justice Frye should go around and collect the
drafts and do a thorough rewrite. Justice Frye's first reaction was
indignation. He thought, "Who are you to tell me to pick up my
opinion?" But after he thought it over, he realized that Justice
Martin was really trying to help him. So he followed Justice Martin's
advice and picked up the opinion. He worked it over, following some
of Justice Martin's suggestions, and then discussed it with some of the
other justices before he resubmitted a draft. That draft was well
received, and Justice Frye realized that part of his job was to learn to
take criticism and suggestions from the other justices. He said:
I have to say that's not easy to do, because most people who
come to this Court feel that they are pretty good, and they
can write about as well as anybody else. So it takes a little
humility to be able to accept the fact that somebody says to
you, "You're not saying what you think you're saying."
Justice Frye concluded by commenting on his vision for the
future of North Carolina:
[W]ith the right leadership, North Carolina should go into
the twenty-first century as a more progressive state. I don't
see any signs of any great movement right at this time, and
by saying great movement, I mean great movement either
way, but there's always hope.... I would like to see North
Carolina live up to its motto, "To be rather than to seem"
and to be, I mean, to do a better job of being fair and open
in everything from employment in the state government to
encounters in the cities and that type of thing, and I would
like to see our industries do a better job of being open in
terms, again, of employment and not just employment but
promotion and that type of thing. I'd like to see us do a lot
better job especially with our secondary schools in terms of
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giving them the kind of support that is needed in those areas

and just real leadership both at the local and the state level.
JAMES
C. FULLER:
THE DUTY TO "GIVE SOMETHING BACK"
Jim Fuller's story reflects the evolution of a "southern white

boy," raised in the segregated south, who awakened to racial and
social issues and eventually to a life of extraordinary service as an
attorney. Fuller was born on July 19, 1942, in Salisbury, North
Carolina, and later moved to High Point. His maternal grandfather
was an engineer on the Southern Railroad, and he remembers riding
in the cab of the train with his grandfather. "It's just kind of a hoot
for a little five-year-old kid to get up in the cab of a train and blow
the whistle. I probably didn't go 200 yards, but I can see it as vividly
today as when it happened." The elder in his family, with whom
Fuller had the closest tie, was a great aunt he called Mama Pearl, who
had also raised Fuller's mother. He remembers Mama Pearl as "very
traditional, affectionate and warm. She was the kind of quintessential
white southern grandmother, fried chicken aid gravy, who showed a
lot of affection through family meals." Fuller said he learned a great
deal from her.
In his interview, Fuller related that he was very affected by his
religious upbringing and found wonderful messages in some of the
religious teachings he learned as a child. But as he became a
teenager, he became disaffected with the church and was particularly
offended by the way some Southern Christian churches became
impediments to the civil rights movement and social progress.
Fuller described himself as competitive even in his youth, a trait
that in occasional excess brought him some valuable lessons. One of
these was in humility. In high school he had a girlfriend named
Nancy with whom he competed for grades. He describes her as "one
of those ...perfect people who always made 100. She's the one
where you both would do the report and she'd draw flowers around
the corner of hers; I'd make an A; she'd make an A+; I'd make a 97,
[and] Nancy would make a 99." On an upcoming test he was
determined to outperform his sweetheart and worked extra hard to
score 100. He indeed scored 100, but Nancy received bonus points for
something extra she had done and scored 102. Fuller saw these
results as he went through all the papers on the teacher's desk where
they were placed for the students to pick them up. He was so
annoyed he threw the papers down on the desk and walked out of the
room. Behind him, he heard some of his fellow students saying to the
teacher, Ms. Shaw, "How can you let Jim do that?" Ms. Shaw never
[Vol. 73
looked up from her writing on the board. She simply said, "He'll be
back." By the time Fuller reached the bottom of the stairs, he had
begun to regret his behavior. He knew Ms. Shaw was a good teacher,
and that he was wrong and she was right. He went back upstairs and
picked up all the papers off the floor, put them back on the desk, and
sat in his seat. Ms. Shaw, still without looking up from her writing,
said in a loud voice, "I told you he would."
Fuller told his interviewer a story about his mother and how she
affected his attitudes about race. He was then a sophomore in high
school, and his mother had begun to work as a program director for
the YWCA in High Point. As part of her job, she was to attend the
national convention for program directors and staff. The YWCA was
racially integrated on a national level, but an issue arose concerning
attendance at the convention by the one black program director in the
YWCA system in High Point. The assumption was that since the
High Point YWCAs were segregated, the black director would be told
she couldn't go to the national convention. These questions arose in
a staff meeting to which the black program director was not invited.
Fuller recounted the story as follows:
My mother said, "Don't be silly. If we are going to go, she's
going to go, or I won't go." Somebody said, like it was a big
deal, "Who in the world would room with her?" My mother
said, "I will. Furthermore, if she doesn't go, not only will I
not go, I'll quit."
Fuller continued,
[A]nd that doesn't sound like a brassy thing now, but that
was in 1958, in a totally segregated town .... That's what I
mean; my mother had a lot of courage when it came to
individual people. She could not abide being hurtful or
discriminatory as an individual [even though she basically
accepted the status quo of racial segregation]. The end
result of the story was that the black program director was
invited to go to the convention. She went and apparently
never knew there had ever been a controversy about
whether she should be invited.
Fuller was a football star in high school, playing in the East-West
all-star game which included the best players in the state. He also
lettered in basketball and track. He fondly recalled the influence on
him of his high school football coach who "worried more about
playing fair than winning."
When he went to college at Davidson, he again played football,
but in other respects his college career was not entirely smooth
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sailing. ROTC was then a required course at Davidson and not

Fuller's favorite subject. He had to return to Davidson for an extra
semester to take and pass it. When he was asked about his major at
Davidson (English), Fuller said, "There is some reason to believe I
majored in fraternity, too. I had very good semesters and I had awful
semesters. I can't tell you one from another."
Fuller did, however, spend some serious moments at Davidson.
He took a course with a professor from India who taught "Psychology
of the Color Problem." Fuller recalled that he learned there about
the effects of racial discrimination in the context of the British Empire
and about India's struggle for independence and the influence of
Ghandi. In that course, he saw the effects of racism and began to
think, "Well, wait a minute, it's even worse here."
After he graduated from Davidson and spent the extra semester
to finish ROTC, Fuller had about eight months to wait before starting
law school. He used that time to further his "real-world" education.
A friend at Davidson suggested that he go to New York City to work
with a minister she knew who ran a church in the Bedford Stuyvesant
area of Brooklyn.
Fuller continued, "I got there right after some of the Bedford
Stuyvesant riots, where some people had been killed about a half
block from the site where the preacher lived. So I spent about eight
months doing everything from running errands to walking around
wild-eyed learning about life in Brooklyn." Fuller was in charge of
the church's youth program and spent much of his time teaching
basketball to kids from his neighborhood and supervising sports and
other events. Reverend Knight, the minister for whom Fuller worked,
was a charismatic man from a wealthy and prestigious family. The
people in his church called him "Big Daddy." Fuller recalled a
particularly memorable story about Big Daddy:

One ... thing we were trying to do is take back the neigh-
borhoods, and they were falling apart, and there were good
people living there. We were forming self-help groups; that
was one of the things the church did. They'd go to the bank
and, dammit, get turned down. It was redlining before
people even knew what to call it.... [Big Daddy] was a big
old guy about six foot five, three hundred pounds and had
this very affected way of talking about everything. So he
says, "Well we've got to get some money for these groups;
we've got to be able to repair and build up these houses."
They were nice old brownstones that were worth a lot of
money and certainly in good condition but needed repairs
because they were old brownstones. The Dime Bank was
[V/ol. 73
probably not three blocks away, straight down on Oxford

Street, and Big Daddy went down there and tried to get a
loan for this group, and the Vice President said he couldn't
do it. So Big Daddy stood up and said, "Well, we all have
to do what we all have to do." Stormed out and the next
morning about eight o'clock in the morning three hundred
people were standing out in front of the Dime Bank holding
passbooks up in the air. They called a meeting of the Board
of Directors by emergency conference call for [approval of]
three million dollars right on the spot. It was the damndest
thing I've ever heard about. [Big Daddy] said, yes, it was
good that the timing had been such as it was, because once
the first three people who really did have passbook accounts
there were through, he didn't know what he'd do with the
rest of them who'd never been in the bank before.
Fuller did not particularly like law school. He hated the classes
and the paper chase. In his first year he left at Easter, and Dean
Dickson Phillips left word that he wanted to see him. He went to see
Dean Phillips, who strongly suggested that he finish the year. Fuller
replied that he didn't want to be a lawyer, that he was going to drop
out and go to English graduate school. Phillips told him, "Well, you
may change your mind. You may get a little older and want to be a
lawyer and if you drop out now, you will get straight "F"'s and you'll
not get back in here or anywhere else." While Fuller was pondering
Dean Phillips's warning, he went into a drug store on Franklin Street
in Chapel Hill and saw for the first time the woman who would
eventually become his wife. He fell "head over heels" in love and
decided that staying in Chapel Hill was probably not a bad way to
finish the spring. He remained in law school and was able to rescue
most of his courses.
Fuller did well enough thereafter to win a clerkship with Justice
Susie Sharp on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Fuller recounted:
"In some respects working for Justice Sharp helped fashion or
increase my interest in the effect of law on women. I actually sort of
did my own little project that year and was very surprised to see the
extent of discrimination."
After clerking, Fuller applied to the firm of Chambers, Stein,
Ferguson and Lanning in Charlotte, the only firm he wanted to work
for and the only firm to which he applied. He got his job there, he
said, by badgering the firm to death. Fuller described his experience
as follows:
Well, that's the only place I wanted to work, and I walked
in and Mel [Watt] was grouchy as usual. [Jim] Ferguson
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didn't know who I was and why I was there, and he must
have had two hundred applications. He couldn't even find
my application, and every time he'd turn a page, I'd see
Harvard, Yale, Chicago. Finally, I got to meet with [Julius]
Chambers, after waiting about an hour and a half. I didn't
realize everybody waited an hour and a half to meet with
Chambers. It was clear to me I didn't have any chance at
this job.... Chambers was talking about starting a black
savings and loan, which I did think was a good idea. One of
the phrases then was, "Go from black power to green
power." I thought it would be a great idea to have a
primarily black-owned savings and loan. So, Chambers said,
"One thing we could do to give a little economic stability to
the firm and also help to get this project under way [is to
hire] somebody to do property law." I said, "Well, Mr.
Chambers, funny you should mention that, I really enjoy
property law. I would love to get involved in property law."
With his newly discovered interest in property law, Fuller returned to
Chapel Hill and asked every law professor he had had to write letters
to Julius Chambers and Jim Ferguson. He later learned that one of
the firm's partners, at the meeting in which it was decided to hire him,
remarked that he thought Fuller must be an SBI plant because
nobody could have that many recommendations from people with

establishment credentials and still want to come to that law firm.
Fuller recalled very fondly his time in the Chambers firm. He
spoke of visiting the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York to
work on a case with Jack Boger, a lawyer he did not know then but
whom he had heard a lot about. As they worked on the case, Boger
mentioned that he was from North Carolina. Fuller was astounded.
He told Boger that he found it hard to believe that a white man from
Concord, North Carolina, was in New York working for the Legal
Defense Fund. Fuller related that Boger looked at him and said, "I
hate to be the one to tell you this, Fuller, and maybe you just haven't
looked in the mirror lately, but you're a white guy from High Point
working with an interracial civil rights firm."
Fuller was clearly influenced by Julius Chambers and has a
tremendous amount of respect for him. He recounted what it was
like to work in the Chambers law firm:
As Chambers used to say, we were ripping and zipping. It
wasn't unusual to have Saturday morning office meetings.
Something would be happening in Wilmington, Elizabeth
City or Asheville. We didn't have either the personnel or
the mindset that you carry somebody's briefcases forever.
[Vol. 73
You go watch somebody one time and then you're supposed

to go do it. It was a lot of energy and a lot of hard work.
We sometimes gave the appearance of being better organized and prepared than we were, and a lot of people
thought we must have been, to lay out a case like that, we
must have had it ready for a month. That wasn't because I
think we had sloppy work habits, we just had tremendous
case demand and a tremendous financial demand. We were
doing desegregation cases up until the mid-Seventies.
They'd take forever to do and very little money coming from
the Legal Defense Fund. Then, we were usually doing them,
and not getting paid and a lot of the expenses coming out of
our pocket. It was not unusual to miss a few paydays back
then. That's something I don't think I ever mentioned to
anybody. It's not something the firm talked about. You
only got a certain amount of money; you pay the staff. If
there's none left over for the lawyers, you wait until next
month. It meant we really had to win about every case.
And we did.
Fuller worked on a variety of cases as a civil rights lawyer with
the Chambers firm, including criminal cases, housing discrimination
cases, and school integration cases. One of the most intense areas of
his practice involved representing teachers from the school system
before the Charlotte-Mecklenberg School Board as well as professors
at community colleges and other colleges in the area. After leaving
the Chambers firm, Fuller worked with Bill Thorp's firm in Raleigh
doing primarily plaintiff's work before forming his own law firm. But
he continued his heavy involvement with cases with social issues. One
was a case with Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center
to obtain an injunction freezing the assets of the Ku Klux Klan. He
also worked on death penalty cases and civil rights cases.
Fuller concluded his interview with reflections on lawyers and
public service:
I think there are a lot of things that this type of job gives us
the opportunity to do, to be of service. I thought it was nice
when the lawyers built a Habitat house. To me that's a lot
more important than getting together for a drinking reception, although it's nice also to go say hello to everybody
once in a while. I guess you have to wait a long time to
[know] whether, to what extent, things have worked out or
not. It really was something I probably got from Chambers,
but also from [Jim Ferguson] and everybody else. I think
one of my favorite lines from Ulysses is, "I'm a part of all
that I have met." I think one of the messages is that you're
1995]
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supposed to give something back. I hope when all of the

dust settles, I would have done a little of that.
ELLEN W. GERBER-REPRESENTING WOMEN AND THE POOR:
"DON'T FORGET OUR SPECIAL NEEDS"
Ellen W. ("Lennie") Gerber graduated from the UNC School of

Law in 1977. She was born on January 3, 1936, and grew up in a
middle-class Jewish neighborhood in New York City. She attended

Sargent College (Boston University) and received a bachelor's degree
in physical education. For approximately seventeen years she taught
physical education at the college level in various places, such as the
University of Texas in Austin, the University of Iowa, the University
of Minnesota, and the University of Pittsburgh. During that time she
earned a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Sports and a master's
degree in English. She wrote a number of books and articles on
sports and the philosophy of sports and co-authored the first college
text on American women in sports.
Gerber recalled that as a child she was taught by word and
example that men and women were equal. Her parents both worked
and shared household responsibilities and made no distinction
between themselves in these roles. She assumed that was the way it
was everywhere. The same was true for the treatment of the races:
her parents taught her to respect-all people and not differentiate on
the basis of the color of one's skin.
Gerber described a trip to Florida with her mother and father
when she was about thirteen years old. On the way south, they
visited Williamsburg, Virginia, and went to the capitol building in
Richmond. There were signs on the water fountains saying, "White,"
"Black," and "Indian," and she had no idea what they meant. She
asked her father to explain the signs to her. When he told her the
purpose was to segregate the races, she was astonished. She said, "But
this is a government building." She recalled:
I couldn't understand then, as I can't today, how any
government could ever segregate that way. And I remember
from that time on driving south from that moment in
Richmond, you know, noticing it. First understanding the
notion of segregation, which of course, again, growing up in
New York, it was not apparent, although I have come to

think that it was there in other ways. I was just shocked.
When Ellen Gerber left home for college, she was again
confronted with unequal treatment of people based on their race. She
was also exposed to discrimination against women. As a result of
[vol. 73
those experiences, she began, through her work in physical education

and later as a lawyer, to devote her life to dealing with these
inequities. Her work for justice in the legal system began in law
school. She was one of a group of students who attempted to
persuade Dean Robert Byrd and the law faculty to begin a clinical
program. She also undertook an independent study with Professor
Dan Pollitt, working to answer requests from prisoners for legal assistance. Through Gerber's efforts and the further work of a fellow
student, Margot Freeman, the law school's Prisoners' Rights Project

was ultimately developed.
Gerber was also heavily involved with Women in Law. One of
the issues of particular concern to that group was the problem of law
school bathroom inequity. The group started a lobbying campaign to
do something about the lack of women's bathrooms in the new law
school. They requested and had a meeting with the Associate Dean
and another faculty member who came to hear the proposals of
Women in Law. As Gerber described the meeting, the first proposal,
made by Lenny Gerber, was that the urinals be taken out of the large
men's bathroom on the second floor and stalls put in so that it could
be either used by women or made into a co-ed bathroom, the way,
Gerber observed, it was done in Europe and in most people's homes.
Gerber said that the Associate Dean and the other faculty representative were outraged by this proposal. They walked out of the
meeting and refused to do anything about the problem because they
felt the proposal was absurd. Eventually, however, the agitation by
the Women in Law group led to an increase in the amount of space
devoted to women's bathrooms in the law school.
Gerber was also involved in an effort to protest against locking
the door between the classroom area and the faculty lounge area in
Van Hecke-Wettach Hall. When she was a student, that door was
kept locked, shutting faculty off from students and making access to
faculty and faculty offices more difficult. Gerber and other students
protested that symbol of separation. Ultimately, the students' protests
resulted in unlocking the door so that students could pass through
from the classroom area to faculty offices.
After she graduated from law school, through the help of
Professor Dan Pollitt, Gerber took a job with the Legal Services
office in Winston-Salem. She saw her work as a fulfillment of her
destiny to work for the rights of women and poor people and in
opposition to racism and sexism. Gerber was a founding member of
the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys, a group that
works for equal treatment of women in the bar and in the profession.
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As a Legal Services attorney, she worked both as a litigator and as a
lobbyist to further the position of women in the bar and in society in

general.
Gerber was recognized by her peers as one of the best legal
services attorneys across the state and as an extraordinary litigator.
She served for many years as managing attorney at Legal Services in
Winston-Salem, and the energy from her work there was felt
throughout the state. She conducted numerous training sessions
throughout North Carolina to train Legal Services attorneys in
landlord-tenant law, consumer law, and various basic skills courses.
She had a very high success rate in trying complicated Legal Services
cases, including numerous jury trials. She prepared her cases
meticulously, became a highly skilled negotiator, and reached many
favorable settlements for her clients. She became known as one who
was called upon for advice by Legal Services attorneys around the
state who wanted to learn how to prepare cases for trial, how to try
jury trials, and how to negotiate settlements.
Gerber was also very outspoken-and continues to be very
outspoken-about women's rights and the obligation of attorneys
generally (particularly women attorneys) to become involved in
professional and community service. These concerns are reflected in
her oral history interview:
Interviewer: What about any advice for a young female
attorney entering the legal profession?
Gerber: Well, we haven't talked about one area, and that
relates to this advice and that is, law schools almost all have
Women in Law organizations. I think they're very important. The fact that we have almost fifty percent women in
law schools does not obviate the need to have a group that
you can identify with and start building systematic ties. I am
a big, big believer in being part of the regular bar, you
know. I go to bar meetings. I've taken part. I serve on
committees.... I think that's important for anybody and
it's part of service. And... I believe that if you're a professional, that you have to relate to your profession as an
institution in addition to doing your work for your clients.
But the need for people to focus on women's issues is
still there. Sexism has not disappeared and the legal status
of women, while it's improved a lot, there are still many
things, many issues of importance, that are more important
to women than to others. Choice is a good example. You
know, issues of choice, issues of family law. I mean God
knows that in the next two decades we're going to be
[Vol. 73
focusing on this issue of when is a parent a parent. And

while that of course is an issue for the male and the female,
it is primarily a woman's issue, because it's women who are
bearing these kids, whether they're inseminated or surrogate
parents or the person who wants the custody and the child.
...
Those are enormously interesting issues. Interesting
lesbian issues.... What happens now when you've got two

lesbians and one of them has a kid? They decide, we'll have
a kid, and one of them has it, and the other one thinks, I'm
a co-parent, and then they split up. What are the rights and
obligations of that co-parent? These are women-focused
issues and they've got to be dealt with. And so, we need
this now.
In the years since I got out of law school, and I was part
of this group, we founded the North Carolina Association of
Women Attorneys, and that group has become very vital
over the years. It is an important group; it has lobbied the
legislature [on] equitable distribution. I personally sat in
Marissa Schoonmaker's office with another woman attorney
and drafted the original legislation. It was modified of
course, but, you know, I did that as then President of the
North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys. We
lobbied that issue successfully, and that was ours, the women
attorneys. We're the ones that got that passed, and there
are other issues like that....
My advice to women graduating from law school is to
be active in organizations like that, both locally and statewide. Don't say, I've made it, I'm here, I'm equal, there's
no such thing as a woman lawyer, I'm a lawyer. I believe
that in the logic[al] ... important sense, but in the political
sense of getting the kind of solidarity and support that

makes us count, that gives us a bigger voice in the legislature, that allows us to do something, you've got to have
groups. I mean, that's why you have an AMA, you know.
Doctors are people too, right, but they have a strong
lobbying organization in Congress. Everybody does, and
women don't have a lobbying organization, except for us.
You know, we need to work on things like that, and so you
can't come out of college, [and say] "I made it, I wasn't
discriminated, I got here on my own, I'm a bright young
woman and I've got a career ahead of me, and what do I
need women's organizations for?"
The answer is you need them because we opened the
doors to begin with, and we're going to open other doors.
The battle isn't over, and women have to learn that the
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same way that blacks have to learn it. Some of the most
noted black activists I know mourn that their children are
uninterested in these causes. They say, "Well, we don't have
those laws that didn't allow us to walk on the side of the
street, and you know, they're all gone, those Jim Crow
laws." But the truth is, it isn't just laws. Laws have to be
interpreted; they have be enforced; they have to be changed,
you know. It's an evolving process that will never stop.
And maybe in a century we'll have more equality than we
do now, but we do not have it yet by a long shot. And these
large numbers of very bright, wonderful women graduating
from law school owe it to their foremothers to keep on
fighting for us, and that means banding together and getting
in place to do that sort of thing.
It means running for the legislature; it means really
stepping out in front and realizing that in addition, and this
is the kind of speech that the judges like to give to lawyers,
you know: "you owe service." When you get sworn in...
in most counties, they have a big ceremony for everybody at
once in the fall so, you know, forty, fifty lawyers get sworn
in at once, and the presiding judge always makes nice
speeches about service and stuff like that. Well, that's real.
That is real! That is something lawyers, professionals, have
an obligation for service. Maybe everyone does, but I can't
speak to everyone. I think we would have a better country
if we all were more community-minded. But I would speak
to the women and say, when you're coming out of law
school, remember that obligation of service, and if you don't
care about women, who else is going to? So others may do
something else; others may build houses for the poor; others
may serve on corporate boards, and that's fine. I have
nothing against that, and maybe women ought to do that
too. But don't forget our special needs.

Gerber retired from Legal Services at the height of her abilities
as an attorney and of her reputation among other members of the Bar
and the Legal Services community. She has subsequently worked as
an advocate for women's causes in the Winston-Salem area and
around the state, doing legal work for and advising women's groups
politically. She is a lesbian, which she freely acknowledges, and many
of her efforts are devoted to gay and lesbian rights. She thus has
continued her career of service in a somewhat different vein,
following her retirement from Legal Services.
In general, Gerber's career from childhood on has been one of
carefully nurturing fundamental values of open-mindedness and
[Vol. 73
tolerance, and promoting equal treatment and mutual respect between

the races and the sexes. Her ideals were challenged as she went out
into the real world and college and left the environment of her home
and neighborhood in Brooklyn. From that time, she has been deeply
aware of social inequities and has displayed growing determination to

do something about them. Her life has been and continues to be
dedicated toward that end. She has won the respect of other
members of the bar by becoming an excellent attorney and remaining
dedicated to high principles and to her own beliefs, which include a
profound dedication to service.
JUDGE PATRICIA LOVE-TEACHER, LAWYER, LEGISLATOR:
WILLING TO "TAKE THE RISKS TO WIN"
Patricia Love was born in Harnett County, North Carolina, on

June 6, 1928. When she was about six months old, her family moved
to Florida, and her father took a job with the American Agricultural
Chemical Company, testing vegetable seeds. Her father was educated
as a lawyer but never took the bar. Her mother, who suffered from
rheumatoid arthritis, did not work outside the home; one of the main
reasons the family went to Florida was that her mother's doctors
believed that Florida would afford a better climate for her disease.
Judge Love's memories of growing up are vivid and generally
quite positive. She was very active in the Girl Scouts, Sea Scouts, and
Air Scouts. She recalled that during World War II, she and other
members of her scout troop would go to the top of the Biltmore
Hotel, which was the highest hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, to watch
for German airplanes. They also sometimes saw German submarines
off the Florida coast.
She recalled American and British soldiers from the North Africa
campaign who came to Coral Gables to be treated for their injuries.
As a Girl Scout, she went with her friends to sing for the soldiers
while they were in the hospital and baked cookies for them. In this
way, she saw the effects of the war face-to-face-men with no arms
and legs who literally had to be carried in baskets into the hospital,
burn victims, and other men with terrible wounds and injuries. Love
also tutored some of the soldiers who were convalescing. She
particularly recalls one of those who was somehow connected to
organized crime in Chicago. Her father was very upset about her
contact with this soldier. When the soldier recovered, he returned to
the war, but later came back to Florida to attend and graduate from
the University of Miami and the University of Florida Law School.
He is now a successful attorney in Miami.
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Love applied to a number of colleges-Duke, Agnes Scott,

Vassar-and was accepted at all of them. She decided to go to Sweet
Briar because her mother had gone there. At Sweet Briar, she loved
plays and became very interested in drama. She decided she wanted
to be an actress, but her family frowned upon that. After two years
she transferred to UNC.
When Love transferred to Carolina, she pledged the Alpha Delta
Pi sorority and was elected president of her pledge class, which
automatically gave her a seat on the Panhellenic Council. This turn
of events introduced her to college politics, which she immediately
liked. She said, "I've always been a politician. When I was in high
school, I didn't run for president, but I ran the campaign for the
president." She was elected treasurer of the Panhellenic Council and
Speaker of the Co-Ed Senate (the women's student government at
Carolina). At that time, according to Judge Love, the "real" student
government was all men. She said, "It never occurred to anybody
that a woman would ever be president of the student body here [at
Carolina], so I'm always amazed at how far we have come." As
Speaker of the Co-Ed Senate, she was appointed by Frank Porter
Graham, who was then the chancellor, to the Greater University
Council, a student council composed of students from UNC, North
Carolina State University, and UNC-Greensboro (the three parts of
the state-wide University at that time). The group's activities gave
Love her first contact with members of the General Assembly. Love
majored in journalism and earned a teaching certificate. She married
Don Stanford, a fellow student, and after graduation, they went to
live on the Stanford family's Orange County dairy farm.
Both Love and her husband took the LSAT-he wanted to go to
law school, and he persuaded her to take the test with him. They
were both accepted at Carolina. He decided to go, but she decided
not to because she was pregnant. He began his studies at Carolina,
but left after a semester to attend to increased responsibilities on the
family dairy farm. Judge Love said that her husband always regretted
that he was not able to finish law school.
Love took a job as a journalist with the News of Orange County.
She wrote everything in the paper except the lead story on the front
page and the editorial. She also became a stringer for the Raleigh
News & Observer, the Greensboro paper, and the Durham paper.
She wrote stories about Orange County and sent them to the various
papers. If the stories ran, she was paid a dollar an inch. She and her
husband talked about buying a small paper and running it. After two
years with the Orange County paper, however, she left to take care
[Vol. 73
of her growing family. She remains very proud of her four sons, three
of whom are lawyers and the other an electrical engineer.
Her husband, Don Stanford, died when her sons were teenagers.
She recalled:
When I became their mother and father, I tried really hard
to deal with four teenage sons, and that is not an easy
proposition, let me tell you. I wanted them to remember
him, and I wanted them to be like him because he was a
good person to follow. And so we talked about him a lot
and the kinds of things he would do, and when they would
do something that I didn't think was appropriate, they
remind me of how many times I said to them, "I don't think
your father would have liked that, and you should think
about that." And they suffered a lot from their father's
death. I did too, and I think mine was so bad that I didn't
see their suffering.
She said about raising her sons,
I tried to teach them, though, that you should never close
down any of your options, that nobody can take your
education away from you. I lived by that, and they knew
their mother believed in education, and I was always in
school, always taking a course, and always reading a book.
She also taught them to question authority.
After her husband's death, Love obtained a master's degree in
American history and began to teach, first in junior high school for
about five years and then as a guidance counselor in the high school
for another five years. She also served briefly in the General
Assembly when she was appointed by Governor Bob Scott to fill out
the remainder of her deceased husband's legislative term. Subsequently, a friend of her husband's ran for her husband's seat and won,
and Love returned to teaching high school. The friend later called
her, said that he was going to leave the House and run for the Senate,
and suggested she run for his seat. The teachers who knew her
enthusiastically supported that idea because of her positions on
education. She ran for the General Assembly and won. By that time,
she had married her second husband, who was a member of the
Durham City Council.
In 1975, while she was in the General Assembly, Love began to
realize the value in a legal education. She saw the bills she sponsored
being sent to the Judiciary Committee to let the lawyers on that
committee look at them. She decided to apply again to law school
and was again accepted at Carolina. She began her legal studies while
she was as a member of the General Assembly.
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When she was a second-year law student and still in the General
Assembly, Love went to the Speaker of the House and asked to be
made Chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He said that he
instead planned to appoint her to Chair the Judiciary Committee.
She was astonished and concerned. There were real lawyers on that
committee, and the committee dealt with complex legal problems.
She was afraid that she might be in over her head. The Speaker
assured her she would not. Judge Love said that most of the people
who were on that committee with her are now either Superior Court
judges, on the Court of Appeals, or on the Supreme Court. She was,
at that time, the first non-lawyer to be made head of the Judiciary
Committee.
Judge Love recalled an incident from her time in the General
Assembly. Susan Lewis, who was teaching at the UNC law school,
urged her to push a bill through the General Assembly to take from
the local Clerks of Courts the arbitrary authority to decide whether
a woman getting a divorce could also have her name changed back to
her maiden name (a power that was being greatly abused). When
Love brought the bill to the judiciary committee, one of the lawyerlegislators on the committee who opposed the bill attacked her for her
lack of knowledge of the law and how the courts worked. She related
that he told her, "You just want to change the world, and I have been
practicing the law and you have never practiced a day." This attack
upset her, but she was determined not to cry. She went to her office
and called the Speaker. Before she could explain herself, the Speaker
assured her that the legislator was on his way to her office to
apologize.
Judge Love viewed equitable distribution as the most important
issue she worked on while she was in the General Assembly. She told
the story of a woman in Winston-Salem who labored in the home all
of her marriage while her husband built up a fairly large and
profitable business. When the husband left his wife for another
woman, he took the business with him. Judge Love believes that the
outrage over that case was a key factor that led to the passage of the
state's equitable distribution law. Judge Love described the legislative
process:
Equitable distribution was an interesting law for lots of
reasons. We had eight million lawyers down there, tax
accountants, everybody you can imagine arguing about every
single little point. I was barely a lawyer, and so I was
heavily dependent on some really good lawyers. Joe
Hackney was then serving with me in the General Assembly.
[Vol. 73
Henson Barnes from Goldsboro, Martin Lancaster, who is
now in Congress, was down there too, and they would help
me. They would tell me what to say. This is the issue here,
and we kept putting out fires, and we worked one thing and
another thing. Well, we finally had it, got it out of the
House. It had gotten out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I had been over there to argue that. R.C. Soles was
over there, chairman of that committee, and he had put us
in a good position. He'd put it in a good subcommittee, and
it had come out of that. They argued in the committee, and
they kept calling me "young lady this"-I was over fifty
years [old]-"young lady this" and all that stuff. And the
wives of these legislators would say to me, "I don't need
equitable distribution. My husband's always going to be
there to take care of me." And three of them did not
happen to. They got divorced, and three of them said to me
later, "Thank God."
Love was quite active in trying to pass the Equal Rights
Amendment as well, but looking back on that now, she said she's not
sure that it should have passed:
It may be better for us to do it law by law, because there are
some things, if you change and say people have equal
standing, there are some things probably women would lose,
and so I'm not sure that [its failure] was a bad thing. It
would have drafted women, and that's the reason it didn't
pass, I think. I think that's why it didn't pass in the United
States, but it really irritated me. I was the floor leader for
the Equal Rights Amendment one of those times, and it
really bothered me for those legislators to get up and say, "I
don't want my daughter going to war." And I said, "What?
Your daughter is worth more than my son?" I said, "I hope
that if the girls had to go as well as the the boys, that people
would consider a long time before they went to war again."
After graduating from law school, Love went to work for the
Coleman, Bernholz law firm in Chapel Hill. Love felt that the firm
wanted her to help attract women clients. She thought she fulfilled
that function, working on Monday and Friday afternoons and in the
evening while she continued to serve in the General Assembly.
Love was appointed to the district court bench in 1981 by
Governor Jim Hunt. Her second husband had become disabled, after
suffering a heart attack during her last year in law school. She knew
she had to have a good income. When the Governor's office called
her and asked if she was interested in an appointment to the bench,
she was tempted to say "no" because she wanted to stay in the
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
General Assembly. But she knew it was probably not wise to do that.
The seat in question was a newly-created seat, and Love was afraid
that if the Governor opened it up to bar endorsement, as frequently
occurs for vacated seats, she would not receive the endorsement. But
she also knew that there were few women on the bench in North
Carolina and that there should be more. She learned after her
appointment that she could only serve for one year before she would
have to stand for an election. The Governor had conducted his own
poll in Orange and Chatham Counties to see if she was electable and
found her to be not only electable, but in fact, quite popular. After
she accepted the Governor's offer, Judge Love said, she was worried
about whether she would be able to perform as a judge. She was
reassured in this when she took a course for new judges at the
Institute of Government and saw that there were judges there who
were quite young, some of whom had been in her law school class.
Judge Love said in regard to her work as district court judge:
I had been in district court enough to know that it's not law
you need in district court as much as you need mercy and
justice. In civil court, that's different. I think you do have
to know law there a lot more, and in criminal court, it was
fairly easy because the law is fairly easy.... [T]he insolubility of the juvenile court [makes it] so discouraging, because
we don't have any options. I shouldn't say none, but we
have a very limited number of options, and the victims of
their crimes want one thing: restitution, which we can't give

them.
When she was asked what she plans to do when she retires,5
Judge Love talked about various things, including opening a dress
shop. One of her more interesting ideas involved forming an
organization of older women attorneys who live in Chapel Hill and
Fearrington who are considering opening a limited law firm to help
the working poor. They would keep their fees very low and take care
of people who need a will, help in traffic court, divorces or simple
separation agreements-people who can't afford to hire lawyers and
perhaps don't qualify for legal aid.
When asked to talk about her greatest success, Judge Love said:
I think my experience in the General Assembly, where
I could really help people and make things happen was a
very exciting time. I was a very powerful person, once upon
5. Judge Love retired on November 30, 1994. Todd Nelson, Judge's Ruling:
Retirement, THE NEWS & OBSERVER (Raleigh, N.C.), November 26, 1994, at 1B, 6B.
[Vol. 73
a time, for about four years, and I was voted consisfently

one of the top ten legislators in influence by the press, by
my colleagues. It was wonderful to me to be able to get a
bill and work it through and make it come out. And I did
that on so many bills for about four years. It was really
great, and I think I did a great deal for the women of North
Carolina. We went through the entire general statutes,
making them gender-free of bias, and that took an incredible
amount of hard, hard work....
And I think the other thing I did that I was very proud
of was to educate teachers to be a political force, and I think
it's absolutely amazing that with a master's degree and five
years of experience-well, ten years of experience in the
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools-I made nine hundred and
fifty dollars a month when I left teaching/counseling [and]
that today the starting salary of teachers is twenty-eight
thousand dollars a year. That is amazing, and the reason it
has happened is some teachers have had political clout.
When Judge Love was asked what she would like women to learn
from her life, she said:
I think you have to be willing to take risks. My mother
could never understand how I could stand for an election.
So that's first, not necessarily running for office, but whatever you're going to do, you're going to take risks, and if you
don't take the risk, then you can never win. So, you have to
take the risk, and if you take the risk, then you have to be
willing to lose and get up again .... I think that when
women look at my career and my life, that there are women
who say to me, my friend who says to me, it's like reading
the Book of Job-so many terrible things have happened to

you, and they have, and sometimes I dwell on them. But if
you dwell on them, then people will only dwell with you for
a short time. So you've got to get up and say, "Well, I'll try
again; I'll do the best that I can."
ROBERT L. MCMILLAN, JR.-INDIVIDUAL DIGNITY AND THE BILL
OF RIGHTS:
"STANDING WITH THOSE WHO ARE ALONE AND

AFRAID"
Robert L. McMillan, Jr., who currently practices in Raleigh, is the

quintessential criminal lawyer and one of the most respected lawyers
in the state. He was among the first recipients of the Joseph Branch
professionalism award and has set a remarkable example for his
fellow lawyers.
1995]
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McMillan was born on September 4, 1923, and grew up in

Raleigh where his father, R.L. McMillan, was a lawyer. His mother
and father had met while his father was a student at Columbia Law
School and his mother was a secretary to the wife of Ignace
Paderewski, the famous pianist. Growing up in Raleigh, which he
described as "an overgrown country town," was pleasant for
McMillan. He also spent a lot of time during the summers on his
father's old home place where he came under the care and tutelage
of three sisters of his father. One, in particular, made a lasting
impression on him.
[W]hen I was eleven... [I had] these three old aunts...
and my relationship with one of them was just ideal. The
relationship with another of them was good. And the
relationship with the oldest one of them I was afraid of. But
the one who is the youngest of those three, I just idolized
her, and she idolized me. And it has always been a wonderful influence in my life because no matter where I went, no
matter what I did, I knew that old lady loved me. And that
was a wonderful resource of support. Consequently, it put
me on my mettle knowing that she loved me like that and
knowing that she loved me no matter what, it made me
avoid the 'no matter what' if you see what I am getting at.
It made me very conscious of her love for me. And it made
a much better person out of me.... It was different from
a mother or father. It was a unique relationship. A very
valuable relationship. And never a spirit of rebellion
towards her. I might have had a spirit of rebellion toward
my mother and father but never toward her; just pure
affection for her.
Because of his love for the country and the outdoors, he dreamed
of being a farmer but decided he did not have enough capital. He
attended college and dreamed of becoming an English teacher: "I
just enjoyed English, enjoyed reading, and enjoyed the Romance
Poets: Keats, Shelley, Byron, Burns, Wordsworth." World War II put
all of his dreams on hold. He entered the Marine Corps and served
during the war. He describes his "decision" to enter law school after
he returned to Raleigh from his service in the Marines.
I was either twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, and I
had completed college. I thought I knew everything and had
all the answers. At that time I had red hair, and I had a big
red moustache. I came in and my father, whom I had not
seen for several years because of my being away, said, "Son,
I'm glad to see you. I believe if I were you, I would shave
[Vol. 73
that moustache." So I did. Then he said, "What are you

going to do?" "Well, I don't know." I suppose you might
say I was destined, or on the road to being, a hippie twenty
years before the age of hippies. I'm sure he had visions of
my doing nothing. He said, "Why don't you go to law
school?" I said, "All right, I'll try." So I went over to the
town of Wake Forest where Wake Forest University was
- then situated to talk to the law school about entering Wake
Forest. I learned that Wake Forest had been in session for
about three weeks. So I came back, and I told him. I said,
"Well, Wake Forest has been in session about three weeks

and it's too late for me to get in." He said, "Well, why
don't you try Chapel Hill?" So I went to Chapel Hill, and
I talked to Dean Wettach. They had not started. They were
about three weeks behind. Dean Wettach said, "Well, we're
filled up, but there's a man who has been accepted as a
student at Chapel Hill who is in the hospital at Fort Bragg.
And he may not be released in time to enroll in school. If
he does not get out of the hospital in time to enroll in school
next week-that was when school began-you may have his
position." And as it turned out, he was not released in time,
so I enrolled in Chapel Hill, and I completed law school.
McMillan admits that he was not an outstanding law student, but he
said he "got better and better" and that he enjoyed the experience.
During his third year he was married, and he credits this with helping
him focus on his work and his future: "I settled down and [became]
more serious than I had been, and I realized that it was time to shape
up or ship out."
After he completed law school, he practiced with his father, R.L.
McMillan, and Claude Douglas for about a year and half. He was
then called back into service in the Korean War. In response to a
question about how his service in the military helped him as a lawyer,
McMillan said that he thought the discipline of the military helped
him handle the pressures of practice. He continued:
I mean the practice, the criminal trial practice is just one
crisis after another, and the lawyer has to be professional
and objective. I do know that when I was younger I used to
try a great many high pressure cases. I remember one time
I tried two cases, completed one, and started the other the
very next day. And people used to talk to me, saying, "I
don't know how on earth you can do this; it doesn't seem to
bother you a bit." Well, of course that is just the image you
project. It does bother you. I mean your stomach is
churning, you're lying awake at night,... you're wrestling
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
909
with the issues. But of course you have to project the image
of calmness and control. You certainly don't want the client
or the jury or the judge to see that you are in turmoil, and
so you have to brace yourself. And perhaps the discipline
of the military helps in that regard, but you develop that
discipline anyway just by experience.
After he got out of the service he came back to Raleigh and
struck out on his own in practice. By then he and his wife had three
children. He was offered the position of prosecutor of the Municipal
Court in Raleigh, which he accepted and held for about three and
one-half years. He then resigned and went out on his own again. He
explained his reasons:
I realized that the longer I stayed in the position, the more
dependent... I was upon the regularity of the paycheck and
the harder it would be to wean myself away from that as
time went on.... Not that it was much of a paycheck...
but in those days I was thankful to get paid $400 a month.
With a wife and three children, I needed that security, but
I realized that I had to break away from it, or I... would.
become wedded to the concept of being a prosecutor or
something like that throughout my life. By then I had
decided I wanted to try my hand at the general practice of
law.
McMillan practiced law for eight years before he ever saw a pay
check of over $1,000 per month gross. He stated that when he began
he was, like his father before him, a general practitioner:
Whatever walked in the office.., there were no specialists.
He did a lot of tort law. He did some criminal law. He did
some title examination type law. And I did all of those
things when I started, but as time went on I started doing
more criminal law than anything else.
McMillan is a lawyer who operates from deep moral conviction
and one who continues to reexamine his positions in light of certain
principles that he holds very dear. Chief among these are the dignity
of the individual, the protection due the individual under the Bill of
Rights, and the lawyer's role in seeing that individual dignity and
individual rights are protected. He believes this role to be so central
to the sanctity and integrity of the American justice system that he
views the practice of criminal law as "a calling." He gave an informal
listing of basic rights and said:
The list goes on. These privileges are so basic that we are
blas6, and we are. And we say, well, he's not entitled to a
fair trial, but I am. And it's the duty of the criminal bar to
[Vol. 73
make sure. Not only are you entitled to a fair trial, but so
is he.
He continued:
You know a lot of lawyers, a lot of silk-stocking lawyers
look down on criminal law. And they sort of tolerate it, but
they try to disassociate themselves from it. Which is fine.
They like to go around with their friends, their banker
friends, and what have you-and nothing wrong with
bankers, but you know, I'm just using that term. They like
to go around with their businessmen and banker friends and
say, "Well, I don't practice criminal law. I don't sully my
hands with that." But those who really think about it
appreciate the position I'm espousing. I mean the real
lawyers appreciate that whether they're civil lawyers,
criminal lawyers, anything else.
Because anybody who thinks about it realizes that that
is our system, and that's what makes America great. You
hear people talking about this economic system or that
economic system. The economic system is not important.
What's important is the safeguarding of the Bill of Rights
and the dignity of the individual. That's what's great about
America. You don't hear politicians talking about that.
You hear them talking about supply-side economics, or this
kind of economics, or that kind of economics. What's great
about America is the dignity of the individual and the
protection of the individual in our Constitution. And that's
what sets America apart from the rest of the world, and to
a lesser degree England, but America more than any place.
That's my belief. That's really my basis for being a lawyer.
It is also apparent that McMillan has a deep respect for his fellow
man. In his interview, he talked about his service as a prosecutor,
saying, "I have great empathy [with] and sympathy for the accused
people. I found it very hard to dislike these people. Because so
many of them, you know, were just in deep over their heads, just
pathetic people that just got into messy situations." He said the same
thing of being a criminal lawyer defending the accused:
I will say this. I've practiced law for forty-three years, and
most of it has been criminal law. I have seen very few
criminal defendants whom I would say were basically mean
and vicious people. Very few. The great majority, even
those involved in crimes, are people who are misguided, who
get into emotional jams or other types of jams beyond their
control. I have seen very few really vicious, mean people,
although I have seen some.... But by and large, they are
1995]
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just ordinary people who are caught up in emotional crisis
and they get out of control.

McMillan also believes that society should be charitable in its
dealing with people. He stated that it is when society becomes
zealous and vindictive that basic freedoms and human dignity are
jeopardized.
He admitted that he "relished" the practice of law and has had
to discipline himself throughout his career to keep from taking on too
much and risking burnout. He sees this as a problem for himself even
today. His advice to other lawyers in this regard had more to do with
how one practices law than how much law is practiced.
I did a lot of lying awake at night, I did a lot of thinking and
pondering.... But also I never second-guessed. I think
that's important: never second-guess. You make a decision
and you move on.... [T]hat doesn't mean you're a damn
fool about something, but once you formulate a good plan,
follow through. .
. [O]nce you're committed and it's
completed, don't worry about it, don't second-guess, because

you accomplish nothing by second-guessing. Now you can
review and consider, "Was this a good procedure or wasn't
it?" you know, to improve for the future.... But consider-
ing and planning for the future are just a wise course of
action. Second-guessing is destructive.
In addition to his remarkable career as a criminal defense
attorney, McMillan also serves as a counselor in an informal way to
other members of the bar, and he is aware of the importance of this
role. He said that he has often thought that he would like to teach
and that he has been able to fulfill that urge over the years as other
lawyers began to come to him for counseling and advice.
I feel that I have helped a lot of lawyers in some of these
areas
. .
. I have been talking about. They come in here
with these problems ... problems they want to talk about.
They come in and want to talk about cases and factual
situations and avenues of approach. And yes I have done a

lot of teaching, just by talking to other lawyers. A lot of
lawyers have taught the same way.. I mean bull sessions are
great sources of knowledge. I have always been a great
believer in the value of bull sessions in law school and also
in the courthouse. So, yes, I have had a lot of satisfaction in
talking to lawyers, making suggestions and giving advice. I
think that I have made a contribution in that area. And it
satisfies me.
[Vol. 73
McMillan has shown by his own example that a lawyer's duty of

service extends to his profession as well as his clients. He has served
on numerous professional boards and committees. He chaired the
Unauthorized Practice Committee of the State Bar, was a member of
the Council of the North Carolina State Bar, and chaired the
committee to appoint counsel for indigent defendants. McMillan has
long been involved in bar efforts to obtain representation for indigent
defendants in criminal cases.
McMillan is also a very active member of the Pullen Memorial
Baptist Church in Raleigh. He has been a model lawyer in terms of
his relation with his family. He and his wife raised six children. He
noted that he always took pains to manage his time so that he was
able to leave his office by 5:30 p.m. and rarely returned at night so
that he was able to spend evenings with his family. He doubts that
he came back to work at night forty times in forty years. He helped
with the housework and with raising the children and said that he was
usually the person to bathe and feed the children and referee fights.
He was able to devote the time needed for his work by arriving at his
office very early in the morning, a time, he said, which is best suited
for getting work done.
McMillan's respect for other people and his deep commitment to
fairness helped him set an example for other attorneys in improving
racial relations among members of the Raleigh Bar. When a growing
number of African-American lawyers became members of the Bar in
the 1950s, McMillan remembered that there was a "patronizing
attitude on the part of the bar toward black people and toward black
lawyers." He said that racial discrimination was evident when crimes
of black people against other black people were not treated seriously.
Black-on-white crime was treated very severely, and he saw such
patterns as evidencing great inequity. McMillan always made a point
to try to treat his clients fairly and with equal respect regardless of
their race. He made a point to do the same to black lawyers who
were coming to the bar.
He recounted that George Green, who became a Superior Court
judge in Raleigh, told McMillan that when Green first came to
Raleigh, he went to work with a man named Herman Taylor, an early

civil rights lawyer and an African-American. McMillan said he
greatly admired Taylor because Taylor fought so hard for his clients
under very difficult circumstances. Judge Green told McMillan that
when he started practicing law with Herman Taylor, Taylor told him
that there were two white lawyers in Raleigh to whom you could
always look to treat you fairly. Those two were Robert McMillan and
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
his father, R. L. McMillan. McMillan said proudly that he would

always treasure that comment from Herman Taylor and that he has
always tried to make that his approach.
When he was interviewed, Robert McMillan had recently
delivered a talk at his church to respond to a common question posed
by members of the public to criminal lawyers: How can lawyers
represent people they believe to be guilty? He quoted from his talk:
I feel a high sense of calling when asked to defend an
accused. It is my belief that Christ speaks to us when we
stand with one who is alone and afraid. I know that we are
doing God's will when we demand due process under the
law. I know that without the efforts of criminal lawyers,
mistaken convictions, as the one reported in Orange County
recently, would be commonplace. I know that without the
efforts of criminal lawyers, Governor Martin would not have
spared the life of Anson Maynard recently. I know that
without the efforts of criminal lawyers, we would have a
most efficient criminal justice system which ignores the
Magna Carta, which ignores common law, which ignores the
Bill of Rights, and which bans Bibles, burns witches, and
hangs heretics. So that's my position, and that's my belief
I'm not just, as they say, "whistling Dixie" when I say that.
I truly believe that.
JUSTICE BURLEY B. MITCHELL, JR.-A LIFE OF RESPONSIBILITY:
RIGHTING THE WRONGS OF SOCIETY AND SERVING THE LESS

FORTUNATE
Chief Justice Burley Mitchell is a two-time high school dropout

who was discharged from the Marines for being underage, grew to
adulthood as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam, found inspiration in college,
and went on to become a justice on the North Carolina Supreme
Court.
He was born in Oxford, North Carolina, on December 15, 1940,
and moved around a lot as a child. His father worked for the United
States Agricultural Department, and, in that capacity, was involved in
a number of New Deal programs. He had only a high school
diploma, which Justice Mitchell said is probably equivalent to a
college bachelor's degree today. Chief Justice Mitchell's mother
graduated from Peace College in Raleigh. She was a very religious
person and wanted Mitchell to grow up to be a minister. But he says
that, more generally, she wanted him to be honest and contribute to
society.
[Vol. 73
After the Second World War, the family continued to move

around a lot. His father worked for Chrysler Corporation in
Washington, D.C. at one point, and his family lived in numerous
places in North Carolina. Justice Mitchell said that the frequent
moves affected him as a child because every time the family moved
into a new community, he felt like an outsider. He felt this way most
of the time he was growing up and was never in a place long enough
to fit into cliques of the children where he lived. As a result, he said,
It probably caused me to read a lot.... I think on the good
side, it tended to make me a little self-sufficient. I wasn't
really dependent so much on the approval of others, as
maybe a lot of kids would have been. And I had to sort of
make my own entertainment and that sort of thing, and I
turned to reading a good deal. To that extent, it probably
helped me quite a bit.
By the time Mitchell was in junior high school, the family had landed
in Raleigh, where there was a little more permanence.
Justice Mitchell spoke about the values his parents instilled in
him:
Well, I suppose today it would be called traditional
values, and maybe they're peculiarly southeastern or
southern. Looking back on it, maybe more than other kids,
we were really instilled with this idea of civic duty and
patriotism and maybe part of that was because I was a small
child during the war. You know, maybe everybody had a
sort of patriotic fervor that carried over.... So it was really
just almost beaten into us. You know, every day, we were
reminded of it one way or another.
I would say that loyalties that maybe aren't as
pronounced today were really important then-loyalty to
country, to state, certainly loyalty to family.... So, we were
really taught a good deal more that we had certain civic
responsibilities. With the privileges, there are a very definite
set of duties that you have to measure up to and carry out
that I don't see being taught quite as much today.
Commenting further on the role his parents had in teaching him
values, Justice Mitchell said:
I would say that the main thing that [my father] instilled
in me and in my brother was a sense of responsibility.
When you give your word, you absolutely will live up to it.
You know, whether you signed anything, or whether you're
legally bound or not, when you've made a commitment, you
will live up to it and in a timely fashion. And you pay your
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
debts without excuses. You show up on time without

excuses. And just meet your commitments....
I think my mother contributed more in the area of what
you would describe as an intellectual life. She and her
family before her had all been great readers, interested in
philosophical, theological questions. Just a real intellectual
curiosity, almost to a fault of not getting out and getting
things done. Just because of the pure joy of learning for its
own sake and not tying it into the practical. So, I think I
learned from her-I know I did-the joy of learning, you
know, the pleasure involved in reading, that you can be all
alone and still have a good time and go anywhere you want
to in your mind if you can read and comprehend, that sort
of thing. And just a real joy in intellectual challenges, you
know, problem-solving on a more theoretical basis.
Justice Mitchell also spoke of community service:
Times were a little easier then for young people, I think,
because in those days, we had a set of values that were
almost universally shared.... [E]verybody had pretty much
the same notions of what was right and wrong, what the
duties of citizenship were, and particularly, for those of us
who had some of the advantages of life, what we owed the
community in return. You know, that you had an obligation
of good stewardship and when you draw from the community, you have an obligation to put back at least as much as
you draw and try to put more back in to improve the
community.
Religion also was important: "I'd say our.., religious principles
...
were probably, if not the most important thing in our upbringing,
certainly pretty close to the top of the important things."

He spoke of his parents' aspirations for his future:
I think basically what they wanted me to be was.., an
honest person who contributes to society and has some
concerns for other people and tries to serve humanity to a
certain extent. Well, I suppose you never live up to that. I
think that's part of what the legal profession is about, or any
profession. To me, that's really what distinguishes a profession from a business. A profession's major thrust is to serve
humanity and, coincidentally, make a decent living, rather
than the other way around, just making money, and any
other good being coincidental.
When Mitchell was fifteen years old, he dropped out of high
school, joined the Marine Corps, and went off to basic training at
Paris Island. The reason for his decision, he said, was that he just did
[Vol. 73
not like school and did not find it challenging. Though he was under
age, he stayed in Marine Corps basic training for twelve weeks until
the Corps ran a security check on him to qualify him for work with
nuclear weapons and learned that he was only fifteen. Because he
was underage, he was discharged from the Corps. He returned to
high school, staying there until he turned seventeen. Again, he
dropped out and this time joined the Navy. He never went back to
high school. In the Navy, he was in an amphibious unit, a member of
an underwater demolition team, and ultimately was assigned to the
SEALs (the most elite and highly-trained Navy combat troops). He
spent his entire Navy career in the Pacific and was in Vietnam well
before the conflict there was actually recognized as a war (1959-62).
Justice Mitchell said of his military experience:
You learn self-sufficiency, but you learn it in the context of
a greater unit that you have to help make function. So you
have to be self-sufficient, but at the same time, you have to
be supportive of your unit and fulfill your obligation in
there. Otherwise, the whole unit can be lost. So, I think I
learned responsibility. Another thing I learned there though
was the ability to take charge and command other people..
. So, you learn responsibility for others, and I learned a
little something about command. If I had to put my finger
on one thing, I would say you develop the ability to make a
decision. You gather the information, the best information
available to you, analyze it, make a decision and then stick
with it. And that ability is something that is sadly missing in
most people.
When he got out of the Navy, Mitchell thought that he might find
a job that allowed him to work with his hands. He was in very good
physical shape and thought he could handle physical labor as a way

to earn a livelihood. However, he had always enjoyed reading and
learning, so he decided to try college for a semester or two to see how
he liked it and perhaps to improve his future employment opportunities.
He entered North Carolina State and became thoroughly caught
up in the learning process, finishing in three years. He said:
I really got caught on to the world of ideas.... I had
my horizons broadened a little bit by President Kennedy.
He was such a dashing, young figure with a Naval background and all. And I just felt some kinship to him and
became interested in the world as a whole and what was
playing out on the world stage and certainly on the national
stage. .
We had so many great aspirations and all,
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nationally, at that point, that I just really got into the swing
of learning and trying. And I knew how much-how far I
was behind. And so I tried to learn it all, you know, and for
the first three years, I really loved it.
While at North Carolina State, Mitchell also became interested
in politics and worked in Bob Scott's campaign for Lieutenant
Governor. This led in part to his decision to go to law school because
he felt that was the best place to go to have some voice in saying how
North Carolina was going to evolve as a state. "I guess that it would
be a position of, not of power, but maybe of influence, a position
where you could have an impact on society, and at the same time,
make a decent living." When asked what sort of impact he wanted
to make, he said,
Going back to when I was in grade school and high school,
I guess, it always seemed to me that there was a lot of
arbitrariness and unfairness, and elitism, or classism in North
Carolina, which was basically what I knew at that point. It
just seemed to me there was a lot of unfairness. And at that
point, of course, I hadn't awakened to think in terms of race
at all.
Justice Mitchell spoke about his growing awareness of racial
issues. In the military, he had become very close to people of all
races, because they were thrown into close proximity to each other.
I mean, you know, sleeping at night where we would throw
an arm over each other, that sort of closeness, not some
academic setting. I think that experience sort of reinforced
my feelings already that there was just a lot of injustice in
the world, unnecessarily. I mean, the gratuitous injustice.... So I set about trying to [correct] that. It sounds so
self-serving, or maybe trite, but to try to see that everybody
got a fair shake, got a fair opportunity, not equal results, but
an opportunity to achieve.
Mitchell was president of his law class, but he did not like law
school. He said that at the time he thought he liked it, but when he
got out he realized how absolutely depressing and tedious it had been.
He said, "After I got out of law school and looked back on it, I was
thoroughly miserable, just because it was so tedious and there was no
life to it; it was just in the abstract. To me, law in the abstract, just
law for law's sake, is about as interesting as watching grass grow."
While he was in law school, Mitchell worked in Robert Morgan's

campaign for State Attorney General. He was very inspired by
Morgan's ideas, particularly Morgan's desire to form a consumer
protection division in the Attorney General's office. When Mitchell
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[Vol. 73
graduated from law school, he took a job as an Assistant Attorney

General. He developed expertise in federal litigation in the areas of
education and labor cases. One of those cases was the Swann6 school
desegregation case arising out of Mecklenburg County. Mitchell
found this to be a very exciting period in his life. Although he was
on what he referred to as the "wrong end of the cases" and fighting
a losing battle, he said that he learned a tremendous amount and
developed his skills as a trial and appellate lawyer. In talking about
his role in defending the state in some of the important desegregation
cases, Justice Mitchell said:
In order to be, I think, a good advocate, you almost have to
force yourself, to some extent, to believe in the rightness of
your cause. And I think that's probably what a lot of us did
who were defending those suits involving desegregation
efforts. You could not say, and should not have said, that
desegregation is not required or is the wrong thing or the
law doesn't require it. By the time I got involved, all those
issues were past. The questions were, "how would you go
about implementing the desegregation rulings and just to
what extent you had to?"
After three years in the Attorney General's office, Mitchell was
appointed by Governor Bob Scott to be the district attorney for the
tenth judicial district. He found that as a prosecutor he could
probably do more to prevent injustices to citizens, particularly to
those who were accused of crimes, than he could as a criminal defense
lawyer. He said that when he talked to law school students about
career choices, he would tell them,
If you really want to get out there and be a civil rights
lawyer and take care of people and prevent injustices in
society, don't be a criminal defense lawyer. Get over and be
a prosecutor, because I can pull out my fountain pen and, in
six seconds, do what it would take you six months to do if
you win a case, you know, an unjustified prosecution. Even
if you win it, it's going to take you forever. All I've got to
... do is write "dismissed" and sign my name.
Justice Mitchell gave as ani example an incident in which he
dismissed a case against some young boys who were fishing without
a license and who were arrested by game wardens. He said:
Well, I mean, they were fishing, not selling drugs, not
shoplifting or anything else. And these wardens wrote them
6.
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 402 U.S. 1 (1971).
1995]
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a ticket. They were both down there with their mothers and
no fathers. I just took them in and explained to them, "Now
you know we are required to have these licenses and
everything. But I'm really proud of you for being out there
fishing instead of off getting in trouble and stuff" And we
talked about it. Well, I like to fish, so we talked about
fishing a while. I said, "Now ... I don't want you to go
down there without getting a license any more. Talk to your

mother and get a license. If you can't get one, I'll get you
one."
And then I went in another room and got with the

Game Wardens and asked them, "What in the hell do you
think you're doing? There are dozens of people out there
poaching. There are all sorts of adults who've got the
money on their hip to pay for these licenses and are fishing
without them. You go down here and arrest two little tenyear-old black kids."
Chief Justice Mitchell is a hunter and a fisherman and appreciates
the outdoors. He talked about taking his son and his son's friends
duck hunting in the Mattamuskeet Wildlife Refuge. They were out
at sunrise with all the beautiful colors-the pinks and yellows in the
sky-and twenty or thirty thousand ducks and geese flying in. The
sky was full of them. He told his son and his son's friends, "Look at
this and remember it. Burn it into your mind because by the time
you are my age, it won't be there."
Mitchell's father and Governor Jim Hunt's father had worked
together in the New Deal programs for the United States Department
of Agriculture and the two sons knew each other, although they were
not close. Mitchell started working in Hunt's campaigns in the early
1970s, when Hunt was campaigning for Lieutenant Governor and in
both of his earlier campaigns for Governor in 1976 and 1980.
Mitchell was appointed a member of the Hunt Cabinet as Secretary
of Crime Control, a job in which he found fascinating opportunities
to deal with the emergency response capability of the state. That
department includes the National Guard and the State Emergency
Management Service (for dealing with natural disasters), as well as
law enforcement agencies, such as the state Alcohol Law Enforcement
Agency and the Highway Patrol.
Among the many events that occurred during his term in this
position were a ten-inch blizzard on the Outer Banks and the shootout between the Communist Workers Party and the Ku Klux Klan in
Greensboro. During the Greensboro incident, he was forced to put
Greensboro under what amounted to martial law. He recalled
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[Vol. 73
telephoning Governor Hunt, who was in Bejing in the People's

Republic of China, at about three o'clock in the morning, to tell him
about the confrontation between the Communists and the Klan. As
they were talking, it suddenly dawned on Mitchell that he was calling
the Governor in a city in Communist China, that the phones there
were likely tapped, and that the eavesdroppers were perhaps drawing
some fairly wild conclusions about what it was like to live as a
communist in North Carolina.
Justice Mitchell spoke eloquently about public service and
holding public office:
I really think that public service is a good thing. I still
would not discourage anybody from it. Looking back on
both my own career, though, and the career of other people,
it seems to me that the best way to do things is to get out of
school and take care of your own financial security and the
security of your family before you get into public life. In
other words, the most successful public figures I know have
been those who are not dependent on the public position for
a living, who can walk away from it anytime they want. You
are a better public official, I think, if you have that sort of
independence, to be able, if you want to, to be able to say
I'm not going to do this. This is wrong. The office does not
mean that much to be me, and I'll leave it. And to be able
to do that without working severe hardships on your family
or anything like that.
Justice Mitchell said that he sees evidence in the legislature of the
decline of public service by lawyers. There are now fewer lawyers in
the legislature than there have been in the past. The quality of
legislation is declining, and the General Assembly is becoming
"professionalized" by those who serve there as a career rather than
as a largely donated service. He expressed concern that fewer and
fewer lawyers seem to be willing to enter public service.
Mitchell was appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court in
1982 after serving on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. He
described his work and why he enjoys it:
When you are the court of last resort, you have to be very
thoughtful about what you do. I mean, not to say that other
courts aren't too, but you're particularly thoughtful. You

begin to take on more of the public policy setting function,
which we do here. And I find that to be very fulfilling....
[I]t's a perfect blend, I think, between the academic and the
practical. We spend a good amount of time as pure scholars,
but then we apply that scholarship to very real human
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problems and we ultimately have to come up with a

resolution of the case. So, it's a good, logical, thoughtful
way to resolve human conflicts.
Justice Mitchell was asked what he has done to maintain his
temperament as a judge. He spoke about watching himself and
critiquing himself, understanding his own biases and guarding against
arrogance. He said:
[I]t really gets to be less of a problem as you get older,
for one thing. I think that because each year I have made
more mistakes, and therefore, I hope I'm a lot more tolerant
of other people's....
I think the biggest problem I faced anyway was impatience. A lot of times I felt like, "I know where you're
going; won't you for heaven's sake get there." I think every
judge feels that way. But, I have made a conscious effort,
and have to renew it every once in a while, to sit back and
analyze myself.
. .
. [W]e all are a bundle of biases or
preconceptions. That's to be expected, but you can never be

a good judge unless you have some pretty good idea of what
your biases are, so that you can watch out for them. The
same is true of any negative trait, whether it's impatience or
a tendency towards curtness or whatever. You have to
constantly re-evaluate yourself, because in most judicial
situations, there's nobody there to sort of jerk you down..
. So self-examination is the key to being a good anything.

Justice Mitchell also spoke about the future of the legal profession and the change he sees in lawyers' attitudes toward the profession.
I constantly hear now lawyers walking around saying,
"This just isn't fun anymore. This has gotten to be miserable. You have to constantly be looking over your shoulder.
You have to be mistrustful of other lawyers and you can't
deal with each other decently."
There really has been a sea change. There is a change
in the way the law is practiced and in the way people deal
with each other in practicing law. It has apparently not been
for the better. I'm really concerned about the long-term
future of the legal profession. If we can't regulate ourselves
and if we can't deal with these problems on our own,
somebody's going to do it for us.
Part of the problem, he believes, stems from the fact that young
lawyers do not receive as much patient, personal guidance from older
lawyers as his generation did.
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Finally, Justice Mitchell was asked what improvements he sees

for the legal profession in the future. He said he thinks lawyers are
beginning again to take on responsibility for serving humanity and
trying to right some of the wrongs of society:
I do think that I see the beginnings of our going back
into a cycle of public service or public service orientation.
I think, and I'm certainly hopeful, that the focus, to the
exclusion of everything else, on profit and on winning, and
on some of the more base aspects of the profession, has
about reached its high or low water mark, whichever way
you want to describe it.... [W]e are beginning to enter a
period where the members of the profession are again going
to try to right some of the wrongs in society and to serve the
less fortunate. When I say right the wrongs in society, I'm
not talking about high-blown ideals of going off on a second
set of crusades or anything, but just some of the grinding
problems that beset people who are afflicted with poverty or
illness or ignorance and that would make their lot in life less
desirable than most.
I've really begun to see young lawyers get interested in
that, helping people with some of the mundane, day-to-day
things that are not very exciting or glamorous for the lawyer
but that are so important to a person who's being served.
None of us is probably going to build Hadrian's Wall or
repeat the Pyramids or any of that sort of thing. You go
through life and try basically, I think, to do less harm than

good. And if you can get through having done that, you are
probably way ahead of most.
WADE SMITH: "A GREAT HONOR TO BE A LAWYER"
Wade Smith was born on Ocotber 9, 1937, but his story really
begins before that in the farmlands and textile mills of the eastern
Piedmont. It is a story of humble beginnings where the seeds of
achievement were sown early and nurtured by a heritage of faith,
love, frugality and hard work.
According to Wade Smith, his father, Charlie Lee Smith, grew up
on a farm in Stanly County with "seven or eight" siblings. Their
mother died when Wade Smith's father was eight years old leaving
her husband, James Marvin Smith, with a "whole houseful of little
children." They were very religious people, and soon Wade Smith's
grandfather was called to the ministry. There he organized many
small Baptist churches and became a successful minister and according
to Wade Smith, "a wonderful... powerful speaker." Wade Smith
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said that James Marvin Smith was, "a really good man, one of my
heroes, and I spent hundreds of hours when I was a little boy hearing
him in the pulpit." The young Wade Smith was also fascinated with
the idea of his grandfather's "call" to the ministry.
[T]hat's always been of great interest to me.... I think
about it as it relates to the law, about being called. Are we
called to what we do? And I used to ask him about it when
I was a kid: What it was like to be called? Did you actually
hear someone? Was there a voice that says, "I want you to
be a minister?" What would you hear? He would say it was
just a feeling.
Wade Smith's mother was also from a large family. Her father
was a "sometimes farmer, sometimes textile worker" who could not
read or write. Wade Smith remembers visiting his maternal grandparents in South Carolina where they had no electricity and lit their
house with kerosene lanterns and lamps. He described his mother's
family as a very "happy" and "wonderful" family, but "very poor."
Wade Smith related the story of how his mother and father met:
[M]y father moved to Richmond County as a young boy.
That's Rockingham, North Carolina. And so, what happened was the Depression came, and my mother and my dad
were in the eighth grade at Rohannan School, which is a
small school in Rockingham, and my dad met my mom, but
at the age of sixteen, it was about the age of ninth grade,
they had to stop school because of the Depression. So they
next... met each other in the spinning room in a cotton
mill in Rockingham, Hannapickett Mill, and so they did their
courting as young kids, really, working long, long shifts,
making just very little money, in the cotton mill in Hannapickett Mill in Rockingham County. There's much to tell
about all that. It's a very, very important part of my life.
The way my mother and dad started, they are very good,
bright, intelligent people. They had to quit school, they had
no education, and so the story begins like that.
Wade Smith and his brother Roger spent their early childhood
in a mill village, where there was no running water, no indoor
plumbing, and where life was "very simple." Smith said, "We had
plenty; if we were poor, we didn't know." What the family did have
was an intense devotion to one another, a reverence for education,
and a drive to help the children succeed. Wade Smith credits his
parents with his own drive and ambition:
I felt that my parents did everything they could possibly

do for me.
And I just couldn't let them down; I just
[Vol. 73
couldn't let them down, they had done too much. They
came so far. My dad used to tell stories about having to
walk from Rockingham, North Carolina, to Great Falls,
South Carolina, when he was trying to find work. He didn't
have any job, and he would have to walk. There was no
way to get there, and it was a long way, and it would take
several days to walk, and he would have to find places to
spend the night. He would just go to houses and knock on
the door and stay there for the night; and so a lot of times,
when I'm thinking about, well, you know, I can't go on,
work is so hard, or I've got a case that is just overwhelmingly important and incredibly tense, I think, well, you know, I
am really not going to let them down. And so it's standing
up on their shoulders. The courage they had to make it, I

can certainly have that same courage, and I pass that on to
my children, that we really are standing on their shoulders.
And so, as you can see, it's really a part of my daily
existence-measuring up-it is not letting them down, it is
accomplishing everything I can accomplish, being everything
I can possibly be, not ever, not ever taking the chance that
I will come down to the end of my life and look back and
say, well I just didn't do it. So... every day I get up and I
leave my house and I say, today I'm going to work on the
legend, today I'm going to work on the legend, and I've not
even started. And much of it is because of the beginning I
had with the greatest parents, a good family, wonderful
brother, so much to keep me charged up.
It was his parents' emphasis on education that Wade Smith saw
as the key to his and his brother's success as attorneys. Education
was a family undertaking with the parents and children working
together in the family setting to read and to learn the meaning of
words. Education was such a goal for everyone that after Wade and
Roger had achieved their educations, the parents went back to school
to get their high school diplomas. Wade Smith said:
I'm so proud of that. What happened was, as a kid, I
realized that my mother and dad were very unusual
people.... My mother and dad, the amazing thing, they
went to the eighth grade in school, but one of the things we
did as we grew up, we talked about words. They were
always talking about the definitions of words, the meanings
of words. We read the Bible all the time. They were very
religious people. We had daily Bible readings. We went to

church all the time. .. . [Tihe church was two or three
blocks from my house in Albemarle, so Roger and I went to
1995]
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church on Wednesday nights for prayer meetings. We went

to church on Sunday mornings and on Sunday evenings, and
every time there was a church service, we went. And for all
the revival meetings, weeks and weeks of revival meetings
sometimes, my granddaddy would be conducting the revivals.
We studied the King James Version of the Bible just
intensely. It's remarkable when I look back on it. We
didn't always do this, but there were periods when my dad
would insist that we read the Bible every evening at meal
time, at supper, and he would read it. I've realized... that
all of that study of King James English gave Roger and me
an outrageous advantage over other people who practice law
who didn't study the King James version of the Bible. We
learned the stories, we learned the Bible stories, we learned
to think abstract thoughts about justice, salvation, forgiveness, mercy, and all that. So that kind of rural beginning
...
was a wonderful beginning.
The Smith brothers became interested in sports because they saw

sports as a way out of the mill village. Wade Smith's real dream was
to become an artist-a painter. Because he was so good in athletics,
he began to get scholarship offers to colleges. Smith had planned to
go to North Carolina State on a football scholarship but then received
a Morehead scholarship to UNC-Chapel Hill. He decided to take the
academic scholarship, and went to Chapel Hill, where he played
football without an athletic scholarship. He became a football star
and was co-captain of the 1959 Tar Heel football team. He views his
most important achievement at Carolina, however, as meeting and
marrying his wife, Ann. It was a case, he said, of "out-marrying"
himself a phrase he admits borrowing from Senator Sam Ervin.
My first date with Ann was in the fall of my junior year, and
we had played Notre Dame that day. We played Notre
Dame in South Bend, came back, and I took Ann out that
night.... I remember at the game at South Bend I had
never played such a hard game, and I'd got cuts and bruises
that are still healing now. And I had double vision throughout that game. I got hit so hard [when] I carried the ball in
the Notre Dame game I got double vision: I could see two
of everything for the rest of the game. But we had a great
date, had a great time. I enjoyed being with her very much.
So that was the beginning of my friendship with Ann, and
we've continued this friendship now for thirty-one years.
He was recruited to play professional football, but turned down
that opportunity to go to law school instead. When Smith was asked
what law school was like in his day, he responded:
[Vol. 73
Well, it was Van Hecke and Wettach. It was Fred McCall

and Daniel Pollitt and Dickson Phillips, Breckinridge. It was
Henry Brandis. It was the legends. It was a great faculty.
Wettach was my advisor, Van Hecke was my favorite
teacher.... Wettach was a handsome man.... He was
one of my heroes. I just thought the world of him... [a]
gray headed man, [one with] dignity, a modest man, very
effective.
Smith worked his way through law school by coaching freshman
football and working with the varsity team on Saturdays. He enjoyed
his law school experience and knew enough about himself to
understand that his future lay in trial work. He remarked:
I understood intuitively then that I had the ability to communicate with people, and that made me want to go to law
school. And after I got into law school I naturally gravitated
more toward torts, criminal law, toward that kind of advocacy. I never was interested particularly in contracts, tax
and those things. Estate planning just left me; I couldn't be
excited about it. But my heart always leapt up when I could
learn about torts, and I could talk about negligence, I could
think about Palsgrafv. Long Island Railroad. And I could
understand how this chain of events could happen, the
foreseeability, and how you can be expected to foresee that
you're negligent. All that stuff just struck a chord. It's
wonderful. And the only thing I knew was, well, when we
were all being created, I was lumped into that group of
people who would like to think through the philosophy of
advocacy. And so it was just as natural as it could be, just
as natural that I would want to move in the direction of
being a trial lawyer. It wasn't like one day I said, "By golly,
I need to be a trial lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams and I."
It wasn't like that at all. Nothing magic happened. It just
gradually occurred.
Wade Smith later referred again to being "called" to the law.
His good friend and mentor, Robert McMillan, also views the practice
of law as a calling, and, like McMillan, Smith sees his work as an
almost sacred trust to protect the dignity of the individuals who seek
his help and to uphold the promises of our Constitution and system
of justice.
I'm an idealist. And I think the best test of civilization is
whether it can cheerfully give people it hates a fair trial.
And if it can't, we are in deep trouble.... So I think it is
the lawyer's highest calling. ...
We have taken cases and
arrived at court, and the TV cameras are there, and all the
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SESQUICENTENNIAL
police officers are angry, and the community is angry, and

they're all trying to get into court. Because they can't wait
to see this person get the death penalty, or get some terrible
punishment. Over and over this happens. I don't know how
many times we've left this very office, go down the mall to
the courthouse, arrive there, TV cameras everywhere. You
can feel the community dislike. Walk in the courtroom, sit
down, and be saying to yourself, "I don't adopt this person's
ways. This person will never be my friend.... There will
always be an absolute, arms-length professional relationship.
But we will conduct ourselves in the highest traditions of
professionalism when we give this person service. And if the
jury convicts this person, we will know that we did every
single thing we could. That person will too, and the jury
will too. The jury will feel good about the system, yes they
will. Never was a person more vigorously defended, and
every idea was presented. And every good argument was
made. So that the jury had the opportunity to think it
through, to look at both sides. And only after the jury
thought it through looking at both sides with the finest
advocacy, did the jury decide yes, he's guilty or she's guilty."
That is the backbone of a democracy, and that can give
people a good feeling about their work, about their system
of government.
Smith has handled numerous high-profile cases during his career
including the defense of Jeffrey McDonald, the Green Beret doctor
accused of murdering his family at Fort Bragg; he also represented
former Lt. Governor Jimmy Green and Cardell Spaulding. He clearly
relishes the role of defender of the underdog and finds that role
available most often in criminal cases. He spoke about the role of the
criminal defense lawyer:
Here's what the community wants from me, here's what the
community needs from me. The community doesn't need
me to worry about the victims. The community needs me to
be a hell of a lawyer. The community needs me to be a
magnificent lawyer, to be a great advocate, to be an absolutely legendary advocate. And even with that, it's highly
likely my client will be convicted. And if I begin to say to
myself "Well, I'm not going to try as hard this time, 'cause
look at that poor victim," then the system falters. The only
way the system will work is for me to be a focused advocate.
It's like a game of tennis. I have to keep my eye on the ball
that's coming over the net now, not thinking about the ones
coming over three or four shots from now. I need to keep
[Vol. 73
my eye on this ball, concentrate on it so I can see the word

"Spalding." And in order to do that I worry, not about the
victims. It doesn't mean I'm an unfeeling, uncaring person.
It means that my job within the constitutional framework is
to be a great advocate on behalf of my people.
In addition to being one of the state's outstanding trial lawyers,
Smith has served his community in other ways. In 1972, without
telling his wife or his law partners, he went down to the board of
elections and filed to run for the General Assembly. He was elected
and served as part of the Wake County delegation, and he ran again
and served again. He also spent a good deal of time during the
period from 1972 until 1984 working actively for other political
candidates. In 1985 he accepted the chairmanship of the Democratic
party of the state, a job he described as very time-consuming with no
pay.
Smith talked, too, about his passion for painting, an interest he
developed as a child. He also is a member of the Will Turner hiking
club in Raleigh, a group of old friends who hike together occasionally.
He is also a member of the "Lost Dog" singing group. He plays the
guitar and five-string banjo while friends and family play guitars and
banjos and sing. The group has performed frequently in Raleigh to
raise money for charitable causes.
Wade Smith sees the component of public service as part of the
life of a lawyer. He talked about his thoughts on lawyers and public
service:
[It's] a great honor to be a lawyer. The lawyers returned to
the small towns in North Carolina. They were president of
the PTA; they formed the corporations; they defended
people accused of crimes; they headed the United Way
campaigns. They really became leaders in their communities.
They were very, very much respected in their communities.
And one of the things that interests me so much is the
amazing impact the law school at the University has had on
life in North Carolina. The lawyers ran for the legislature.
The lawyers went to the legislature and passed the laws.
The lawyers became the judges; the lawyers were the
governors. Lawyers were an honorable, honest, distinguished group of people. They wanted to make the world
better. They were idealists. They struggled to make the
world better. Mostly they were progressive-minded people.
They believed in a better world. They went to law school
because it was a way to make the world better. They
believed that a lawyer had a better chance to make the
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
world better than the ministers did, that they could actually
affect the world for good, that they could bring about social
change, that they were very well educated people. They had
the power, through learning, to make the world better. So
it was a magic time. And that was part of what brought me
to the law.
Wade Smith's intense pride in his profession is a pride in the role
of lawyers in society, in the way lawyers relate to each other and to
their clients, in their personal integrity, and in their creed of service
to people. He paid glowing tribute to lawyers and their work:
[T]he lawyers of my era, I think, understood the importance
of respect for each other-and I hope that's still true....
[W]e respected each other; we thought of the law as a very,
very fine profession that probably-and I would say this is
absolutely the truth-the most honest group of people I
have ever known, they are by far the most honest people I
know. The lawyers I work with in my firm and in this
region of the world, and even in other cities I work with,
lawyers are honest people. They are very honest. They are
the best, they're the best group of people. They're the most
fun. They're the most intelligent. And I think it's still true,
that probably the best young women and men that we
produce aspire to be lawyers. And maybe all they need to
do, if there are any now who feel a bit negative, maybe they
just need to hear those of us who are out here practicing say
the things I'm saying, that it is a great profession. That it is

important
changes.
later, but
More sad
to be positive about it, that we are able to make

As a matter of fact, I know we'll come to this
think about what I do, the kind of work I do.
and hurt people come through my life in a year
than come through the life of a minister....
So over and
over, I'll bet if you took all the people we've dealt with in
thirty years, and you take all the people of most any
minister that you want, has dealt with in thirty years. And
you go see, go interview the people we represent. And go
interview the people the minister worked with. And then
you go see the people affected by those works, and the
ripples that came from that, and you would see that we are
like ministers. We do the same.... We make good things
happen. The difference is that ministers ... deal with the
reconciliation of human beings with God. We deal with the

reconciliation of human beings with each other, with their
families and their loved ones, with their communities, with
their governments.... So back to where we were. What
we are doing in this profession, is we're making the world
[Vol. 73
better. We're making people feel better. That means, for

me, it's a dignified, wonderful profession, that we should feel
good about.
Wade Smith is a person who knows the importance of every day
of his life and who, in spite of his remarkable accomplishments as an
attorney and public figure, works hard to keep it all in perspective.
I think it was at about age forty that I began to realize
how short life is, that we're here for just a very, very short
time and we're gone, that it's gone by in such a hurry. It's
only a moment that I was in law school. Just a moment. I
remember every day, every class, every person, every face.
And it's been thirty years. It went by [Smith snaps his
fingers] just like that. The next thirty will go the same way,
and I'll be gone.
The other thing to remember is my cases-no one will
remember them. The little moments that I build to create
cross-examination-they'll be gone. No one will remember.
And I have to keep that in mind, too, as I go about my
work. After all, while I might think that I'm the greatest
trial lawyer who ever lived, there'll be better ones. There
will be much better ones coming, and we will not be
remembered. We may be remembered for a very short
while, and then we'll be gone. So for me the meaning of life
is, stay up as late as you can, get up as early as possible,
laugh as much as you can laugh, tell as many funny stories
and collect them, and be a good sport, and be a good friend.
JUDGE GREGORY A. WEEKS: USING THE LAW AS A VEHICLE
FOR CHANGE
Gregory A. Weeks was born on May 5, 1946, the oldest of nine

children. Most of his childhood was spent in a predominantly black
and Hispanic neighborood in central New Jersey, but he also attended
the sixth and seventh grades in Detroit and spent part of his high
school years in Chicago. His father was one of the first black police
officers in the community where he lived, but the community, and
even Weeks's family, experienced the afflictions of inner-city life. His
youngest brother died at thirty-one years of age as a drug addict.
Weeks was the first member of his family to go to college. He
reflected that college was "not something that was the norm for kids
in my community," and noted that when he goes back to his
hometown to visit, people are surprised that he is a judge. "There are
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
many folks who thought I would be a jail-house lawyer of some kind,

but not a legal lawyer in that sense."
Judge Weeks reflected on how his background shaped his law
school experience:
My perception was different because I came from a different
background. For example, as you well know, law professors
use the Socratic method in teaching, and one of the things
that you're ultimately supposed to reason your way through
to is the basis for the decision in the particular case. There
were a number of instances where I disagreed because in my
view the basis for the decision-whether it was a political
basis or based on precedent, case law-took into account
perceptions that were foreign to the way I saw things and
the way people who grew up like me saw things. It especially occurred in the context of criminal law, but [also] in other
areas of law. I couldn't understand why our law placed so
much emphasis on property and not on lives. [That's] a
different way of looking at it, but I had to learn as a law
student that my view really didn't count. My perception
really didn't count. What I was supposed to do was figure
out what their view was and then give it back to them by
way of the exams. You had to acclimate yourself to thinking
like the majority and you had to see things from their
perception, and that meant you had to understand what their
perception was, which was often difficult because we had
different perceptions.
Judge Weeks described the event that led to his applying to
college. Because almost no one in his family or community went to
college, he had no idea that he would ever attend. But two guidance
counselors in his high school took a special interest in him and
registered him to take the College Board Exams. They paid the fee
for the exam, but it was scheduled for 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday, and
Weeks failed to appear to take it. "I was not about to get up, not on
my day off, to take an exam on Saturday morning. It didn't mean
anything to me." When the two guidance counselors learned that he
had missed the exam, they rescheduled the exam for him, and paid
for it again. Then, Judge Weeks said, "they beat the hell out of me.
[On] the day the exam was scheduled for the second time, [they]
came to my house, picked me up and took me to it and waited to
make sure that I stayed there." Apparently he did fairly well. He
was offered financial assistance through a scholarship program for
inner-city, minority kids called the New Jersey State Rehabilitation
Scholarship, and as a result was able to go to college.
[Vol. 73
Weeks knew of one young man from his community who had
gone to North Carolina A&T and a woman who had gone to Bennett.
Through them he learned about A&T in Greensboro and decided to
go there. He took a bus from New Jersey to Greensboro with
everything he owned in two small suitcases. He believes that North
Carolina A&T was a good experience for him: "For the first time in
my life I saw black-owned businesses; I saw black professionals; I had
the opportunity to be taught by motivated black instructors. It was
the first time that I had a real sense that black folks could achieve,
that black folks could succeed." He felt there was a great deal of
difference between the world he came from and the world at North
Carolina A&T. He said it was very hard to communicate to people
back in the world where he had come from about his experiences in
college because they had no way of understanding. His family and
friends were proud of the fact that he was in school, but they felt that
he was going to a second-rate school because it was black. He
ascribes this perception to the misinformation about black colleges in
the media.
While Weeks was at A&T, the administration there neglected to
send his draft exemption to the Selective Service Board, and he
received a draft notice and reporting date from the Army. To avoid
that destiny, he enlisted in the Air Force. Though he received a
delayed enlistment date, he still was unable to finish school, and he
entered the Air Force in 1967 (his third year at A&T). He served
four years in the Air Force, spending part of the time in Southeast
Asia and part of the time in Europe. After he left the Air Force, he
returned to North Carolina A&T and graduated in December 1973.
While finishing college at A&T, Weeks worked the second shift
at Guilford Mills six nights a week and went to school during the day.
He had classes from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and went to work from
3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. This was during the wage freeze under the
Nixon Administration, so he had to work considerable overtime just
to survive. He said of the job:
[It] taught me a lot about human beings because most of the
folks who worked at that kind of job, textile work, they were
poor; they were black, white, and Indian. It was backbreaking labor, and most people spent their entire lives
doing it, but I learned an awful lot about people at that job.
I think it helped me ultimately down the road as a practicing
attorney.
Judge Weeks talked about why he decided to go to law school,
something he began thinking about while he was in the service.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Even as cynical as I was at that age, I still had within me a

kind of naive belief that there is ultimately a right and there
is ultimately a truth, despite all the things that I saw to the
contrary around me. But it was my experiences in the
service that got me to thinking about law school because I
thought law school was a mechanism for change, for an
individual making change. I was naive to some extent, but
I still believe that. I still think law can be a vehicle for
change, although it is difficult.
Judge Weeks saw law school as "akin to a tribal initiation. The
objective was to inflict psychological scars on you as incertain African
societies: "Once you had the requisite number of psychological scars,
you were formally initiated." He felt there was a lot of pressure on
people in the first year. When he went to Carolina there were
twenty-six black students in the entire law school, and sixteen of those
were from North Carolina A&T. He was impressed with the facilities
at the UNC law school as compared to those at his college, and he
was astounded at how much students had in terms of available
lodging, books, and access to libraries. At A&T students had made
do with used books, had shared books, and reused materials. Seeing
the advantages at Carolina impressed him with the accomplishment
of students at A&T. He felt proud that even with the limitations in
facilities and materials, black people were able to succeed.
Weeks was married by the time he came to law school, and his
wife was in graduate school. He worked in the law library and went
to summer school during both his first and second years. He also
worked in the Department of Epidemiology at Carolina on a rural
hypertension research project which he found very interesting. He
says he treated law school like it was a job, and he thought that
helped him succeed in it.
After law school graduation, Weeks got a job with the
Fayetteville Public Defender's Office, where Mary Ann Tally was the
Director. Judge Weeks noted that several other black students who
were a year or two ahead of him in school had helped connect him
into the pipeline leading to his job in Fayetteville. In that job, he
worked with Tally, Fred Williams, and Tye Hunter. He felt he
benefitted greatly from being associated with all three of
them-particularly in learning basic skills and how to make legal
training work. Judge Weeks observed, "I learned things that probably
would have taken four to five years or more on my own." He added:
Our office was special because we didn't rely on North
Carolina law. Our office had contacts with other folks
[Vol. 73
throughout the country who were doing similar work. It was

kind of a network. Some trends in the law that were
developing, for example, in California, we would hear about
very quickly because we were constantly in contact with
these folks. I'm real proud of the fact that lawyers in the
Fayetteville Public Defender's Office were the first lawyers
to ifie what would now be called Batson motions, challenging the use of preemptory challenges discriminatorily by
prosecutors on black jurors, prospective jurors ....
It was
the kind of office where, even though it was in a relatively

small area-Fayetteville is not the largest metropolitan area
in the country, although you would think to the contrary if
you look at the crime statistics-and that was another
advantage. I was out of law school a year before I was
second counsel on my first murder case. You got that kind
of experience real quickly. You had the benefit of not
walking into that kind of experience cold because you had
other lawyers who had been through it, who would sit down
with you any time and share their knowledge and expertise
with you and help you get through it. I can't think of any
place else in the country where I would have gotten that
kind of experience as quickly as I got it, from folks who
were as skilled, as I got in the Fayetteville Public Defender's
Office.
Judge Weeks feels that his heritage as an African-American also
contributed to his skill as an attorney. He spoke of the benefit of
cultural traditions to black attorneys in developing their advocacy
skills.
Many of the students that I was in law school with had
never been in a ghetto, had never experienced many of the
things that I had. Also, it was a constant source of amazement to me, I knew blacks in my community on the corner
who would have been tremendous lawyers or scholars.
Because I think that we have an advantage; I think that
black lawyers, by and large, have an advantage in terms of
advocacy skills. First, because we are a verbal people. ...
We are a language-rich people. We can communicate with
a paucity of language. It's always a beautiful thing to me to
see two black folks meet each other. "Joe, what it be; ain't
nothing to it." How much is communicated by those words?
...
Black ministers understand the power of language; we
make language come alive. It's not cold, sterile, technical

jargon. It becomes a living thing if we use those things that
are a part of our heritage. Also, being black in America,
most of us-not true of all of us-most of us can walk into
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
a room and read folks in the room in fifteen seconds or less,

at least get an initial impression. We pick up so much from
body language because of what we've been exposed to: I
hear what you're saying, but I see what you're doing. All
those skills come into play in a courtroom. I would see
obvious things happen in the courtroom-obvious to
me-but my white opponent would be totally oblivious to it,
because he was so focused on stuff that. really didn't have
anything to do with the human drama that was occurring in
the courtroom. Our aural tradition and oral tradition, the
gift of storytelling that is a part of our community, those
things, I think, are attributes that if we are aware of them,
and if we use them, stand us in good stead as litigators.
When he was asked about his acceptance by the bar as a black
attorney, he talked about what he called the "organ grinder"
syndrome. Organ grinders once stood on street corners with
monkeys; the organ grinder would play his organ, and people would
make donations, watch the monkey, and marvel at how human-like
the monkey was. Judge Weeks believes that is the way some people
see black lawyers. When black lawyers walk into a courtroom, the
expectation is low. Then the organ grinder syndrome sets in, and
people are astounded and impressed that black attorneys talk like
lawyers.
Weeks clearly felt at home in a courtroom and enjoyed trying
cases as a public defender.
I love trying cases and litigating cases because for me it was
like street fighting with legitimacy. It was like combat with
legitimacy. I understood that there were rules, parameters,
but the bottom line was that it was an adversarial process,
and I revelled in that. I loved the idea of taking somebody
in that everybody expected to get convicted and walking
them out, because the system worked. And that was what
I really loved. I don't think the system works consistently
with the ideal. The Seal of the State of North Carolina has
written in Latin, "Esse quam videri," which means, "To be,
rather than to seem." In reality, if you reverse that, that's
the way things really usually are: "To seem, rather than to
be."
Judge Weeks spoke about the ability of lawyers to effect change.
He believes someone can make a difference as a practicing attorney
by "being competent and by being willing to make changes that are
there to be made and not being destroyed completely by the fact that
[Vol. 73
you can't make the kind of changes that you want, and [by] staying
in the game." He said further:
I think all of us start out with grandiose ideas about how
much change we are all going to be able to make. Then
comes the often unsettling realization that any change we're
going to make is going to be very small. The question then
arises, can you deal with that. I learned fairly early on to
take whatever good that I could, count it as a blessing,
because those instances would be few and far between, but
to recognize that it was important to make change when you
could and to the extent that you could.
After ten years, Weeks left the public defender's office and went
into practice with Jim Parrish and James Cooke. When he was
persuaded to run for Superior Court judge in 1988, there was only
one elected black Superior Court judge in the entire state. Judge
Weeks felt that it was important to have minority presence on the
bench. He also believes that it is important to have more women on
the bench and that currently Native Americans as well as AfricanAmericans are underrepresented. "I think there has to be a perception that justice is being done," he said. "That perception is enhanced
when you have a wider representation on the bench. I thought it was
extremely important that blacks, as well as women and other
minorities, be represented in our judicial system."
Judge Weeks spoke about the ability of a judge to effect change.
Based on the sheer number of cases that I deal with and the
position that I hold, I have an opportunity now to have
more impact ... than I ever had in my professional life.
Obviously, when I was acting in the role of an advocate, I
was limited in what impact I could have on things. I could
do the best I could to be a good advocate, but I didn't have
real decision-making powers. I now do, but I'm no longer
an advocate. I was thinking a few weeks back over the
number of cases I've been involved with in five years, and
that's a lot of lives to touch, not only the folks who are
involved in the lawsuit, but the lawyers. Hopefully, I've had
some impact on them if I have conducted myself in a
confident and fair and courteous way. It's like a ripple
effect, but the opportunities to have some influence on what
occurs, and how folks see it, has certainly increased.
Judge Weeks also discussed the attributes he believes an attorney
should possess. He immediately spoke about credibility-personal
credibility-and selling a service:
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
I had some students in my courtroom today, and I told them

that I think the one thing lawyers could never afford to lose
is their credibility, personal credibility. We sell a service.
It's not like you can hold in your hand what it is that we do.
It's not like when you go to a doctor and the doctor can
perform surgery on you or prescribe medicine and that's
something tangible that you can see or hold onto or feel like
you got a return for the money that you paid. In order to
be effective advocates, in order to be persuasive advocates,
I think you have to have credibility. That means your word
is your bond. If you ever reach a position with your colleagues, with your peers, where folks start saying you can't
be trusted, you have effectively hampered your ability to
serve as an advocate.
Judge Weeks is very aware of his position as a role model. He
commented about the judge as a symbol, the burden that imposes
upon him, and his dependence upon religious faith to help him bear
that burden.
I didn't realize how awesome it was. I have a friend who
was a judge who told me that to a great extent you stop
being just an individual. You are a symbol, to folks who
look like you and to folks who don't look like you, who see
you as representative of the entire race. Sometimes you feel
like that's too much of a burden to bear. But it's part of the
responsibility. I came to the church late in my life, but I
really believe that if there is a truth, there is truth in the
Bible. One of the truths that I have learned is that to those
to whom much is given, much is expected. Those that God
allows to be placed in positions of responsibility have to
answer for how they have dealt with that responsibility. This
friend decided that it wasn't for him. When my judgeship
was coming up, he said, "You ought to think out what

you're doing because you're taking on more than I think you
are aware you're taking on." It's true, you have to be
mindful of what you do and what you say. You have to
submerge self to a much greater extent than I think anybody
realizes until they're there. But it's part of the price that
you pay.
Judge Weeks noted that black judges, just like black attorneys,
are under greater scrutiny:
I don't think for a black attorney, or a woman attorney,
being as good is enough. I think you have to be better, and
that's unfortunate. And there are those that say that is just
racial paranoia. I don't think that's true. They haven't been
[Vol. 73
where I've been and walked in my shoes.... I think you're

held to a higher standard, and I know I've held myself to a
higher standard. My frame [of mind], when I was a practicing attorney and even as a judge, is I'm going to be the most
prepared person in there because I can't afford to be
anything less than that.
Reflecting on his years at the UNC School of Law, Judge Weeks
said that he appreciates the opportunity that Carolina gave him.
The oppoitunity has been meaningful to me, and that's why
I do the programs I do at UNC. I think there's a lot of
room for change in attitudes. I think Carolina is a microcosm of our society just like most other institutions are.
Hopefully, Carolina will continue to grow, and black
students will feel more a part of the system than I felt when
I was there. I think that change is going to come. I hope it
comes faster than one might expect from the track record.
Judge Weeks believes that a lot of being able to improve oneself
has to do with luck, and by that he means more than chance.
Luck is, for me, a combination of having the opportunities,
and either having in yourself, or from some other source, the
ability to recognize it for what it is and to appreciate it. By
appreciate, I mean to show by your conduct that you are
going to do your part. And keep in mind, while there are a
lot of bad things happening out there and a lot of folks who
will do negative things to you, there are also some good
people out there. There are some folks out there who will
match you step-for-step, and sometimes take two for every
one you take and help you along the way. You need to
make sure that those folks have not wasted their time or
their efforts [on] you.
THE HISTORY OF THE UNC LAW ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

AND LAW ALUMNI FOUNDATION, INC.
TODD T. LINDSLEY
Todd Lindsley is the second Assistant Dean for

Development and Alumni Affairs in the history of the UNC
School of Law. He was raised in upstate New York, and
received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary.
After graduation,he served as director of alumni relationsat
Hartwick College and director of development at
Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York. He came
to the UNC School of Law in 1989, and concluded his service
in September 1994. He was instrumental in the school's
efforts to raise $12 million as part of the University
Bicentennial Campaignfor Carolina,and has helped lead the
school into an era of candid dialogue and closer relations
with law alumni.
Alumni of the University of North Carolina School of Law have
consistently played a vital role in the growth and development of the
institution since the school's founding in 1845. They have provided
guidance, financial resources, and support at every critical moment.
Alumni have taught classes, served as mentors to students, advocated
on behalf of the school in the North Carolina General Assembly, and
provided jobs for new graduates. Like so many of this nation's finest
law schools, UNC has produced a talented and diverse alumni body.
The more than 7,000 alumni include governors, legislators, business
leaders, public servants, distinguished judges, pillars of the bar,
educators, and lawyer-leaders nationwide.
Prior to 1952, alumni of the School of Law were not organized
in a formal way. They were still very much a part of the daily fabric
of the school. In the first 100 years, alumni were called upon
individually or in small, networked groups to help solve problems,
raise money, lead seminars, and provide a myriad of other volunteer
services. Eventually the evolution of alumni services to the School of
Law and the growing needs of the law school dictated that alumni
establish a more formal alumni association. This was accomplished
in 1952.
[Vol. 73
THE BIRTH OF THE UNC LAW ALUMNI ASSOCIATION IN 1952

The UNC Law Alumni Association (Law Alumni Association)
was founded on September 27, 1952, under the leadership of Dean
Henry Brandis. Dean Brandis explained at the beginning of that first
planning meeting that he had been directed by several enthusiastic
alumni on June 1, 1952, "to appoint a committee with representatives
from each judicial district to make recommendations regarding the
form and program of an organization of law alumni."1 Those present
for the organizational meeting on September 27, 1952, were J. Kenyon
Wilson, Jr., first judicial district; Julian R. Allsbrook, second district;
William A. Dees, Jr., fourth district; John B. Lewis and W.W. Speight,
fifth district; Marion A. Parrott, sixth district; Howard E. Manning
and Joseph C. Moore, seventh district; Henry L. Anderson and
Malcolm Seawell, ninth district; Marshall T. Spears, Jr., and D. J.
Walker, Jr., tenth district; Charles Vance, Jr., eleventh district;
Norman Block and Armistead W. Sapp, twelfth district; E. Osborne
Ayscue and Walter Jones, Jr., thirteenth district; James B. Garland,
fourteenth district; Luther Hartsell, Jr., and Nelson Woodson,
fifteenth district; William Medford, twentieth district; Norwood E.
Robinson, twenty-first district; J. Maryon Saunders, Alumni Secretary;
Wallace Ashley, President of the Law School Association; John
Golding and Hurshell Keener, editors-in-chief of the North Carolina
Law Review; Lucius Pullen, Chairman of the Law School Association's Speakers Committee; Dean Henry Brandis, Jr., and
Professors William B. Aycock and Robert H. Wettach of the law
2
faculty.
At that first gathering of the Association Planning Committee,
Dean Brandis proposed several topics for discussion. These topics
included corporation versus association status, organization name,
officers, method of election, dues, relation to the University of North
Carolina General Alumni Association, meetings, publications,
programs, and possible fundraising.3
At the first full planning meeting of the committee on November
8, 1952, members agreed on language for the certificate of incorporation and for the proposed by-laws of a new association. Members
also instructed that the annual payment required for a sustaining
1. Minutes of the Law Alumni Association of UNG Planning Meeting, Sept. 27, 1952
(on file with the University of North Carolina School of Law).
2. Id.
3. Id.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
membership be set at fifty dollars and that "the directors be

authorized to permit those on active duty with the armed forces to
become or continue as members without payment of dues during the
period of active service."4 The Law Alumni Association's first
officers were elected at the November 8 meeting. Elected were
Armistead W. Sapp (Greensboro), President; Isaac D. Thorp (Rocky
Mount), First Vice President; T.A. Uzzell, Jr., (Asheville), Second
Vice President; and William B. Aycock (Chapel Hill),
Secretary-Treasurer.
Mr. Sapp, in accepting the presidency, "expressed a strong belief
that the Association could accomplish much of great value for the law
school, for legal education, and for the legal profession." 6 He
emphasized that it would be necessary for the young association to
prove itself and suggested that at the outset that it should strive to
walk steadily rather then to take giant strides, given the many goals
it already had identified. With that recommendation, the members of
the association determined that its initial purpose would be to involve
as many alumni in the life of the school as possible 7and to provide
scholarship and other financial assistance to students.
At the close of the November 8, 1952, meeting, Dean Henry
Brandis thanked the new alumni representatives on behalf of all
faculty and students. He expressed his belief that "this meeting could
become one of the most significant events in the 107-year history of
the law school."'
LAW ALUMNI ASSOCIATION-THE FIRST YEARS
In his report to alumni on the new association's first year of

activities, President Armistead W. Sapp outlined its purposes and
objectives:
To sustain among the alumni high, ethical principles in the
practice of law, and otherwise to benefit the profession; to
encourage the continuing development of legal education at
The University of North Carolina Law School at The
University of North Carolina; to provide for scholarships and
grants of financial aid to students by gifts or loans; to
4. Minutes of the Law Alumni Association of UNC Planning Meeting, Nov. 8, 1952
(on file with the University of North Carolina School of Law).
5.
6.
7.
8.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
[Vol. 73
provide prizes for excellence in student endeavors and

recognition for alumni for outstanding achievements.
Encouraging the continuing development of legal
education at the University is a broad objective which can
encompass a large number of worthwhile activities. Among
these are: planned and coordinated placement activity;
assisting the Law Review through suggestions concerning
content, preparation of materials for publication, and
expanding its subscription list; advising the faculty on
curriculum and teaching methods; providing summer
apprenticeship opportunities; assisting the law school
Association in planning which will prepare students for
effective participation in the legal profession; providing
advisors for individual students; suggesting and planning
services by the school for alumni; advising on relationships
between the school, its students and the organized bar;
encouraging fine prospects to attend the University law
school; and providing some financial aid for worthwhile
activities for which state funds are not available.
In general, the association can serve to promote
maximum contacts between and reciprocal interest among
faculty, students and alumni and can implement their mutual
desire for the best possible legal education at the University.9
In the first year of operation, the Law Alumni Association
attracted 200 members, an accomplishment that resulted in receipts
of $1,025. From this sum, $300 was appropriated for scholarships, and
$300 was allocated to Dean Brandis for general purposes. According

to association records, Dean Brandis used this discretionary support
to help defray the travel expenses of Lucille Elliott, law librarian, to
a meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries in Los
Angeles.
In its second year, under the direction of Mr. T.A. Uzzell, Jr., as
President, the Law Alumni Association's membership climbed to 300.
Dues and contributions from this group resulted in receipts of
approximately $1,500. During the year the Scholarship Committee,
headed by Marshall T. Spears, Jr., of Durham, awarded $100
scholarships to each of seven law students. An additional amount of
$100 was allocated to a member of the Law School Association to
9. Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Law Alumni Association of UNC, Inc. and
Report to Alumni, Nov. 14,1953 (on file with the University of North Carolina School of
Law).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
attend the annual meeting of the American Law Student Association

in Chicago. The association also expended $175 to help produce the
Spring 1954 issue of the Tar Heel Barrister,which was sent to all
alumni.
At its November 6, 1954 meeting, the Law Alumni Association
passed two resolutions. The first resolution acknowledged the
generous contribution of $1,000-the largest gift given through the
association up to that time-by Mr. Thomas Ruffin. The second
resolution expressed the Association's appreciation to Mr. Norman
Block of Greensboro for establishing the "Block Improvement
Award," which is awarded annually to the senior who, "having

devoted himself sincerely to his law studies during his law school
career, has made the most constant improvement in his academic
work from the date of his enrollment to the end of his fifth
semester." 10 The award and cash prize have been given every year
since the spring of 1955.
The third year of the Law Alumni Association ended on October
31, 1955. During the year, membership again increased-this time to
over 400 alumni. Receipts from the membership totaled $1,562.
More than half of these membership dues and contributions were
made available for student scholarships. Eight awards of $100 each
were presented that year to worthy students. The Law Alumni
Association continued its support of the Law School Association
($150) and the Tar Heel Barrister($330). It also supported travel by
the law librarian, Mary W. Oliver, to professional meetings.
The Law Alumni Association also continued its close association
and support of the North CarolinaLaw Review. On November 11,
1955, more than sixty people gathered for a reunion dinner with
Attorney General William B. Rodman as their guest and principal
speaker. Paul A. Johnston, Chairman of the Law Review Committee
of the Law Alumni Association, organized the affair with assistance
from Robert G. Byrd, editor-in-chief of the North Carolina Law
Review for 1955-56.
THE UNC LAW FOUNDATION IS BoRN IN 1959
By 1957 membership contributions topped the $2,000 mark and
informal discussions had begun about the need to create a foundation
10. "Resolution of the Law Alumni Association, Inc. Regarding the Block Improvement Award," Minutes of the Law Alumni Association of UNC, Inc., Nov. 6,1954 (on file
with the University of North Carolina School of Law).
[Vol. 73
for Law Alumni Association contributions. By late 1957, the

Foundation Committee of the Law Alumni Association, chaired by
Armistead Sapp, had made recommendations to the Board of
Directors that a foundation be set up within the framework of the
existing Law Alumni Association. A special committee was appointed
with the authority to draw up a plan "similar to that of the law school
of Virginia, or to adapt to the Association's use of the Education or
Business Foundation of U.N.C., or a combination."" Officers who
would preside over the founding of the UNC Law Foundation were
H.L. Riddle, President; Howard Manning, First Vice President;
Francis Fairley, Second Vice President; and Mary W. Oliver,
Secretary-Treasurer.
On October 31, 1959, Mr. William A. Dees, Jr., Chairman of the
Law Foundation Council, reported that the organizational meeting of
the Council had been held October 30, 1959, and that at the meeting
by-laws were adopted and guidelines for fundraising were put in
place. He presented the recommendations of the Law Foundation
Council for expenditure of the trust fund income:
(a) The first $500 of income from the Foundation would be
used for scholarships based on need; (b) the next $300 of
income per year would be used for small emergency loans
until the loan fund reaches $1,500; (c) all income from $801
to $2,000 was to be used for scholarships based on need; and
(d) when income is above $2,000 the Council was to
re-evaluate its program and make further recommendations.'2
In addition, the newly formed Law Foundation Council made
provisions for raising money for the Foundation:
(a) [I]nclude a space on the dues notice of the Law Alumni
Association for contributions to the capital fund and recommend as a basis for contributions, $1.00 per year for each
year since graduation; and (b) appointment of a Special
Plans Committee to plan a program for bequests and
13
corporate gifts.
Present at the first meeting of the Law Foundation Council were
Chairman William A. Dees, Jr., Dean Henry P. Brandis, Howard
11. Minutes of the UNC Law Alumni Association Meeting, Oct. 5, 1957 (on file with
the University of North Carolina School of Law).
12. Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the UNC Law Alumni Association, Oct. 31,
1959 (on file with the University of North Carolina School of Law).
13. Id.
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Manning, E.K. Powe, H.L. Riddle, Ralph M. Stockton, Jr., Isaac D.

Thorp, and T. Albert Uzzell. Also present were Robin Hinson,
Assistant Dean, and Mary W. Oliver, Treasurer and Assistant
Secretary. At its first meeting in 1959, the Law Foundation had assets
totaling $572.4
THE LAW ALUMNI AssoCIATION AND LAW FOUNDATION
FROM 1960-69
By 1960, the Law Alumni Association had attracted 700
members, up from a membership of 482 in 1959. Contributions
neared the $2,000 mark for the first time. The Law Foundation
Council closed out its first year with assets totaling $5,000. Income
from the endowment, plus distributions from the Association,
produced support for law scholarships ($700) and miscellaneous
publications and activities ($1,000). Notable gifts in this year included
a bequest of $10,000 through the estate of Thomas Ruffin, $100 from
the North Carolina Bar Association, and the first recorded gift of $50
or more from a faculty member-$74 from Professor Frank Hanft.
With Association membership reaching 1,000 for the first time,
in 1962 the Law Alumni Association undertook its first effort to
compile a comprehensive alumni directory. More than 1,500 copies
of the book were produced at a cost of $1,100. The books were
distributed to all active alumni in late 1963.
Also in 1962, the law school hosted its first Law Alumni Dinner.
The event, which formerly had been held only for current Law
Review members and alumni, was opened to all alumni of the law
school. With input from the Law Alumni Association Board of
Directors, it was determined that the dinner should be held on a
Friday evening prior to a Saturday afternoon home football game.
This tradition, started in 1962, is still observed today as Law Alumni
Weekend.
On November 26, 1962, Law Foundation Council Chairman
William A. Dees, Jr., announced that the Law Foundation would
receive the first installment of what would be a $150,000 gift (the
largest in law school history at the time) from Mr. Frank Kenan and
family. At the time of the announcement, the purpose of the fund (to
be known as "The Graham Kenan Fund") was "to provide income for
the payment of a salary supplement to such distinguished members of
the law faculty of the University of North Carolina as may be
14. Id.
[Vol. 73
designated Graham Kenan Professors of Law by the Trustees of The

University of North Carolina upon recommendation of the Chancellor
of the University at Chapel Hill and the law faculty."15
In 1963 the Law Foundation Council recognized the leadership
and work of Dean Henry Brandis with the naming of a special

scholarship in his honor. The Henry Brandis Scholarship Fund was
initiated in 1964 with annual awards totaling $1,000 for deserving
students. Similar scholarships were added a year later to honor
former Deans Maurice T. Van Hecke and Robert H. Wettach.
J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., assumed the deanship in 1964 and, with
the continued involvement and support of outgoing Dean .Brandis,
carried on the important work of alumni relations and fundraising.
The first mention of an organized fund-raising campaign occurred
during Dean Phillips' first year. Though the effort would not be
formally launched for four years, in October 1964 the Law Alumni
Association and Law Foundation adopted a motion made by Henry
Brandis to begin planning for a campaign to raise endowment dollars
for the School of Law. In 1965 the endowment received a sizable
boost when the Graham Kenan Fund received additional
contributions from the Kenan family. These additional gifts increased
the book value of the endowed fund to over $160,000. Later gifts
from the Kenan family totaled over $75,000 and were earmarked for
furnishings and for the Holderness Moot Court program.
By 1967 the Law Foundation Council had assets exceeding the
$200,000 level, and plans were formerly adopted to raise money to
add to this total. Following a comprehensive survey of alumni and
corporate representatives conducted by a private consulting firm, the
Law Alumni Association embarked on its first campaign. The
$1,000,000 "Second Century Campaign" kicked off in 1968 with
Governor Dan K. Moore, a graduate of the law class of 1929, as
chairman of the effort.
In 1969 the UNC Law Foundation was incorporated, thereby
replacing the Law Foundation Council which had served since 1959.
The Board of Directors of the new foundation established a Finance
and Investment Committee to be composed of not less than five
members. The members were vested with authority to direct the
Treasurer or Assistant-Treasurer, or other appropriate officers, to
buy, sell, invest and reinvest assets of the corporation and to contract
15. Letter from William A. Dees, Jr., Chairman of the UNC Law Foundation Council,
to Council Members, Nov. 26, 1962 (on file with the University of North Carolina School
of Law).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
for investment advice. The Finance and Investment Committee was

given two major responsibilities: first, to be the fiduciary custodian
for the Law Foundation; and second, to select investment managers
and set investment objectives, asset mix, and spending limits in order
to fulfill its duty as fiduciary. 6
The decade of the 1960s ended with a bang for the Law Alumni
Association. Membership in the association had grown to well over
1,000 and the first full year of the Second Century Campaign had
yielded $501,000 in gifts and pledges. The Law Foundation boasted
assets of $455,000, and the enthusiasm and rates of alumni participation were at record levels.
THE LAW ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AND LAW FOUNDATION
FROM 1970-79
Though the growth in the number of dues-paying members of the
Law Alumni Association was slow throughout -the 1970s, Law
Foundation assets and the number of private gifts to the school grew
at a healthy rate. By the end of Dean Phillips's tenure in 1974, the
market value of Law Foundation assets totaled $971,124. Major
contributions from The Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation, the W.
Frank Taylor family of Goldsboro and Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, The North Carolina Soft Drink Association, and gifts
generated by the Second Century Campaign fueled the dramatic
upswing in private support for the school during the early 1970s.
In 1975 the value of Law Foundation assets topped $1,000,000.
Members of the Foundation's Finance and Investment Committee
made the recommendation that one professional asset manager be
hired to oversee the law school's account. After careful review, the
committee recommended Sterling Capital Management of Charlotte,
North Carolina, for that position. The recommendation was later
approved by the full board. The relationship between the Law
Foundation and Sterling Capital Management would last for almost
twenty years. The value of the endowment would receive another
boost in 1977 when the law school received a $250,000 distribution as
part of the dissolution of The Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation.
To handle increased workloads created by growing alumni
activities, Dean Robert Byrd received approval from the Association
to hire a half-time Director of Alumni Relations in 1977. The new
16. Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors of the UNC Law Foundation,
Inc., Nov. 14., 1969 (on file with the University of North Carolina School of Law).
948
[Vol. 73
Director would serve as editor of a new alumni newsletter and assist

in the coordination and promotion of alumni activities. Cathy
Schweitzer was hired to fill the new position in March 1977. The first
issue of The Alumni Newsletter was produced in April 1977. Its
successor, The Alumni News, is now produced quarterly and is sent to
more than 10,000 alumni, friends, and parents.
By the end of the decade, the Law Alumni Association was
producing over $32,000 per year in support for law school scholarships, moot court, faculty travel, alumni communications, and a special
Dean's Discretionary Fund. In addition, the law school continued its
outreach to alumni through newsletters, alumni events, and volunteer
opportunities.
THE LAW ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AND LAW FOUNDATION
FROM 1980-89
Assets of the Law Foundation grew steadily and rapidly during

the 1980s. In an effort to provide for more flexible management of
the Law Foundation and Law Alumni Association funds, the two
corporations underwent a de facto merger in which the officers and
directors of the Law Alumni Association became members of the Law
Foundation and elected themselves directors of the Law Foundation.
In another move to facilitate fund management, the new by-laws
adopted in November 1980 called for a fiscal year running parallel to

that of the state-July 1 to June 30.
In the early 1980s, total assets grew from $1.8 million to $3.3
million, primarily as a result of the sale of previously unvalued Flagler
stock which was obtained during the dissolution of The Sarah Graham
Kenan Foundation. Dues collected in 1980 totaled $44,722 from 995
members. Later that year the Law Alumni Association voted to drop
the dues requirements for membership and adopted a measure that
provided greater emphasis on attracting charitable contributions.
In 1984 Dean Ken Broun asked the Law Alumni Association/Law Foundation for permission to use its funds to hire a
full-time fund raiser for the law school. Dean Broun pointed out at
the April 19, 1984, meeting of the Association that the growing needs
for funds necessitated the attention and expertise of an experienced
fund raiser. 7 During the budget approval process in 1984, Dean
17. Minutes of the Meeting of the UNC Law Foundation/Law Alumni Association
Board of Directors, April 19, 1984 (on file with the University of North Carolina School
of Law).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Broun asked the Board to approve that year's budget with the
understanding that if funds became available, he would like the
flexibility to hire someone to fill this new position. That flexibility
was granted and in May 1985 Beverly Cutter Modlin joined the
School of Law as Assistant Dean for Development, the school's first
full-time fund raiser.
As Law Foundation assets climbed to $3,746,521 in 1985, the Law
Foundation adopted a formal payout procedure that set aside four to
seven percent of the value of foundation assets for use each year.
Payments were made on July 1 of each year based on a December 31
evaluation of assets the prior year. Notable gifts in late 1984 and
1985 which added to the Law Foundation totals included the addition
of the John Cansler Lecture Fund, which provided an annual
supplement for a trial advocacy adjunct professor, and the Ted
Leonard Scholarship Fund.
The Law Alumni Association continued to increase activities and
programs for its membership throughout the 1980s. In 1985 the Association began providing certificates and welcome brochures to
recent law school graduates. ,In 1986 a new alumni admissions
program was initiated. This pilot program employed the use of
alumni in contacting accepted applicants with the hope that such
enthusiastic intervention of UNC graduates might entice some of the
more highly rated students to matriculate. In 1987 the School of Law
initiated Law Family Day, a day for parents, spouses, children, and
friends of law students to learn about law school life. All of these
new programs and activities continue in some form in the 1990s.
Fundraising also thrived in the later 1980s. By 1987 Assistant
Dean Beverly Cutter was reporting more than a three-fold increase
in total giving to the law school. The school successfully completed
a challenge grant program to secure a distribution of $383,083 from
the Morehead Foundation. The Chancellors Scholars Program was
created to replace Morehead scholarships that had been discontinued
the previous year. The law school also made tremendous headway in
a special fundraising appeal to establish a $500,000 Distinguished
Professorship in honor of Governor Dan K. Moore, who died in 1986.
By the end of Dean Ken Broun's tenure in 1987, Law Alumni
Association and Law Foundation gifts were providing fifty-two
percent of scholarship funds for students, ninety-seven percent of the
funds for Moot Court, International Law Journal and Law Review,
one hundred percent of funds for special activities for orientation and
graduation, and twenty-seven percent of Career Development funds.
[Vol. 73
Total giving to the School of Law in 1987 reached a new high of

$635,329.
Planning for the Bicentennial Campaign for Carolina, which had
started under Dean Ken Broun, continued in 1988 under Acting Dean
Ronald Link. With the help of Law Alumni Association and Law
Foundation officials, faculty, and staff, the law school developed a list
of campaign objectives and needs that totaled $13 million. Final
decisions on a campaign goal for the School of Law were postponed
until Dean Judith Welch Wegner assumed her position in July of
1989. Assistant Dean Beverly Cutter Modlin departed to become
Vice Chancellor for Development at UNC-Asheville and I joined the
law school staff in the fall of 1989. By the end of the 1980s, the Law
Alumni Association and Law Foundation had attracted private gift
support totaling over $600,000 per year.
THE LAW ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AND LAW FOUNDATION FROM
1990-95
After completing the campaign planning process with the Law
Alumni Association in 1989-90, the school of law officially launched
an $8 million capital campaign on October 12, 1991. At the time of
the kickoff, the school and alumni volunteers had already raised $3.5
million toward the goal. Included in this total was a pledge of $1.2
million from Reef C. Ivey II for faculty and student support, a gift of
$100,000 from Charles Aycock Poe for the Chancellors Scholars
Program, a generous bequest of over $345,000 from the estate of
Thornton Brooks (a longtime friend and alumni volunteer of the
school), and a distinguished professorship totaling $500,000 in honor
of Arch T. Allen, a 1933 graduate of the law school.
Law Alumni Association district representatives played a
significant role in increasing the visibility of the campaign by
arranging more than thirty alumni meetings and dinners over the
course of Dean Wegner's first fifteen months in office. Following the
retirement of Cathy Schweitzer in 1989, planning and preparation for
these and other alumni activities was conducted by Mary R. Edgerton,
who assumed the new position of Director of Alumni Affairs and
Annual Giving in early 1990. Ms. Edgerton and the Law Alumni
Association printed a new alumni directory, which was made available
in late 1990.
By the end of 1991 and early 1992, the law school and the Law
Alumni Association/Law Foundation had received over $2.4 million
in additional gifts and pledges that prompted campaign volunteers and
the law school administration to increase the law school's Bicentennial
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
Campaign goal to $9 million. Major gifts included a $1.4 million

Charitable Remainder Unitrust from Ruth Harrison Uzzell to create
"The Honorable George Randolph and Ruth Harrison Uzzell
Fellowship Fund"; a $182,000 Charitable Remainder Unitrust from
George and Page Bradham of Charlotte; a gift annuity of $30,000
from Mr. John Mullican of Pennsylvania; a pledge of $20,000 from the
Duke Power Legal Department; a pledge of $50,000 from The First
Union Foundation; and a pledge of $50,000 from Marion A. Cowell,
Jr., of Charlotte.
Also in 1991, the Law Alumni Association appointed Marion A.
Cowell, Jr., a 1964 graduate of the law school, to head up the $1.25
million campaign for the UNC Law Library. At the end of its first
year of fundraising, Mr. Cowell's alumni committee had helped raise
over $150,000 toward its goal. Successful fundraising for the law
library programs had pushed Law Foundation assets to an enviable
$7,201,107 as of June 30, 1991. In an effort to maximize returns on
the investments of the Foundation, Wellington Management Company
of Atlanta was' retained in early 1992 to manage the school's
endowment.
By the end of the fiscal -year 1992-93, more than 6,000 gifts had
been received in support of the law school campaign for a total of
$7.7 million. The law library effort had increased its total to almost
$300,000 and the extent of alumni participation in the Annual Fund
had surpassed thirty-three percent. In addition to working on the
campaign, Law Alumni Association district representatives had taken
on special projects related to alumni awards, alumni relations and
admissions, small law firm recruiting initiatives, and public relations.
As a result of increased volunteer involvement, over 2,500 of the law
school's 6,200 alumni had participated in at least one alumni activity
or program since the start of 1990. Margaret C. Myers assumed the
position of Director of Alumni Affairs and Annual Giving in early
1993.
Several special gifts helped push the School of Law over the $9
million mark in 1993. In a fitting tribute to one of this institution's
most distinguished alumni, the School of Law renamed its law library
for Kathrine Robinson Everett, a 1920 graduate of the law school.
The renaming recognized both her accomplishments and her major
bequest to the law school in 1992, valued at more than $2 million.
The gift, which is the largest in law school history, will be used for
faculty support, student scholarships, and the law library. Other
notable gifts and pledges pushed the law school's Bicentennial
Campaign over its $9 million goal and prompted the school to, yet
[Vol. 73
again, raise the goal, this time to $12 million. These gifts included a
pledge of $100,000 in honor of John H. Anderson, Jr., '30, from the
law firm of Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan;
a pledge of $250,000 from William E. "Dub" Graham, Jr., '56, for the
law library endowment; a gift of $250,000 for a term professorship
from Miss Louise Ward; a pledge of $106,500 for the law library from
the law firm of Parker, Poe, Adams & Bernstein; a gift of $100,000
from Travis Porter '60 and Jane Porter for high merit scholarships; a
pledge of $250,000 for the library, scholarship, and a classroom from
the law firm of Moore & Van Allen; and a pledge of $100,000 to be
applied to the Law Library Campaign from the law firm of Kennedy,
Covington, Lobdell & Hickman.
By the end of September 1994, the School of Law and its Law
Alumni Association/Law Foundation had reached its $12 million goal,
strengthening the School of Law and providing it with a more secure
financial future. Even more important than the money that was
raised is the sense of community and inclusiveness that the Association helped to generate and that continues to grow. The present
success of the Alumni Association and Law Foundation has its roots
firmly planted in 1952 when Dean Brandis, William B. Aycock, and
the public-spirited group of alumni first met to create the Law Alumni
Association.
Today, as we celebrate the University of North Carolina School

of Law's Sesquicentennial, the Law Alumni Association/Law Foundation serves as a model for others to follow. It helps make the law
school one of the best fundraising public law schools18 and has an
enviable cadre of alumni volunteers on which it can rely for a myriad
of services. There are more opportunities than ever before for alumni
of all ages and from all parts of the country to stay involved with the
School of Law. Perhaps even Dean Henry Brandis and the other men
and women who helped launch the Association in 1952 would marvel
at what the alumni have done.
18. According to the Association of American Law Schools, the University of North
Carolina School of Law is ranked among the top ten public law schools in dollars pledged
and received from 1990-1993. ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN LAW SCHOOLS, SECTION ON
INsTIuIONAL ADVANCEMENT, DiRECroRY OF LAW SCHOOL DEvELOPMENT AND

ALUMNI RELATIONS 185 (1994).
1995]
SESQUICENTENNIAL
PRESIDENTS OF THE LAW ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Armistead W. Sapp '28

Thomas A. Uzzell, Jr. '31
Isaac Thorp '22
Luther T. Hartsell '23
William A. Dees, Jr. '48
H.L. Riddle, Jr. '38
Howard Manning '38
Francis H. Fairley '39
Paul A. Johnston '52
Harper J. Elam III '52
Albert J. Ellis '38
William Medford '33
Charles G. Rose '36
Ralph M. Stockton, Jr. '50
Donald W. McCoy '48
Richmond G. Bernhardt Jr. '57
Robin L. Hinson '58
Franklin T. Dupree, Jr. '36
James B. Garland '46
Stuart R. Childs '59
Cyrus Lee '47
Julius Rousseau, Jr. '56
Robert C. Vaughn, Jr. '55
Stephen P. Millikin '52
T. LaFontine Odom '62
Robert B. Byrd '55
Willis P. Whichard '65
G. Dudley Humphrey, Jr. '61
Herbert S. Falk, Jr. '56
Lindsay C. Warren, Jr. '51
Doris R. Bray '66
John T. Alred '59
James K. Dorsett, Jr. '41
John R. Haworth '50
Joseph B. Alala, Jr. '59
Richmond G. Bernhardt Jr. '57
Robert W. King, Jr. '59
Nelson B. Crisp '67
Louis P. Hornthal, Jr. '63
Greensboro
Asheville
Rocky Mount
Concord
Goldsboro
Morganton
Raleigh
Charlotte
New York
Greensboro
Jacksonville
Waynesville
Fayetteville
Winston-Salem
Fayetteville
Greensboro
Charlotte
Raleigh
Gastonia
Charlotte
Wilson
North Wilkesboro
Winston-Salem
Greensboro
Charlotte
Morganton
Durham
Winston-Salem
Greensboro
Goldsboro
Greensboro
Charlotte
Raleigh
High Point
Gastonia
Greensboro
Charlotte
Raleigh
Elizabeth City
1952-53
1953-54
1954-55
i955-56
1956-57
1957-58
1958-59
1959-60
1960-61
1961-62
1962-63
1963-64
1964-65
1965-66
1966-67
1967-68
1968-69
1969-70
1970-71
1971-72
1972-73
1973-74
1974-75
1975-76
1976-77
1977-78
1978-79
1979-80
1980-81
1981-82
1982-83
1983-84
1984-85
1985-86
1986-87
1987-88
1988-89
1990-91
1991-92

0. Richard Wright, Jr. '71
John S. Stevens '61
William F. Maready '58
Tabor City
Asheville
Winston-Salem
[Vol. 73
1992-93
1993-94
1994-95
LAW FOUNDATION COUNCIL CHAIRS

E.K. Powe '50
Ralph M. Stockton Jr. '50
T.A. Uzzell, Jr. '31
Albert J. Ellis '38
Paul A. Johnston '52
Robert H. Schnell '34
Goldsboro
Durham
Winston-Salem
Asheville
Jacksonville
New York
Chapel Hill
1959-63
1963-64
1965-66
1966-67
1967-68
1968-69
1969-70
LAW FOUNDATION PRESIDENTS
Richmond G. Bernhardt Jr. '57 Greensboro

Donald W. McCoy '48
Fayetteville
Thornton H. Brooks '34
Greensboro
Robin L. Hinson '58
Charlotte
1970-71
1971-72
1972-73
1973-74
John T. Allred '59
Charlotte
1974-75
Nelson W. Taylor III '55

Herbert S. Falk, Jr. '56
James C. Fox '57
E.K. Powe '50
Beaufort
Greensboro
Wilmington
Durham
1975-76
1976-78
1978-80
1980-8119
UNC LAW ALUMNI AWARD RECIPIENTS
DistinguishedAlumni Award
1981
Terry Sanford '46
Dan K. Moore '29
James E. Holshouser '60
James B. Hunt '64
William H. Bobbitt '23
1982
1984
William C. Friday '48
1985
Henry Brandis, Jr. '30
19. In 1981, the Law Alumni Association and Law Foundation were merged. All
Presidents after 1981 served in that capacity for a joint UNC Law Alumni Association/Law
Foundation, Inc.
1995]
1986
1988
1991
1992
1993
1994
SESQUICENTENNIAL
William B. Aycock '48
J. Dickson Phillips '48
John L. Sanders '54
Franklin T. Dupree, Jr. '36
William A. Johnson '44
Robin L. Hinson '58
Hamilton H. Hobgood '36
Julius L. Chambers '62
Robert G. Byrd '56
C. Boyden Gray '68
George W. Miller, Jr. '57
William L. Thorp, Jr. '51
Willis P. Whichard '65
Henry Ell Frye '59
Bertha "Bea" Holt '41
Ralph M. Stockton, Jr. '50
Lifetime Achievement Award

1990
William B. Aycock '48
Kathrine R. Everett '20
Faculty Achievement Award
1991
Professor Donald Clifford
1992
Professor Daniel Pollitt
Alumni Leadership Award
1992
Reef C. Ivey II '68
1993
Marion A. Cowell, Jr. '64

21 73NCLRev563 (1994-1995)

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21 73NCLRev563 (1994-1995)

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The University of North Carolina School of Law:

Martin H. Brinkley 565

Observations and Overview .....

Judith Welch Wegner 569

B. A Wonderful Journey: 1945-95 ....

William B. Aycock 571

C. Prophets in Reverse ............

Martin H. Brinkley 573

II. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOL OF LAW

A. The.War and the PostwarEra: 1945-64

G. Byrd (1974-79) ......

William Brantley Aycock 622

C. An Era of Transformation: 1979-89

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

D. Preservingand Enhancing a Legacy of Excellence in

The UNC Law Library: 1945-95 .. Martha B. Barefoot 758

D. Student Organizationsand Their Evolving Impact on the

Law Alumni Service to the Public and the Law School

Judith Welch Wegner

The History of the UNC Law Alumni Association

H. BRINKLEY AND JUDITH WELCH WEGNER

This issue of the North Carolina Law Review is dedicated to

BEGINNING OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR 10 (1983).

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

I hope to live my life in such a way, and with no

hips in snow, heading for school.

No people can become a great people by exchanging its

Charles Brantley Aycock, 1880

graduate of the University of

Willa Cather, 0 Pioneers!

This year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the University of

of our traditions-our commitment to excellence, our devotion to the

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

This sesquicentennial symposium is organized into three major

A Wonderful Journey: 1945-95

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

Student organizations have multiplied. Among the additions are

The historian is a prophet in reverse.

professor, and accused them of painting law schools as illiterate,

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

the whole, to encourage the contributors to speak in their own voices,

group that we feel, but an inward strain of spiritual beauty that

5. RALPH W. EMERSON, Self-Reliance, in ESSAYS: FIRST SERIES 35 (The Belknap

II. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA

THE WAR YEARS:

Albert Coates was born on August 25, 1896, in

undergraduateeducation at the University of North Carolina,

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

Robert Hasley Wettach came to the deanship of the University

Students and Faculty

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

operations, Combat Infantryman's Badges and Presidential Citations,

THE POSTWAR YEARS:

THE DEANSHIP OF HENRY BRANDIS, JR. (19 4 9 - 6 4 )t

The unifying theme of all these values is in the dedication

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

steadily growing importance in the field of legal education and in the

students and alumni; by operating liaison committees to work with the

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

brought by Dean McGehee in 1923, for thirty-five years; Mr. McCall,

of decedents estates. In 1961, he became chairman of this committee.

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW

Admission Tests and Procedures, of the Panel of Law School