Lucy and David Smith ’78 offer scholarship help

It wasn’t until his third year in law school that Lucy and David Smith ’78 got their first credit card. They promptly maxed it out. There wasn’t much choice. They were young marrieds, the first of their children had already arrived, and she was in school at Buffalo State College as well. There were student loans, grants, part-time jobs. You do what’s necessary to make ends meet.

It’s an old story – the struggling early years laying the groundwork for a long marriage and professional success, he at National Fuel Gas Corp., she in teaching. And it’s one that is repeated as new generations of young people enter SUNY Buffalo Law School eager to make their way in the world.

David Smith earned his J.D. in 1978 and has continued to be active with the Law School, serving on the Dean’s Advisory Council and on the Law School’s Campaign Steering Committee. He retired as executive chairman of National Fuel last year, having served as the company’s general counsel, president and CEO.

The Smiths previously funded a scholarship for a deserving law student, support that followed her through her three years in Buffalo. Now, with a $250,000 commitment for student financial aid, they are expanding their support, to provide a $15,000 annual tuition scholarship for one student in each class. Their intent, they say, is to make that arrangement permanent – to have a Smith Scholar in every class from now on.

“All of us owe an awful lot to the Law School,” Smith says. “We’ve just been very happy with the scholarship program, and we want to keep it going. We’ve been extremely happy with the quality of the candidates that the Law School committee sends for us to review. Many of them do need help, and those are the kind of people we want to provide an opportunity to.”

It has been rewarding, too, they say, to get to know the students who benefit from their support. “They invariably write us very nice thank-you notes,” Smith says. “We want to be able to establish long-term relationships, maybe have a dinner for them. There are a lot of ways to give to the Law School, but this is what we decided to do because it focuses on the individual.”

The scholarship program is named for Smith’s mother, Phyllis Smith, who he says inspired him – and his five brothers – to work hard and reach high. “My father was the disciplinarian,” Smith says. “He gave us the work ethic. His job was to keep us in line. But my mother was the inspiration. She always told us that we could be whatever we wanted to be. Every mother says that, but she made us believe it.”

“You need an opportunity. We were given that opportunity because we had such a strong family.”

Lucy Smith’s father, Edgar F. Viggiani, a Class of 1954 Law School graduate who worked for Allstate as a trial lawyer, was also an early inspiration. After they married as sophomores at Fredonia State College, Smith looked to his new father-in-law and said, in effect, if he can do it, I can do it.

So he did, following an early job at National Fuel into a long and successful career with the energy company. Lucy Smith, who has a bachelor’s degree in clothing and textile design and a master’s degree from Buffalo State, used her gifts as a seamstress and her eye for design as a teacher of home and careers subjects in middle and high school.

Now, in retirement, they are spending some time in Arizona. Smith is on the executive committee of the New York State Business Council, having just stepped down as chairman, and he continues as a board member of the Gas Technology Institute. SUNY Buffalo Law, though, is not far from their thoughts.

“For so many people in my class, without the opportunity that was provided by the Law School, who knows what we would be doing?” Smith says. “At this point there are a number of prospective law students that I think those of us who are able to help should help, if and when we can.”