What UB School of Law means to me

As I sat on the stage with four of my 1965 classmates and the law school faculty during the graduation ceremonies for the class of 2015, I thought about what this school has meant to me and the impact it has had on my life.  I could not have had the career and life experiences I’ve enjoyed were it not for my three years at 77 West Eagle Street in Buffalo.  It was with a sense of pride and profound thanks that I witnessed the graduates receive their degrees.  My 1965 class of sixty-six included no persons of color and only four women.  How the world has changed for the better as this class was fifty-two percent women with many persons of color as well as international students.  The faculty is now larger than my class.

77 West Eagle Street may be gone but lives on in our memories.  It was a facility that had seen better days, but it was our intellectual home for three years.  We arrived as strangers and left as friends.  Room 110 for first year students was large.  Room 108 for the second year was smaller and Room 109 for seniors was even smaller.  There was a message in that for all of us on our first days.  I can recall only one professor in my undergraduate school who was the match for the law faculty who tended to us, challenged us, and yes, at times intimidated us.  What these professors did was instill in us the ability to think and reason.  Heaven forbid if I wasn’t fully prepared and they called upon me.

I have a special thanks for Sol Touster.  My first year and one-half of college resulted in mediocre grades.  I did very well the remaining years and scored high marks on the law school entrance exam.  That was not sufficient to gain admittance to the law school.  I was summoned to the school for an interview with Professor Touster.  Fifty-six years later I don’t remember much about the interview, but I must have said something right as I was admitted.