Columbia Law School - Kent Commentaries Yearbook (New York, NY)

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FEBRUARY 4, i946-carpe diem! Most of us had made the first of many descents into the bowels of Kent Hall by 8:30 A. M., eager to shed overcoats that ranged from pea-jackets and Gl issue to natty new chesterfields. There was the gray-haired fellow we all thought was the checkroom attendant and who later turned out to be the Assistant Dean . . . and the mythical Roger Hunting who was any place but where you looked . . . and Charley, the janitor, who looked like something out of Chaucer and who lost to Phil- osophy before the next snows. Those books . . . registration was bad enough, but that line in front of the Law Review Bookstore . . . zounds! It took a strong man to carry the paraphenalia for five courses out of the building . . . and there was more to come in the form of assorted pamphlets! That first night of study . . . we memorized almost every line . . . it took a term or two before we learned what to skim and what not to' underline. How we poured into 4l l for that first course . . . an overflow crowd liberally sprinkled with uniforms or portions thereof . . . An introduction to the basic methods, sources and literature of Anglo-American case law and legislation , the catalogue called it . . . given by three unknowns named Powell, Dowling and Llewellyn . . . the first of these led off . . . a little innocuous-looking chap who was to leave his teeth marks on many of our flanks before we skidded through Trusts ll . . . but that was all to come. The clock said 8:40, as it was to do for four terms before some kind soul ordered the face painted over.. . . the little fellow led off with a fatherly pat followed by a mono- logue on the number of years, hours and minutes spent teaching in Columbia Law School, and then emphatically recommended a law dictionary . . . he was only the first of many to take the stump for old man Black. We moved on to something called the Develop- ment of Legal institutions . . . this time something new had been added . . . a glass of water and a morbid lecture on some anonymous unfortunates who were walking the streets because of some slight oversight a term or two ago . . . the less resolute among us shivered slightly but most of us passed it off. So far it had seemed rather pleasant, if somewhat confusing . . . but the spell didn't last long . . . we had yet to meet the Georgia man of distinction with the two first names, who was to teach us to ireadi cases, drink pre-examination cocktails and to distinguish replevin from detinue . . . how the fur flew until we caught our breaths. The rest of the week Contracts and Torts were thrown our way, the last-named coming fully equipped with a real, honest-to-good- ness Dean and two fellows named Fletcher and Rylands. By Easter, everyone had sheaves of notes, supplements and what have you, and outlining was the order of the day. Ex- aminations came suddenly, along with a sympathetic talk from the fellow we had mis- taken for a coat-checker way back in February . . . we took heart from the low mortality rate in Torts A examinations of l9l9 . . . we didn't know whether to drink cocktails' or warm milk, go night-clubbing or walk around the block, after they all had a crack at us on pre-exam training. Most of us read Omar Khayam and placed orders for benze- drine tablets. Somehow we got through . . . most of us . . . the rest went to other law schools and made Law Review. The true-false had us on the ropes . . . but they gave us a fighting chance on the essay questions . . . and even Powell agreed to drop a dis- puted point. With the five unbelieveable postcards nestling comfortably in our desk drawers, we turned the corner into the second semester and a hot summer. The visiting professors looked harmless at first, but by August we knew better. We learned all about Philadelphia and Gilbert Cr Sullivan and the miracles of regional planning . . . The first of three get-togethers was held across the river, in spite of Caminetti v. U. S .... beer, candid shots, and a man of property on the pitcher's mound marked the occasion. We did this once again, a summer later, but it wasn't the same ino pitching talenti . . . in between, we put on a session in John Jay Hall . . . the Kent Hall players insulted every- one, with no fatalities. That little fellow came back with a bang to give the man from Yale his comeuppance . . . by the end of the first month, he had silenced all opposition and had even TVA suspect. The regulars ran true to form . . . they didn't put the fear of God in us anymore and some of us were even called by first names . . . posterity, pray for us, Oh yes, romance bloomed . . . many engagements . . . several marriages . . . frequent cigar handouts. You couldn't tell the bridge players without a program and hearts and gin rummy made a game try. With the end of OPA came the lunchbox-paper bag era, AVC throwaways, and much groaning. Another summer brought the usual escapees from other faculties, the unusual hot spells, and another manager for thei Dodgers. Creditor's Rights came up a cropper . . . we had a new grade . . . CR for Columbian Renvoi . . . and Evidence took a monumental toll . . . it was a hot summer all around. We were still paying the tariff for rented tuxedos and what not for the March Barristers' Ball when the News came 'round a-beggin' . . . our first team slipped into choice Law Review spots, and Stone Scholars marched with a new dignity. We livened up the N.Y. County Lawyers Association Building with a redhot student con- ference on legal education. Many of us walked off shoe leather after taking copious notes from Martindale Hubbell . . . the first jobs came in with conflicting reports on the state of employment . . . the Placement Bureau defended itself valiantly from many attacks . . . and Prof. Gifford left for anywhere and everywhere to spread us from coast to coast . . . even the recalcitrants began to show up for more than the first and last class. And so . . . canned briefs, purples and all . . . we awaited the final bell. We had learned a new language since February 4, i946 and even so sacred a subject as sex be- came inspicio ventre . . . and the air was filled with coram nobis, certiorari, ad hoc, quo ad, and the rest . . . and Wechslerisms made the rounds. And as the sun set be- hind Avery, we prepared to say farewell to our little legal oasis . . . we remembered the wonderful hours of quiet study in the library . . . the ever stimulating lectures . . . the joyful anticipation with which we approached each examination . . . our reluctance to leave Kent for even our meals . . . the ecstasy with which we looked forward to writing essays and preparing moot court briefs . . . we were both sorry and amazed that it had gone by so swiftly . . . but were we damn glad to get outlll WILLIAM M. KUNSTLER 73 1

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LAWRENCE J. LATTO DONALD W. HOAGLAND Editor-in-Chief Book Review Editor COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW THE Columbia Law Review, a periodical edited entirely by members of the student body, has been published continuously since l9OI. Its forerunners were two: the Columbia Jurist, a weekly started in i885 and abandoned in I887, and the Columbia Law Times, a thirty-page monthly which flourished from I887 until 1893. Although among the first student-edited publications to come from an American law school, nei- ther of the Review'5 predecessors were of the ambitious nature which makes current student publications the leading legal periodicals. Except for slight curtailments due to the exigencies of World Wars I and Il, the Review has published eight issues annually. At present each contains about seventy pages of articles by leading members of the legal profession, and about ninety pages of student work which consists of intensive studies in limited fields of the law and discus- sions of important recent cases. There is also a section devoted to reviews of recenti books on legal topics. Distributed to over 3,500 subscribers, the Review is of general interest to lawyers and is used as a source of reliable information and material. The annual bound volumes are an essential part of any large law library. Students are selected on the basis of scholarship to compete for membership on the Board of Editors, and are elected after satisfactory completion of the period of competition. The Board consists of about thirty-five members, of which the internal divisions are an Administrative Board of five and a Board of Revising Editors of varying size. Although the Review is under the general control of a Board of Trustees, the Ad- ministrative Board is entirely responsible for editorial policy and administration. Although Review work, centered in the office in Kent Hall, is laborious and time-consuming, the honor and the opportunity to conduct independent research and hence to acquire ex- perience not obtainable in the classroom make it rewarding to the editors. ROBERT B. SEIDMAN Articles Editor Seated: David M, Payne, Bd. Rev, Ed., Frederick T. Shea, Cases Ed., Donald W. Hoagland, Book Review Ed., Lawrence J. Latto, Editor-in-Chief, Robert B. Seidman, Articles Ed., George Soll, Notes Ed., Wallace J. Borker, Bd. Rev. Ed. Standing, First Row: George Rowe, Jr., Victor J. Stone, John Nelson Steele, Bd, Rev. Ed., Steward R, Bross, Jr., Cecelia Schlesinger, Ass't. Bus. Sec., Mildred D. Nobis, Bus. Sec., Edward Q. Carr, Jr., Wallace Dempsey, I. Meyer Pincus, Samuel K. McCune, Jack B. Weinstein. Standing, Back Row: Clarke S. Ryan, Paul C. Warnke, Robert Anthoine, Marvin E. Frankel, Peter N, Schiller, Robert J. Levinsohn, Seymour J. Ugelow, Chester lnwald, Arthur W. Murphy, Jr., Herbert R. Dike, Joseph D. Garland. Not Pictured: Sanford H. Kadish, Bd. Rev. Ed., Jerome M. Lasky, A. Frederic Leopold, William F. Voelker, Edward C. Perkins, Frederic G. Cohn. FREDERICK T. SHEA Cases Editor GEORGE SOLL Notes Editor 74