Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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terribly important thoughts, heedless of the pixies and gremlins who observed them with less than total awe from the pillars of their own building. Austin Hall is now but a small portion of the structures that make up the physical law school. It is approached primarily from the rear or from be- neath the earth. It no longer commands its site in splendid isolation. It remains, however, the schoo1's most magnificent structure-the heart although no longer the physical center-one of-the finest buildings of one of the Iinest American architects who ever lived. I2

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to be found in this country. Richardson was best known, however, for the exterior of his buildings, and, as well done as the interior of Austin is, it is the outside of the building that is the most striking. Austin Hall is a masonry building, that is, the whole weight of the building is borne by the stone and mortar of its walls without the aid of a supporting skeleton of steel or reinforced concrete. The walls of such a building are necessarily quite thick, and, in Austin Hall, Richardson re- emphasizes this massiveness in his exterior design. The walls are made of dark Longmeadow stone placed upon a sandstone base, and they are obviously stone. There is no attempt to hide their solid nature in the creation of abstract geometric plains, rather, Richardson creates a cliff face. This massiveness is reasserted in the triple arches of the main entrance, dark cave openings whose solid sides are, if any- thing, overly eloquent of the burden they carry. The rear of Austin Hall is simple, but carefully proportioned, the building was designed to be seen from all sides, an isolated jewel set upon what was then an open field. The rear and the front are punctuated with rectangular windows cut into the walls as though chisled by some giant hand. The two smaller lecture rooms are lighted by a row of windows set high in their walls at the front and rear of the building. The windows are evenly spaced and separated by mini-columns. Ther ribbon-like effect of these high windows was apparently one that Richardson was fond ofg he had used an almost identical design earlier for the Crane Memorial Library in Quincy. At the main entrance of Austin Hall, Richardson created on the capitals of the columns supporting the arches some of his most delightful ornamental sculpture. He must have taken a special pleasure in the thought of generations of intense, serious law students passing by wrapped in their own This coiled snake found on Auslin's L- rf ar ,. k is V - Q 1 .X . 1 ,+- b n f Q X xt ,A W f-P-53 is one of Iwo stair tower. A A Q I., -f ' sr Yi f his if W-4 r 7.1 ,fy 4,31 , I ft! 4, l ajax A '?7f'Q , A !:'frii'Q'Q ' g ... x fir-if

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The Decade Gap, if Any By John M. F erren As I write this I observe from my notes that exactly ten years ago I began the serious study of estates in land in first year Property, helped along by Professor Moynihanls trot. Because of the in- tricacy of springing and shifting uses this topic seemed to be a bit more what law school ought to be like than the preceding two weeks' worth of foxes, ducks, and doctrines about their possession. Any- way, I was an ,Eriglishjjhistory buff. andy, enjoyed puzzles fand the ltll ltliing eventually wciorinected up nicely with theyjstfldylof lapse tstatutes irifestatew planningl- WW' ilii i.i.,.t..ll.,fW I .. if ,, l cealed funtil a few divinity students started picketing Woo1worth's just before my class left Cambridgel. We became indignant over more personal incidents, such as the dayiProfessor MacLachlan slammed his casebook on the desk and yelled that no one could teach anything to students who had only lived under the New Deal! The only anxieties during our gen- erally placid three years were the Berlin crisis, which ,caused a p Jfew5litri,.,,,jurripwyprematurely into JAG, and the vnature of the classwork, demands for reform btit,by anl,laparttneri,tll,l1otslQiHf'l'Wine, and a living room Lim.ll.lfwll'j'g ll,.Milla.Wil''lln.'V 'i W. in lml., ,l'i l'ii ll'i', !' Mil ll 'N'li - WMlllwiiwWi ?'l l.l.lliiilulll.Jm'l'. 'l'lll Wf5lllll 'i ii lll'li W'llllJNlll'N'llllll'l' N' WlW il J tt' ,N lj i 'lint . ' jg' ' tu. H.. M W' ' nu. ' um.. iiii i'1 w , tp 1 'ir' 1 i ijwwjj,ji,i,j,.tj, ,iig.jj,,l.l,l,j.iiliiiijlllxlw Equally eenterta'n'ffhliiWillllllihWill'lilililillllmilffllnal'litlllllllllfllifffill.lflflfllWl'll'llliWtlllllllltlllll'lllllllllillll Law which, given itsililiilldjwlestate lllll' attllglitlftmitiineil llfiff was taught by a visiting ,, who diiifblt at length on marvelous stories Qaboutl medieval atrocities. I was not worried iaboutr the relevance of myi legal education to anything 3 ibut a lawyeris. license,, isp this wallowing in rhelbommoh law of crimes seemed unusual to me only in its possible irrelevance for the bar exam. I learned every argument for condemn- ing the rack and the screw, without being led to inquire whether present-day penology wasn't in some ways just as bad. As a standard liberal in those days my political concerns were manifested by the intercollegiate de- bate topics of the day-the union shop, nuclear testing, foreign aid-which to me had little directly to do with the Law School or a lawyer's Vocation. These issues were serious, one could even get emo- tional about them. But, generally speaking, organiza- lllllllllllllllflwdtifdjifhelltllaltdlllgtakllalizefriifithtlf, about the Law llllmlw ljxljjlnwjWh i,nWv,vjji tu vi W W r W. WWHMmij,,wi,5WM1, M,WhWNWWUWmxwiwjmjjjmwxhjmh - Sfhbol allfljlgilt?IlililflfllljtiglllljllllliflllliillllgflllflM2116S and early sixtiesrllfijfifitlfiii ifiljlpmfgmgcbliijlrnetitslil recent re- union ,, clasgedli otherj ,iiii confirm the 1- 'Nil i if l', wi iiii. ii L X ,.,, ,,ii 5 ll l lZ.'E, ..'E l ',.. 4 ','iii 'Qu ii' . ,,,,.'. Q Wi 'iMv'.jMwi:ii Plctllfelfll iiiii C Onfidence that we graduates iofg those years followed a pretty standard pattern after commencement day-the bar exam, the firm lilfrary, the 8:10 p.m. train home. Then came the step up, lunch with a client, days of gathering documents from his files, but eventually permission from ,the firm to send him letters of ad- vice. Pretty heady stuif, good professional growth, and then something happens. After a year or two the feedbackglets one know he can do the work- achievement of the Hrst, most important goal after three years QE Socratic badgering and Harvard Cold scalel C-p1usesijNow he mustlfind his satisfaction either in the n ture-of the work or at least in per- tions like SANE could not divert many of us from lpvm gwith the clients, i t the heinous crimes of another era. Law School, in heard it from Qthgfs who also every splendid detail, came first. I -work wagnft bad, There! was We were a straight-laced bunch, coat es fgtgmperamgm and a variety of t0 C1-QSS-and I0 exams- The first fW0 Y fff fhel' Wfil wii il litliiived On, putting mgsfhef 21 Curriculum, plus estate planning in the ll' l'Wf32ucl ell llitij fnisi-ifirevenr 1Qd2iyfl3i1t think were required, and why not? Weren't Hai' use sefvedfvoil and steel com- needed? We SimP1Y had faith that 'he trade associations, would turn US i11f0 1HWYe1'S by Translated that meant firms expected, Hfid Very few of ,US executive Vice President, abouttwofking for 3HY011e 9156- The iiii and build the pitch-and- vocational crisis appeared to be the selectioxijllofiijyfigwll firm by a diehard Californian married to anlleijilallyill intransigent New Yorker. i l it l We rarely were aroused from day to day by social injustices, which for the most part remained con- did not mean helping any- onei gem with an SBA loan, and it farelyllfheiintihelpifig iiii ian individual out of a real jam. I well ferneirilier a dinner party in Chicago five years ago when Qseyeral associates of large firms gig: 13