University of Texas School of Law - Peregrinus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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THERE ARE GTHER ALTERNATIVES T0 STUDYING

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LUNG WAY IN 90 YEARS 1881 - 1971 a seat at the end of the alphabet next to Miss Rose Zelosky who was among the first, if not the first girl admitted to the School. A year or so later she told my wife that she never knew that I was married. We who were married were not in the mainstream of student life. But the mainstream was neither wide nor deep. Most of the students were farm or small town bred and by no means affluent. Many of them were denizens of B Hall. While there were a few playboys and adolescent pranksters who made life interesting for Dean Townes, most of the 250 students, more or less, were in school on a financial shoestring and made the most of their time in pursuance of their studies. An amazingly large number of the school's,earIy graduates became the leaders of their profession and quite a few of them became prominent in the political life of the state. Actually there was not much else to do other than study law. The fringe activities of the School were centered in the debating and moot court societies of which the Hildebrand was the best known. 1 Except for a few town dandies whose parents owned lautomobiles there were no student cars. lMy wife and I owned lone but sold it before coming to school.l Walking was the bccepted mode of transportation with limited trolley rides out Guadalupe and West Sixth Streets. There was no pavement to ispeak of and horses and buggies raised a lot of dust. There iwere no radios and television: Mrs. Kirby kept the girl students livell protectedp the silent movies were few: the beer joints were held in high favor by only aminorityp restaurants were not attractive: pool halls were taboo. That left as time killers: bridge for the elite, forty-two and flinch for the church members, dominoes for the stupid, checkers for theavery fstute, and a little poker for the B Hall rowdies. X The University churches and YMCA provided the social I nters for most of the law students and especially for those of s who were married. The undergraduate fraternities provided the social life of some of the law students. But the people around the campus were very gracious to law students and ve many of them good Sunday dinners. By June of my freshman year I had accumulated considerable credits. But even with my brilliant college record, Mr. Lomax had required that I take two academic courses: Economics and Government. Economics was taught by Professor Haney who later for many years was a noted classical economist. His lectures were way over my head and the substance of his courses had to be translated to me ihrough Hines Baker, his assistant who conducted sections of the class to insure that the students understood what Prof. Haney had taught them. Later Hines was a student in one of my classes when I began teaching in the Law School. Most of the students did not take kindly to academic courses, for at that time law was thought to be completely divorced from all other studies. The instruction in the Law School was given by very able lawyers most of whom had served as judges of trial or appellate courts. They were not law school trained but were rich in experience and their lectures were interesting. Professor Hildebrand was Harvard trained and introduced the case system of law school instruction. Professor Potts was Texas trained but became a case book advocate. Both were exacting and many students did not react favorably to their good teaching. But they won out and in a few years the entire faculty were using casebooks and lectures became secondary. Judge Townes, Judge Tarlton, Judge Simpkins and Judge McLaurin taught both effectively and elegantly. Compared with current curricula the curricula of law schools at that time were relatively simplep the bulk of both statute and decisional law has been developed since. The law library then consisted of a small collection of reports and texts. Law graduates at that time were admitted to the bar on diploma, and even those who took the bar examination before graduation were given credit for the courses they had successfully completed. In June 1912 l took the bar examina- tion and my accumulation of credits during the year were such that I had only a few subjects to be examined on. l feared Blackstone and Equity, neither of which l had been able to take or sit in on. To my surprise and great delight the Equity exam was the same that had been given in Contracts and which I had taken only a few days before. Blackstone's Commen- taries were very difficult for me to comprehend. But Judge Cooley's edition had a very full and understandable topical table of contents and I centered my preparation on it. I had no memorizing ability but managed to retain enough of the substance to make a robust try at the questions. l used a typewriter as l did on all my examinations and nothing so prejudices an examiner in a student's favor as a well typed paper. l passed Blackstonep sometime later l asked the grader how I did. His reply in substance was that he knew no Blackstone and what I wrote sounded like I knew what I was talking about and he never questioned it. So on June 12, 1912, I received iii m y license and got a part time job preparing petitions for Judge Maxwell to foreclose tax liens on property for back taxes. He had a contract with the city for the collection of unpaid taxes. It was necessary for me to identify the property and find out who occupied it. Thus it was that I traveled much wof the outlying areas of Austin on foot. But it was my typewriter that got me the job. During the summer l had become acquainted with the City Attorney, Mr. Rector, who occupied an office near that of Mr. Maxwell, andin September set up practice of law as a partner in the firm of Rector 84 Green and there after supported my family by the practice of law until I graduated in June 1915. My fortunate arrangement with Mr. Rector, an able lawyer of great dignity and graciousness, was due in large part to my capacity to do the stenographic work for the City Attorney, and for the firm. My Old OIiver has stuck by me and brought me through thick and thin -for sixty years. 3

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