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Another Idea for the WSBA STAR Council
As a retired, now pro bono attorney involved with access to justice, I follow with concern the issues and ideas to provide civil and criminal attorneys to the underserved rural areas [“Transforming Legal Deserts into Legal Oases,” September 2024]. I propose that an additional modality be explored by the STAR Committee [now STAR Council], Bar leadership, and our law school deans.
Provide a tuition-free route in our law schools, whereby students selected for such agree to serve as public defenders and civil private attorneys (who will also take on some public defense in addition to their civil practice, for reduced rates and provide pro bono) in rural legal access-impeded areas for four years. The military provides free tuition for law school students who serve a requisite amount of years. Private benefactors have been in the news this past year, who have made tuition-free medical schools a reality. We’ve got wealthy philanthropists and wealthy lawyers in our state. Let’s make this happen.
Michael B. Goldenkranz, Seattle
Seattle’s Gain, South Sound’s Loss
I was a member of the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar and a tenant of the building adjacent to the University of Puget Sound (UPS) School of Law when it was sold to Seattle University in 1993. I was, therefore, curious to read about that sale, as recounted in a law review article by former Seattle University School of Law Dean Annette Clark: “What’s Past is Prologue: The Story of the Sale of the University of Puget Sound School of Law to Seattle University,” 46 Seattle Univ. Law Rev. 773 (2023).
In the April/May issue of Bar News, the WSBA’s Margaret Morgan undertook to review Dean Clark’s article, which describes the sale and the ways in which various interested parties reacted to it. I haven’t yet read the law review article itself, and perhaps it covers my concern, but what’s missing from Ms. Morgan’s summary are the details of how the sale affected the South Puget Sound legal community.
The UPS School of Law was founded in Tacoma in 1972 and moved into freshly renovated quarters in downtown Tacoma in 1980. (As I recall, Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Congressman Norm Dicks were present for the dedication ceremony; it was a big deal). Having a law school south of Seattle and west of Spokane was a palpable boon to the surrounding communities. Many UPS law students got internships and part-time jobs with law firms and with public agencies such as the Attorney General’s Office, local prosecutors and public defenders, legal aid societies, and the courts. After graduating, students tended to remain in the area as a handy recruitment pool for those same employers seeking to hire new lawyers.
With the sale, while Seattle got a second law school, the South Sound lost a significant chunk of an important resource. This is not to say that Seattle University law students and grads no longer populate the counties to the south; of course they do. But it is to point out the obvious: that Seattle-centric students are less likely to migrate out of town for jobs, whether internships or full-time employment. The Seattle legal community’s gain was to some extent a loss for Tacoma, Olympia, Port Orchard, and surrounding areas.
Again, perhaps Dean Clark’s law review article does cover this aspect of the sale. If so, I’m confident she did it well. I look forward to reading her article.
Mark Adams, Gig Harbor
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