News of the School
Christmas party Held
The Annual Stanford Law School Christmas Dinner was held on December 15 hosted by the Stanford Law Association. The event included dinner, a skit entitled “Cool Hand Bay” and the singing of Christmas Carols. Distributed with the program was a poem, excerpts of which follow.
‘Twas the night before Christmas at the Stanford Law School
Our hero awoke in the middle of Manning’s Sweat Shop.
He is surrounded by horrid and frightening creatures,
for dressed as Santa’s elves he sees all his teachers.
And then There’s Elf Charlie and I don’t mean Dickens,
from the first day to the last the pace ever quickens.
His courses are property and oil and gasses,
but unlike his students this usually passes.
Then to the center of our poor student’s dream
springs Stanford’s very own fungible Dean.
But Bayless’ stay at the Farm will end soon,
someone else will be Manning the deanship come June.
Professor Packer Honored
Professor of Law Herbert L. Packer has been honored twice in recent months. In December it was announced at the Association of American Law Schools meeting that he was one of two winners of the Triennial Coif Award for the most significant contribution to legal scholarship over the preceding three-year period. Professor Packer’s award was for his book The Limit of the Criminal Sanction. More recently he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation award along with 12 other Stanford faculty
members. The Guggenheim scholars receive a grant of cash enabling them to travel or finance creative projects at home.
Chickering Discusses CRLA
Lawrence Chickering, general counsel to the California State Office of Economic Opportunity, spoke in support of Governor Reagan’s veto of the California Rural Legal Assistance program to law students on February 10. He criticized the CRLA for violations of a contract with OEO, as well as ineffectiveness and fostering an “antipoverty establishment.” He suggested that the proposed “Judicare” program could safely eliminate these problems. There was an active question and answer period following in which some students expressed criticism and doubt of the proposed plan.
William Kunstler Visits Campus
“Chicago-Seven” trial lawyer, William Kunstler visited the Stanford campus on February 19 under sponsorship of the Law Forum. During the morning he discussed “Movement Lawyerhood” with law students, while the afternoon was spent in a panel discussion on “Law, Order and the Administration of Justice” with Professors Anthony Amsterdam, John Kaplan and Wayne Barnett before a packed audience of 400.
International Society Hosts Ambassadors
The International Society hosted a visit by Ambassador Pierre Ileka of the Republic of the Congo on April 6. He outlined the development of the Congo from the time of the revolt against Belgium in 1960 through civil war to its present government, the Second Republic, established by the army in 1965 and pointed out the economic and social improvements brought about by the present administration.
On April 7 Turkish Ambassador H.E. Melih Esenbel spoke to the International Society on the political and economic stability of his country. Ambassador Esenbel emphasized the improvement of the standard of living in Turkey and said it would continue to develop through determination and effort on the part of the people as well as through foreign aid.
Yale Professor Discusses War
Alexander Bickel, Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History, Yale Law School, and presently at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, discussed “The President, the Congress and the War-Making Power” on April 21 in a talk sponsored by the Law Forum.
Bickel spoke of the division of power established in the Constitution which, in effect, restricts the power to make war to Congress. According to Bickel this war-making power belonging to Congress radically shifted to a presidential power in 1965 under Lyndon B. Johnson. This action, he claimed was “unconstitutional”, an extension of power that should be reclaimed by Congress. He declared the “war has been a moral error” and said, “Democracy should not wage war when a substantial body oppose it morally and politically.” Bickel noted the “double error” of the war-an error of commission by the President and omission by the Congress and said that Congress must reclaim its authority.
“Movement” Lawyer Denounces Legal System
Michael Kennedy, attorney for suspended Stanford English Professor Bruce Franklin, discussed “Law as a Repressive Force” under sponsorship of the Lawyers Guild and the Law Association on April 29. In a series of criticisms leveled at almost every branch of jurisprudence, he stated that he has more respect for the dropouts of society than the lawyers who perpetuate the law. He summarily denounced the State Bar whose ethics were determined, he said, by old, rich and successful lawyers; Governor Reagan for his California Rural Legal Assistance policies; the courts for their alleged lack of respect for defendants, defense attorneys and the system of law; prosecutors who look towards the number of their convictions rather than justice; and the grand juries’ supposed theme that very few have respect for the law.
Sargent Shriver Speaks At ”Law Review” Banquet
R. Sargent Shriver spoke to about 180 students, alumni and faculty at the annual Law Review Banquet on May 1. Shriver exhorted his audience to “make justice come alive in the streets, not just in the library.” He cited the present problems of California Rural Legal Assistance, saying that the principle of legal representation for all is being challenged by Reagan and others who are attempting to cut off CRLA funding.
The former ambassador, now practicing with Fried, Frank, Shriver, Harris & Jacobson, also explored the possibility of law teaching clinics connected to law schools in much the same manner that teaching hospitals are linked with medical schools. In his view this would be a way of bringing practical training to law students while serving the legal needs of the community.
Earlier in the evening Toastmaster Charles J. Meyers introduced the Review‘s first legislation editor Seth Hufstedler. Hufstedler, chairman of an alumni committee to fund the Law Review, noted changes in the Review in its first 23 years. When Hufstedler started law school in 1946 Carl Spaeth had just become dean and started three major projects in Hufstedler’s view: built the faculty, later augmented by Bayless Manning; restructured the curriculum and created the Law Review.
Outgoing Law Review President Richard Timbie presented certificates to Review officers and also one to Bayless Manning making him an honorary editor and one to Carl Spaeth-the founder’s certificate. He also announced the dedication of Volume 23 to Mrs. Virginia Birch, business manager of the Review for 19 years.
Hilary Goldstone, R. Sargent Shriver
Law School Professors Participate In Harvard Conference
A Conference On American Legal History was held April 30 through May 2, 1971 at Harvard Law School. Two Stanford Law School faculty members participated. Professor Gerald Gunther was on a panel discussing “Editing the Materials of Legal History” and Professor Lawrence M. Friedman discussed “Legal History-Goals and Directions.”
Illinois Attomey General Talks About Pollution
“State Institutional Legal Action Against Environmental Polluters” was the subject matter discussed by William J. Scott, Attorney General of Illinois, on May 3 at a meeting sponsored by the Law Forum. Scott described the problem of pollution as world-wide and said we are in a “race against time” to deal with it. He expressed his great desire to reach the student generation with the magnitude of the problem as it is that generation, and the one to follow, to be most greatly affected. Scott’s plan is to combat the problem economically so that it is no longer profitable to pollute, i.e., place such high fines on polluters that it will be easier and less costly to implement pollution control than it is to continue pollution. Scott said, however, that “no state or nation can do it alone. The job must be done on a world-wide basis.”
Moot Court Finals
The Nineteenth Annual Marion Rice Kirkwood Moot Court Competition was held at Stanford on May 8. Counsels for the petitioner, Michael Goldstein and Elden Rosenthal and counsels for the respondent, James Ware and Lance Wickman, presented their arguments to a court composed of The Honorable Thurgood Marshall, United States Supreme Court, The Honorable Walter Ely, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, and The Honorable Joseph Rattigan, California Court of Appeal, First District. The questions argued were:
1. Whether citizens are deprived of First Amendment rights by the collection and systematic retention by a city police force of information concerning lawful political activity and the participants therein;
2. Whether injunctive relief is appropriate. Mortimer Herzstein ’50, of the Stanford Law Society of Northern California, presented the Society’s awards. Jim Ware placed first and also won the prize for the best brief. Elden Rosenthal took second place honors.
On Friday evening Justice Marshall answered questions from the audience at a session sponsored by the Law Forum. His comments ranged over such topics as the reduction of jury size in civil cases in federal courts and his chosen profession had he not become a lawyer his answer: a bootlegger. When asked if he thought the burden of work of the Court would be reduced by the addition of one or more justices” the Justice replied that the bench is built so that it will not take any more seats; he also stated he thought the Court was now of the correct size.
Justice Marshall described his working relationship with his three law clerks as a cooperative one. He said he and his three law clerks worked closely together, voting on each issue, though hi vote was weighted. He stated that the value of clerking experience to the trial lawyer was that the clerk learned how to do research.
Greyan Rabin to be New Faculty Members
Thomas C. Grey will join the Stanford Law School faculty as an assistant professor on July 1, 1971. Mr. Grey received his A.B. from Stanford in 1963 and spent the following two years as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University. Following his graduation from Yale Law School in 1968, he was clerk to Hon. J. Skelly Wright of
the United States Court of Appeals. In 1969-70 Mr. Grey was clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court and for the past year has been associated with Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm.
Robert L. Rabin, Visiting Associate Professor from the University of Wisconsin, will become a member of the Stanford Law faculty on July 1 also. Mr. Rabin received a B.S. in 1960, a J.D. in 1963, and a Ph.D. in political science in 1967 from Northwestern University. He was a research assistant for the American Bar Foundation in 1963 and for the Office of Education Study of Racial Imbalance in Chicago Schools in 1965. During the summer of 1962 he was with the firm. of Isham, Lincoln & Beale in Chicago. He has been a member of the Wisconsin Law faculty since 1966. While at Stanford he has been teaching torts, legal process and administrative law.
Estate Planning Competition Winner
Bruce Newman Warren ’71 won first prize in the ninth national Estate Planning Competition sponsored by the First National Bank of Chicago. Warren received a prize of $1,000 for his paper, “The Income Tax Effects of Partially Donative Transfers.”