When the members of the Stanford Law School Class of 1956 received their diplomas, the Soviet Union was still a year away from launching Sputnik and John Lennon and Paul McCartney hadn’t even met. The Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education had only recently laid the groundwork for momentous change in the United States.

With their close-cropped hair and almost identical suits and ties, 92 young men—and three women—embarked on their legal careers. They also embarked on their lives as SLS alumni and, in the decades to come, a handful of the members of the Class of ’56 would go on to establish an unusually tight circle of connections and family-like ties with some of their classmates.

This group, loosely known as the Reunion Renegades, coalesced around their classmate Kenneth Scott and his wife, Sunny Scott. Kenneth Scott joined the SLS faculty in 1967 as the Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business after holding various roles in the banking and financial services sectors. Before and since her husband’s passing in 2016, Sunny Scott, a designer, artist, and photographer, has been an enthusiastic and energetic linchpin of the Class of ’56.

For almost two decades, the Scotts’ historic home on the Stanford campus has served as the group’s gathering place for reunion brunches and homecoming game celebrations, and—more frequently as the years pass—a place to mourn the passing of their classmates, most of whom are now in their 90s. The size of the Renegades has fluctuated over the years, with the core group comprising approximately 25 alumni and their spouses.

“Ken and I regularly hosted formal, official SLS reunion dinners and cocktail parties for the Class of 1956, as well as other classes, at our home soon after we moved into the house in 1989,” says Scott, who married Ken Scott the same year. “In 2006 we decided to host something different, a bonus event. We called the informal potluck brunch the ‘renegade reunion’ because it was not an ‘official’ alumni gathering, though we never stopped enjoying those as well.”

Scott explains that members of the class and their spouses were happy to pitch in to help, with Renate Grundstrom (wife of Edwin Grundstrom who passed away in 2018), Patty Jelley (wife of Phil Jelley who passed away in April 2023), and Jean Ann Luckhardt (wife of Class of ’56 president Charley Luckhardt) taking charge of the cooking. Charley Luckhardt was made the designated dishwasher, while Bill Allen and Ken Scott watched a football game. “I was taking pictures. Dick Maltzman was cracking jokes. People stayed well into the afternoon. It was so successful that, there and then, we decided to make it an annual event.”

Jack Fine, a Renegade since the group’s early years, says he still marvels at the connections the group has fostered over the last two decades. “I’m now close friends with a number of my classmates who I didn’t even know that well in law school.”

What Jane Stanford Envisioned

A distinguishing characteristic of the Renegades has always been that spouses, children, and even grandchildren are seen as de facto members of the Class of ’56. “You won’t find any ‘trailing spouses’ in this group,” Sunny says. “This is a family.”

Patty Jelley agrees. “I have so many warm feelings and wonderful memories from our group gatherings—and many laughs—over the years,” says Jelley, whose husband Phil, a devoted Stanford University and SLS supporter, passed away in April 2023, just a week before he was to receive the University’s Governor’s Award. Jelley accepted the award on behalf of her husband. “Phil loved Stanford, loved the law school, and having this tightly knit group of friends from his class was really a special part of his life,” she adds. Among Phil Jelley’s many contributions to SLS over the decades was his support for the Golden Gavel Society, which celebrates law school alumni who graduated 56 or more years ago.

Scott says the cozy on-campus gatherings at her 1930s home are a manifestation of what Jane Stanford envisioned when she and her husband, Leland, founded the university in 1885.

“I am really focused on Jane Stanford’s visionary view of a residential university,” says Scott. “She clearly stated that she wanted faculty and students to live on the campus. The result of her vision was that faculty members, their spouses, and their kids evolved as a unique community of residents, living on the campus, interacting with the students, and hosting and housing them in their homes. That has been a big part of what makes Stanford unique, this notion of a truly residential university. I have grabbed hold of that idea with great enthusiasm.”

“Ken and Sunny’s lovely home on the campus has always been integral to the group,” says Luckhardt, the ’56 class president and perennial designated dishwasher. “They always made a special effort to keep us connected.”

“Ken Scott is sorely missed by us all,” says Dick Maltzman, JD ’59, who spent two of his three years at SLS with the Class of ’56 before his Navy ROTC commitments required a hiatus from his studies. “Ken was brilliant. He sat in the back row of our huge classroom on a wooden chair that he tilted back against the wall, his hands folded behind his head, listening to the lectures and rarely taking notes. But every once in a while, he would drop his chair to all four legs with a bang, move up to his desk and write something. The rest of us, when we heard the bang, knew that Ken was writing something down and that we should have been paying attention. What had the professor just said that caught his attention? You could look around the room and see everyone looking worried that they had missed something.”

Zooming Into the Future

Senior Associate Director of Alumni Relations Mary Elizabeth Fitzpatrick enjoys the Renegades so much that she drops by their weekend brunches and joins their regular Zoom meetings to provide updates on the law school and the broader university, along with Scott. “They love to hear all the details of what is happening at the law school, especially as it pertains to the student community, and remain amazingly engaged with everything we are doing,” Fitzpatrick says.

The virtual gatherings were a COVID-era development spearheaded by Phil Fullerton until he passed away in December 2022 and are now led by Jack Fine. “Zoom is now just another tool for getting together and furthering our friendships,” Scott says. “It is another example of how this group knows how to create opportunities.”

“This group from the Class of ’56 has been a true inspiration to those of us in Alumni Relations,” Fitzpatrick says. “We look to them as a model for how to foster alumni gatherings and connections beyond the scope of reunions. We can learn a lot from them in life and in our profession.”  SL