(2 of 4)
Not long ago, that would have been the wildest overstatement anyone, not to say a Supreme Court justice, could have made. "The Georgia law school was the bottom of nothing," says an Atlanta attorney. Or at least it was the bottom of nothing until 1964, when Professor Lindsey Cowen, of the University of Virginia Law School, took over as Georgia's dean. Since then, Georgia has made one of the fastest and most impressive turnabouts in the history of legal education.
Brighter Brothers. Literally every statistical indicator has shown a quantum improvement. The faculty is up from six men to 25. The 82 first-year students in September 1964 were attracted from only eight different states; more than double that number of states was represented by this September's entering class of 136. The Georgia Law Review, nonexistent in 1964, is about to publish its fourth issue. At a cost of more than $1,000,000, the law library has jumped from 50,000 volumes to 125,000, leapfrogging in the process from a ranking of 70th in the U.S. to No. 31.
Long attended by local boys who could not join their brighter brothers in the exodus to out-of-state law schools, Georgia began its turnabout at a state bar meeting in 1961, when a small group of lawyers decided that something had to be done. Governor Ernest Vandiver agreed; so did his successor, Carl Sanders. Both men fought for the necessary appropriations. In all, $4,000,000 has been raised from public and private sources.
Higher Sights. In addition to money, there was the recruitment of Cowen as dean. A fifth-generation lawyer who followed his law degree with graduate work at Harvard, Cowen was attracted by the opportunity to build a school virtually from scratch. "This was the greatest opportunity ever given to anyone," he says, and his enthusiasm has infected many of the bright young men he attracted to his faculty. Professor Robert Leavell taught one year at Georgia in the '50s and left in disgust; wooed back from a law professorship at Tulane University three years ago by Cowen, he says, "It's exciting to be around this school now."
Ultimately, of course, a school is made by students as well as by plant and faculty. And in the South particularly, the graduates of the state law school make up the bulk of the state bar, and usually the state legislature. It is therefore especially meaningful that on the student score, Georgia is also vastly changed. "When I first came here three years ago," says Professor Charles Saunders, "most, if not all the students thought in terms of just going back home and picking up where they'd left off. Their sights weren't set very high. Today they're getting confidence in themselves, going to areas where the competition is keener."
A partner in an Atlanta law firm that has just hired its first two Georgia Law graduates in years agrees: "It is amazing, the improvement in the quality of the boys." The students seem to know they are in the big leagues now, too. Gone is the old, goof-off atmosphere. Instead of slipping away to the flicks, many of the students this fall have been agitating to keep the library open until midnight.
TRIALS
Two-Way Outrage