Giving Back

Becoming a Law Student

When James finished high school in 1962, the University of California at Berkeley was required to admit California residents who: had a B average or better in high school, had completed four years of English, had completed two years of a foreign language and mathematics, and two years of science. In the days before grade inflation, a B average meant that you were in about the top 10% of your class. The tuition for Berkeley was $972 — not per semester or per quarter, but for all four years. In 1962, new Volkswagen’s were going for about $1,600. James lived only about 20 miles south of the Berkeley campus. These terms were good enough for James, and he decided to get both the Berkeley education and the Volkswagen. After graduating from Berkeley, James was the only graduate from that school accepted into the University of Washington School of Law. James has always assumed having one Berkeley guy in the class was part of the reason he got into the school. The University of Washington hit James with out-of-state tuition for his first year in law school, but he paid in-state tuition thereafter. Tuition for the remaining three years was $1,725 — again, not per semester or per quarter, but for all three years.

Two first-rate west coast universities thus provided James a seven-year undergraduate and law school education at a cost of only $2,697. He figured this type of investment in him by these two states meant that he owed at least one of them a minimum of 50 years’ service to the state’s residents as an attorney applying what he was taught. Currently, James has fulfilled just under 90% of this obligation, and the prospects look good for the remaining 10%.