Dean Scott H. Bice - USC Gould School of Law - University of ...

Intellectual AdventuresA CENTURY OF FACULTY THOUGHT AND A LAW SCHOOL PERMANENT IN NATUREBY JOHN G. (TOM) TOMLINSON, JR.“Permanence speaks of endurance; nature or character—for the historian, atleast—speaks of an accumulation and distillation of experiences over time whichmark the culture of a place. A faculty in its longevity, teaching, and scholarshipdefines the permanent nature of the law school.“Since 1900, when the University of SouthernCalifornia announced that it was offeringcourses in legal education, more than 100persons have taught law at USC as full-timeprofessors over the past century; it is the collective faculty,working with ambitious students and supportedby generous graduates, who have shaped the culture ofUSC Law School. As the University celebrates 100years of legal education during the year 2000, it isappropriate to honor the faculty whose work as teachersand scholars has transformed USC Law School intoone of the important American academic legalcommunities.Attempting to describe the work and influence ofmore than 100 professors over 100 years in a brief articlepromises an inventory list of persons and yearstaught. Rather than create lists, this article identifiesthree people who are, and one course, which is representativeof important intellectual and pedagogical orientationswhich define the academic atmosphere andwork of the Law School. Visiting the representativelives and thought of George H. Smith, William Burby,John Bradway, and one course out of the curriculum —Law, Language, and Ethics and the persons who createdthe course — illuminates the evolution of this lawschool over the past century.George H. Smith William Burby John BradwayA Law School Permanent in NatureAt its wobbly inception in November 1896, the LosAngeles Law Students Association heard their invitedguests — attorneys James Brown Scott and CurtisDwight Wilbur — encourage them in their ambitiousenterprise of founding a law school in Los Angeleswhich might become “permanent in nature.” Two yearslater, a group of leading Angelenos incorporated the LosAngeles School of Law and hired Scott to be dean andlaw professor. George H. Smith was one of Scott’s firstfaculty recruits. In 1900, the University of SouthernCalifornia commenced offering courses in law throughthe Los Angeles School of Law and at the end of the1900-1901 term, USC awarded its first seven lawdegrees. A handful of Los Angeles law students hadindeed succeeded in launching a law school “permanentin nature.”Permanence speaks of endurance; nature or character— for the historian, at least — speaks of an accumulationand distillation of experiences over time whichmark the culture of a place. A faculty in its longevity,teaching, and scholarship defines the permanent natureof the law school; faculty endure. For example, WilliamBurby taught law at USC for 38 years, Paul Jones for 40;and, as for the generation of faculty who followed Burby,Jones and others after 1962 — George Lefcoe, MartinLevine, and Christopher Stone — to name but three, thesum of their lives on the faculty now exceeds 100 years.Faculty at the Law School have been the primaryshapers of the place, not only by their idiosyncratic personalstyles — their dress, phrasing, mannerism — butalso their understanding of how the law is to be taught— its pedagogy, as well as the subject of pedagogy, andthe contents of what is taught, and the relationship oflaw to society; theirs is the collective intellectual influencewhich defines and endures.The Most Learned ManShortly after the turn of the last century, Henry O’Melvenyproclaimed his old friend George Hugh Smith “oneof the most learned men in California.” Like mostattorneys of that era, Smith (1834-1915) learned law asan apprentice; unlike many of his contemporaries,Smith graduated from college. In Los Angeles since1869, Smith joined the successful law practice ofAndrew Glassell and his partner, one of the little city’sleading firms. A year later, he married Glassell’s widowedsister whose son apprenticed with Smith andjoined the firm in 1878.Smith was also an engaged public citizen. In 1887and 1888, he served as a state senator. During the late1880’s, Smith, along with Henry O’Melveny and otherlocal attorneys helped revive the Los Angeles CountyBar Association; Smith was a trustee of that organization,and helped create other southern California civicinstitutions as well. Again with Henry O’Melveny andothers in 1898, Smith helped incorporate and was afounding trustee of the Los Angeles School of Law; ontwo separate occasions, he taught: from 1898 to 1900and from 1908 to 1910. From 1900 to 1905, Smithserved as a Supreme Court Commissioner, a post whichaffirmed his reputation as an important legal thinkerand prepared him for a term as Justice of the CaliforniaCourt of Appeals, Second District from 1905 to 1907.While on the bench in 1905, he wrote 54 opinions. Hadhe done nothing more, Smith’s accomplishments wouldmerit our attention as an important early builder of legalinstitutions in Los Angeles.But there was more. Smith was a nationally recognizedscholar of prodigious output with a publicationrecord comparable to many then writingabout legal education, and the philosophy of law. Hisbooks included Elements of Right and of the Law (1887),The Law of Private Right (1890), A Critical History ofModern English Jurisprudence: A Study in Logic, Politics,and Morality (1893), The Theory of the State (1895)and Logic, or the Analytic of Explicit Reasoning (1901);The Theory of the State won a cash prize from the venerableAmerican Philosophical Society. From 1886 untilhis death in 1915, Smith published 17 articles in theAmerican Law Review, arguably the most prestigiouslaw journal in the country at that time; five articlesappeared elsewhere. A photograph of Smith in the frontispieceof the American Law Review’s March/April1908 edition put a face on the mind which had contributedso prolifically to the Review’s pages.Throughout his oeuvre, Smith demonstrated abroadly educated mind; he was at home with the classicsand he read Greek and Latin. Outlines of hiscourses in jurisprudence and American common lawoffered at the Law School suggest the scope of hisknowledge; students in Smith’s classes expected tostudy the legal thought of Aristotle and Plato, of theRoman jurists, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Leibnitz, Grotius,Kant, Savigny and leading nineteenth century jurisprudentialthinkers as well. Smith also taught comparativejurisprudence and constitutional law.Two themes knit together the corpus of Smith’spublished works: the need to reorder Americanlegal training and the need to recenter law andlegal decisions in reason and moral principles. The firstissue considered where legal education should takeplace; the second considered what should be taught and4 USC LAW • SPRING 2000 USC LAW • SPRING 20005