Houston’s Law Schools in 1963

South Texas College of Law

By SHEILA HANSEL

In 1963, South Texas College of Law faced major changes. The law school, founded in 1923 as part of a network of YMCA schools, was preparing for independence. The fall semester 40 years ago was the last in the downtown YMCA building at 1600 Louisiana Street. Plans were made and property leased to move South Texas to the J. Robert Neil Building at 1220 Polk Street. That building, with several additions, still houses South Texas today, with the front door facing San Jacinto Street. The leadership planning the expansion and upgraded facilities consisted of Dean John C. Jackson, the former General Counsel of Texaco, Garland Walker as Assistant Dean and Registrar, and Charles E. Bender, the Business Manager and Bursar. South Texas had outgrown its small rooms at the YMCA and was looking to serve a larger student body. In 1963, a total of 365 students were enrolled, approximately the number of students now admitted each fall. Classes at South Texas all started after 4:00 p.m., catering to the working student making a career change or enhancement. South Texas was founded with the idea of serving working men and women with flexible, part-time schedules. In order to be admitted to South Texas in 1963, students must have completed 90 semester hours of undergraduate studies.
Students could attend classes full-time or part-time, but all classes were taught in the evening. The South Texas faculty consisted of only three full-time professors: Dean Jackson, Assis-tant Dean Walker and Goodman Lee Caplan. South Texas pulled legal expertise from the Houston legal community to provide the real-world education students needed. The adjunct faculty included many names still recognizable today including Justice Spurgeon Bell, Tom Arnold, James Brough, Judge Carl Bue, Fred Collins, Joel Cook, Chris Dixie, Edmund Duggan, Charles Easterling, D.H. Gregg, Robert Piro, Harry Reed and Joseph Sperry. Adjunct faculty continue to serve a vital role at South Texas with 40 active practitioners rounding out a full-time faculty of 55 professors. Attending South Texas was not only convenient for working students in the 1960s, it was affordable. Tuition was $20 a semester hour as opposed to $618 per semester hour now. Students admitted in the fall of 1963 were the first class required to take and pass the standardized Law School Aptitude Test, a requirement that continues today. The graduating class of 1963 included 47 students.
Work done in 1963 ushered in an era of rapid growth for the school, both the physical plant and student body. With the move to new, and highly touted “air-conditioned” facilities in the spring of 1964, South Texas was graduating classes of over 100 students by 1970. The school has since purchased the entire city block of 1303 San Jacinto, filling it with a 12-story tower and a 5-story, state-of-the-art library facility completed in 2001.

Sheila Hansel is the public relations manager for South Texas College of Law.

Thurgood Marshall School of Law

By EDIETH Y. WU

In 1963, the Texas Southern University Law School had been in operation for 15 years; the name was changed to Thurgood Marshall School of Law in 1976. According to the contributors to this article, the law school was a great place: the professors were well respected because they were dedicated intellectuals, and students were encouraged by professors as well as fellow students to study because opportunities were available for qualified lawyers. The school had an “inviting air,” which encouraged students to interact with their classmates and their professors.
The law school was housed on the second floor of the Hannah Hall building. The law school had four classrooms, including the moot court room, which doubled as a classroom. The library and the lounge were also on the second floor. The legal clinic, one of the first in the nation, was housed on the first floor of the building. The law school’s total enrollment was less than 48 students. Thus, classes were small, congenial and cordial. Professors and students would meet for coffee in the lounge to discuss myriad topics. The “Lounge Meeting” was a scheduled event: every day at 10:00 a.m. students and faculty would have an exchange about law school, community and any other topic that needed discussion. Each evening, students were assigned to clean the coffee pots and prepare the coffee for the next day. Law students had 24-hour access to the second floor of the building – an iron gate secured the floor, and students would shout out and someone would always open the door. The school was an extremely “close knit” institution during the 1960s. Students were not coddled, but they were valued and encouraged to work hard because they were preparing themselves not only to represent other groups who had been denied access to legal counsel, but were also the future attorneys who would help integrate the bench, bar and law firms. They knew they were, in fact, the trailblazers of the legal profession during its infancy and evolution.
In 1963, the school had approximately seven professors, including the dean of the law school, Kenneth Tollet, and two adjuncts. One professor, Earl Carl, was blind and used a reader. The school had a “harmoniously integrated faculty and student body.”1 The contributors all agree that classes were never canceled at the law school, but in 1963 Professor Roberson King cancelled class because of the Kennedy assassination. That was a very somber day in the law school’s lounge. Nonetheless, the students were encouraged and reinvigorated to work harder to achieve their goals and to impact the community as competent lawyers.
The first year class of 1962-63 consisted of one white male, one Puerto Rican male (Ruben Lugo-Rigau), one African American woman, and about six or seven African American Males. The other classes were diverse as well: several white and African American females, two Puerto Rican males, several Mexican American males, several white males, and the rest African American males.
The graduating class of 1963 had nine graduates. Hebert E. Lugo-Rigau was in the class of 1963; his brother Ruben Lugo-Rigau was a first year student during that time. Ruben Lugo-Rigau graduated in the class of 1965, number one in the class. Hebert Lugo-Rigau continues to practice law in Puerto Rico.
The class of 1963 witnessed a major breakthrough — the law school’s first student, Charles Irvin, participated in the Federal Apprentice Program. He served with Woodrow Seals, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.2 Other students also secured jobs in the profession that year. Much of the success was attributed to the experience the students gained in the law school’s Legal Clinic. Students, under the directorship of Ramon Klitzke, worked on complex cases, both local and national, and gained invaluable and marketable experience. Professor Klitzke required students to conduct client interviews, draft and file petitions, and attend court; courtroom observation was an integral part of the clinic experience. Students worked on civil and criminal cases, and as a result local attorneys were hiring them.
The first-year class of 1963 became the class of 1965; that class had nine graduates, which included the three contributors to this article: Lonnie Gooden, Ruben Lugo-Rigau and J.B. Phillips. After several years of successful practice, Gooden and Lugo joined the law school’s faculty as Assistant Professors. Attorney J.B. Phillips practices law in Houston. The three have remained friends; their camaraderie and genuine respect for each other was evident during the interviews. According to them, “1963 was an exciting time at Texas Southern University Law School.”

Endnotes
1. Kenneth Tollet, Message From The Dean, The Texas Southern University Law News, Vol. 5, at 1, May 1964. 2. Ernest Scott, Jr., Texas Southern University School of Law News, Vol. 5, at 3, May 1964.


Edieth Y. Wu is an associate professor at Thurgood Marshall School of Law and a member of The Houston Lawyer Editorial Board. Lonnie Gooden, Ruben Lugo-Rigau, and J.B. Phillips (class of 1965) also contributed to this article.

The University of Houston Law Center

By LEAH GROSS

The University of Houston was the site of amazing transitions throughout the 1960s, and in particular, in 1963.
In 1963 the University of Houston became a state school. Between 1950 and 1963, student enrollment and the size of the library tripled, while the size of the faculty doubled. Becoming a state school meant more funds were available to meet the increased demand. With added funding the school could continue to hire outstanding faculty, and more of them.
Enrollment boomed for another reason. In 1963, African American students enrolled for the first time.
Also debuting at UHLC in 1963 was the law review. Now a well-read and well-cited periodical, the initial law review was peddled to alumni by Dean Newell Blakely. For $5.50 a year, customers received three issues and the satisfaction of knowing that they helped fund the journal’s operating expenses.
Despite the many advancements taking place at UHLC, many students felt isolated from the Houston Bar. Jim Perdue ‘63 theorizes that the esprit de corps was fostered, in part, because students of his era felt like orphans in the legal community. The big law firms would hire from Yale or Harvard but they didn’t consider UH a top flight law school yet.
“We shared an understanding our law school was very good, but not appreciated. Because it wasn’t, we wanted to succeed. We were driven to prove we were as good as anyone else,” Perdue says.
Perdue himself is an example of how law students struggled to meet the demands of their discipline while attempting to stay afloat. He worked his way through law school like many of the law students of the time. His work at a smelter on Market Street in Houston was shift work. Thus, some semesters he attended as a day student and other semesters as a night student.
“The almost universal attitude in those days was a desire to know that when we graduated from law school we were “ready to practice law.” While there was a great deal of competition for grades and class standing, the overriding concern was to obtain a legal education which would equip one to practice and succeed in what was believed to be a very exciting profession.
The curriculum was much different then, as well. Courses at the time had titles such as “Bills and Notes,” “Future Interests,” and “Oil and Gas.” Almost all of the professors had what they called an “unprepared list.” If you were not prepared for class you had to sign the list. If you were called to recite a case and were unable to do so and had not signed the “unprepared list,” you might, depending upon the professor’s rules in this regard, be docked on your final grade. Many students became visibly ill when called upon. Others seemed to relish it.
At the end of the fall semester in 1960, approximately 125 people were enrolled as first-year students. In 1963, the University of Houston Law School graduated between 30-35 students. Many students failed out. Many got discouraged because of the exhaustive time requirements.
The library opened at 7:30 in the morning and closed at 11 p.m. Adjacent to the main library was another large room which was used both as a library and classroom. It would not be uncommon for someone to be doing research at the back of the room while class was in progress at the front.
Down the hall from these two rooms was the lounge. A large coffee urn supplied fresh coffee around the clock. The furniture in the lounge consisted of a couple of spartan, Naugahyde couches and chairs. The primary, if not the sole, recreation was chess matches. Many times during the afternoon you might see two or three games going on in the lounge between students. They would play a game or two of chess and then return to their studies.

Leah Gross is the director of marketing and public relations for the University of Houston Law Center.

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