I am always amazed when I reflect on the whimsical way that significant decisions have been made in my life.  In late 1968, I was in the last year of a three-year tour in Germany.  I figured I would be sent to the Career Course at the JAG School and then off to Vietnam.  Someone in my office, I think John Naughton, showed me a little squib in a JAG monthly publication which said the JAG Corps intended to send a few officers to universities to obtain a masters degree.  Anyone interested should let them know.  I submitted my name and promptly forgot about it. 

On February 10, 1969, I received a letter from the JAG Career Management Office in the Pentagon telling me I had been selected to go to graduate school to obtain an LL.M. in criminal law.  The kicker was that I had to select the law school and be enrolled within the fiscal year (that meant enrolled before June 30, 1969!).  Remember, this was before emails or fax machines.  First Class postal service (snail mail) was the gold standard.

I sent letters to Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, Stanford and Texas University.  The only things I attached were the letter from Career Management and a copy of my undergraduate and law school transcripts.  Then, I just had to wait.

I just took a look at a copy of the letters I sent out.  They were dated February 10!  It was nice to be married to a legal stenographer.  I wrote out the letters and Carole put them in perfect form that very day (did I mention that in law school, I got an A in the Drafting Legal Instruments course?).

Believe it or not, I received a response back from all five schools within two weeks.  Both Harvard and Michigan sent me back my correspondence advising me that they did not have summer classes for graduate students and consequently, they could not meet my requirement of being enrolled by 30 June 1969.  I always think fondly of those rejections.  They could have rejected me for a hundred reasons, but they were kind enough to say they could not meet my requirements.  If you’ve got to be rejected by Harvard and Michigan, that’s the way to go.

Northwestern University sent me back a two page letter telling me they had a graduate level criminal law program and that I would fit in nicely.  It would include obtaining admission to the Illinois bar and carrying a case load down at the Cook County Jail.  Did I mention that I was born and raised in downstate Illinois and really wanted to be a member of the Illinois bar?  When I graduated from law school, I did not have time to take the Illinois bar, because of my military obligation.

The word from the University of Texas was also good.  The had an experimental project on criminal justice funded by the Ford Foundation.  The professor who wrote me said they envisioned using some graduate students and that they were quite interested in me.  The problem was his title.  He was “Chairman, Special Advisory Committee on Recruiting Law Students From Minority Groups.”  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it spooked me.  I pictured myself being graded against some group under some experimental project.  In reflecting back, I think I over reacted, but back then, I didn’t have time to check it out.  Texas was out.

The letter from Stanford was the last to be received.  It told me that if I had received a “form graduate letter” to please disregard it.  It then said that because of the particular requirements of my situation, my request was “receiving special attention” and that I should hear something shortly from Dean Robinson.  The letter was definitely positive and I really wanted to go back to California.  While I was a Midwest boy, my tour prior to Germany had been in Monterey, California.  While I only spent six months at the Presidio of Monterey studying German, California was etched in my mind.  It would be easy to get hooked on California.  So, again, I waited.

When this drill began, I had 141 days (Feb 10 to June 30) to select a graduate law school (that would accept me), get approval from the Army and move my family and worldly possessions from Germany back to somewhere in the US and be enrolled in the law school.  Did I mention finding a place to live?  And, I waited to hear from Stanford.  Did I mention that I’m a Type A?

By Friday, March 7, I decided to call Dean Robinson.  I waited till 5:00 PM, which would be 9:00 AM in California.  Dean Robinson’s secretary told me he was on the East Coast and gave me the number.  I ended up talking to Dean Robinson at noontime in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He apologized for not responding and told me I had been approved to come to Stanford.  They didn’t have a graduate criminal law program, but they would set me up with a criminal law professor and we could put a program together.  He assured me he would send a letter to me quickly.  I thanked him and hung up.  I looked at my wife, Carole, and said dejectedly, “Honey, we’re going to Northwestern.”  I really wanted to go to Stanford, but in the area of a graduate level criminal law program, Northwestern won hands down.  I would never become a California golden boy.

After reading through this blog, I realize the only thing whimsical was getting into the graduate program.  My selection of Northwestern was probably the right choice for me and I took the necessary steps to get there.  It gave me a chance to work with Professors Fred Inbau, Bill Martin and Jim Haddad.  Today, with the internet, I could have done all my research on line and made a much more informed decision in one-tenth of the time.  But in 1969, in Goeppingen,  Germany, with the clock running, we did what we had to do.  Auf Wiedersehen.