Clark Praises Judicial System

WILLIAMSBURG -- Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark said here Wednesday that he hoped there was no obstruction of justice on the part of President Nixon during the Watergate affair. Talking to reporters following a program at the College of William and Mary, Clark said that obstruction of justice is one of our gravest offenses, because it destroys the very system we live by. He said that he had not read all the details of the Watergate tape transcripts. His comments on Watergate were made in response to a question regarding Nixon and discussions with aides about hush money for Watergate defendant E. Howard Hunt. I\u27m not saying there was any kind of obstruction of justice, Clark emphasized, I\u27m just saying that I hope it didn\u27t occur. Clark was on the Supreme Court from 1949 until he retired in 1967. The recent trial of former Atty. Gen. John N. Mitchell and former Commerce Secretary Maurice H.Stans showed the strength of our judicial system in that 12 people have the courage to stand up and make important decisions, he said. Clark was on the W&M campus Wednesday as part of Law Day 1974 program sponsored by the Marshall-Wythe School of Law here, the W&M Student Bar Association and the Norfolk-Portsmouth Bar Association. During the ceremony, Clark was recognized as one of the nation\u27s most successful and illustrious jurists by Dean James P. Whyte of the Marshall-Wythe School of Law, who presented Clark with the school\u27s Marshall-Wythe medallion, an award reserved for selected leaders of the legal profession. As another part of the Law Day observance, Judge John A. MacKenzie, federal district judge for the eastern district of Virginia, presided over a special session of Federal District Court convened here to naturalize 124 persons from the Tidewater area as U.S. citizens. Following the ceremony, Clark spoke to about 400 persons. He said that the great test of democracy is what it puts in the hearts, minds, and purposes of its citizens

Endowment Unit Approves Grants

The Virginia Environmental Endowment board of directors approved $194,000 in grants yesterday to environmental projects, including$61,000 to the College of William and Mary law school for conferences on environmental law and purchases of environmental law books. Law school dean William B. Spong, who had sought the funds from the endowment, said the school will appoint a special committee to develop formats for the conferences to be held during the next two years. The tentative schedule calls for a conference this fall dealing with Virginia environmental law and its relationship to federal law. A second conference in February 1979 will deal with a general approach to environmental law. A third conference in the late summer of 1979 will deal with the practice of environmental law and will be offered in cooperation with the Virginia Bar Association. The fourth and final conference will be held in the fall of 1979 and will deal with the effect of environmental laws on the state\u27s seafood industry. Spong said only the third conference will be aimed strictly at lawyers. The rest will be geared to industry officials, health professionals, seafood industry representatives, journalists, and others, he said. The grant to the law school also includes $21,000 for the purchase of 1,200 volumes of environmental law books, which, Spong said, will give the law school as good a library on environmental, coastal and water resource law as any library in the nation. Gerald P. McCarthy, executive director of the endowment, said the remainder of the$194,000 in grants will be announced later this month after the endowment has contacted the recipients to make sure terms are acceptable. McCarthy did say some of the grants will go to projects related to the Kepone pollution of the James River. The endowment is a non-profit, independent corporation created in 1977 with an $8 million contribution from Allied Chemical Corp., which gave the money in lieu of a fine for its part in the Kepone pollution of the James River

Darrell Due to Receive Law Medal

WILLIAMSBURG -- Norris Darrell of New York, president of the American Law Institute since 1961, has been named the first recipient of the Marshall-Wythe School of Law Medallion. Darrell will receive the medallion at commencement exercises at the College of William and Mary June 11. The bronze medal was commissioned for presentation to a leader of the legal profession in this country and abroad. It shows profiles of George Wythe, first law professor at the college, and John Marshall, chief Justice of the Supreme Court and one of Wythe\u27s students. Although the law school plans to give only one medallion a year, the law faculty has voted to make an additional award available this spring. The special medallion will go to the John Marshall House in Richmond. The award will be presented at the meeting of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) at its Jamestown Day meeting in Williamsburg May 14. The APVA administers the Marshall House. Dean Joseph Curtis of the law school said that because of the special significance of the Marshall House in the career of the college\u27s distinguished law alumnus the special medal was approved

Law Seminar Students to Hear Ex-Sen. Spong

HAMPDEN-SYDNEY -- Former U.S. Sen. William B. Spong, Dean of the College of William and Mary law school, will be the keynote speaker at a seminar for prospective law students at Hampden-Sydney College March 6. The seminar will feature prominent Hampden-Sydney alumni from the legal field. Also attending will be three former Hampden-Sydney students: Judges Jose R. Davila Jr. of Richmond and Dixon L. Foster of Irvington and U.S. District Court Judge John A. Field. The seminar was begun last year to provide insight into and awareness of the legal profession for those at the college interested in the field. Registration will begin at 9:30 a.m. Spong\u27s address will follow. A luncheon will follow his address. There will be an open house in Bagby Hall for students interested in any of the four Virginia law schools. Representatives from the law schools at Washington and Lee University, William and Mary, the University of Virginia and the University of Richmond will be available to answer students\u27 questions and discuss admission procedures. The law schools at Duke, North Carolina and Wake Forest universities have also been invited to send representatives. At 1:30 p.m. there will be a moot court covened by law students from Charlottesville and Richmond. Presiding over the moot court will be Field. He is a 1932 graduate of Hampden-Sydney and holds the highest appointed position in the legal field of any Hampden-Sydney graduate. Spong is a 1941 graduate of Hampden-Sydney and was elected to the Senate in 1966. Since his defeat in the 1972 Senate race, he has been involved in research at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution. He was appointed dean of the William and Mary law school last year

Law Seminar Students to Hear Ex-Sen. Spong

HAMPDEN-SYDNEY -- Former U.S. Sen. William B. Spong, Dean of the College of William and Mary law school, will be the keynote speaker at a seminar for prospective law students at Hampden-Sydney College March 6. The seminar will feature prominent Hampden-Sydney alumni from the legal field. Also attending will be three former Hampden-Sydney students: Judges Jose R. Davila Jr. of Richmond and Dixon L. Foster of Irvington and U.S. District Court Judge John A. Field. The seminar was begun last year to provide insight into and awareness of the legal profession for those at the college interested in the field. Registration will begin at 9:30 a.m. Spong\u27s address will follow. A luncheon will follow his address. There will be an open house in Bagby Hall for students interested in any of the four Virginia law schools. Representatives from the law schools at Washington and Lee University, William and Mary, the University of Virginia and the University of Richmond will be available to answer students\u27 questions and discuss admission procedures. The law schools at Duke, North Carolina and Wake Forest universities have also been invited to send representatives. At 1:30 p.m. there will be a moot court covened by law students from Charlottesville and Richmond. Presiding over the moot court will be Field. He is a 1932 graduate of Hampden-Sydney and holds the highest appointed position in the legal field of any Hampden-Sydney graduate. Spong is a 1941 graduate of Hampden-Sydney and was elected to the Senate in 1966. Since his defeat in the 1972 Senate race, he has been involved in research at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution. He was appointed dean of the William and Mary law school last year

Cabell County - Bicentennial Edition

Bicentennial Edition of Herald Dispatch about the history of Cabell County, West Virginia published on February 29 197

Our Immature Society

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/citizens_clip/1062/thumbnail.jp

Bucknell Honors W&M Law Dean

WILLIAMSBURG -- James P. Whyte, Jr. dean of the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary, was given an award Saturday by Bucknell University for meritorious achievement. The award to Whyte, a member of the Bucknell class of 1943, was for his practical vision in legal education and his abilities as a labor-management arbitrator and specialist in constitutional and criminal law. Whyte earned his law degree from the University of Colorado and has been a member of the W&M law school faculty for 16 years and dean since 1970

Classes to Start at New W&M Law Site

WILLIAMSBURG -- The oldest law school in the United States has moved into its new building. Designed eventually to accommodate 600 students at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary, the $5.1 million structure, located adjacent to the National Center for State Courts, will be formally dedicated at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 13. Classes will begin in the building this morning and William B. Spong Jr., law school dean, took reporters on a tour yesterday as students and faculty members were becoming acquainted with the area. Spong pointed out to reporters the items of historical interest, such as two stained class windows in the foyer. They were given by All Souls College of Oxford University recognizing the 200th anniversary last year of the nation\u27s first professorship of law, established at William and Mary in 1779. He also pointed to a rare book room, decorated in 18th century motif. There are five rugs on the highly polished parquet floors of the foyer. Those, he added, also were gifts and no tax funds were involved. The only thing not completed is the moot court room, which, Spong said, will be one of the most technologically advanced in the nation. Financed through federal grants and private foundation gifts, it will have extensive audio and videotaping equipment with some television camera placed in the ceiling. Spong said he hoped construction of the courtroom, which was a separate contract from the rest of the building, would be completed prior to the dedication ceremony. The moot court room is adjacent to administrative offices and just off the foyer that runs through the building, providing a link between the law classroom wing and the national center building and the law school library wing. The law library, which for years has been scattered throughout the main campus, has been consolidated, maybe for the first time since Colonial times. The library can accommodate about 250,000 volumes and currently there are 150,000. On the lower level of the library, the dean pointed to a new stack arrangement that allows for the shelves to be located back to back and moved by a mechanical apparatus so that books can be removed. Thus, less than half the normal area is required. Books in this area, Spong said, are items that are infrequently used, but are important. Spong said, We\u27re probably so pleased with this building that it\u27s difficult to be low-key about it. He said he believed it was functional, but you have to see what students and faculty do with a building to determine whether it is really functional or not