Making Law School Affordable

THE COST OF higher education, including law school, is a recurrent headline in today’s papers. And it is easy to understand why.

Recent estimates put the total amount of student loan debt at well over a trillion dollars, with reports of individual students owing several hundred thousand dollars when their education is complete.

Luckily, the situation for W&L Law students today is not so dire. While the cost of a legal education remains a significant investment for most, W&L devotes substantial financial resources to help make law school more affordable. About 90% of W&L law students receive financial aid, with an average scholarship award of just over $28,000. This helps W&L Law rank highly on the list of best value law schools each year.

The law school’s commitment to providing this financial aid is a big reason W&L remains an affordable option for most students. In the last five years alone, alumni have contributed over $6 million dollars toward the school’s financial aid budget, many of these contributions coming in the form of endowed scholarships. It costs $100,000 to endow a scholarship, which provides approximately $5,000 for a student scholarship annually. Scholarships can be endowed all at once or over the course of five years.

Alumni may also establish a scholarship through a bequest or planned gift. Increasing resources available for student financial aid remains a top priority for the law school.

Remembering A Friend

school every year, and he devoted some of his final months to serving as a member of the Law Council and as chair of the Law Annual Fund. To honor his memory and his affection for his alma mater, his class has created a scholarship endowment in his name.

Toby dreamed of getting his law degree from W&L. His parents saved enough for Toby to attend one year of W&L. An ROTC scholarship, combined with another scholarship, enabled Toby to graduate from the university and continue on for his law degree. He made a financial contribution to W&L every year after he graduated. When asked why, he stated, “I give because I know W&L is, and always will be, part of me. No matter how much I give back, there is no way I will ever repay all W&L gave to me. But maybe, I think, just maybe, I can help someone else get some of the same joy and pride I feel in my W&L connections.”

This fundraising effort is just getting underway.

Honoring A Legend

THOSE WHO WERE lucky enough to have Brian Murchison in their 1L year will remember it well. The door swings wide. A flourish of black robes. “All Rise!” And so begins their dramatic and enthralling introduction to law school, the Socratic method and one of the greatest teachers in the school’s long history. Whether in the classroom or in the hall outside his office for an exam review, Brian Murchison remains the consummate educator and embodies the faculty commitment to students that defines a W&L Law education.

So it was with some surprise that the Law Class of 1996, when considering how to focus its reunion gift, learned that a scholarship honoring Murchison did not already exist. Brian Howe ’96L says the decision to create the scholarship in his name was a “no-brainer” and remarked how Murchison always makes time to catch up with him whenever he comes to Lexington. Kristin Ray ’96L said she is always amazed at how much he remembers about his past students and where they are now.

The Brian C. Murchison Law Scholarship currently has over $100,000 in gifts and pledges.

Leaving A Legacy

JAMES NACCARATO ’45L, WHO DIED FEB. 3, 2020, at the age of 101, left W&L Law an estate gift of $1,179,000 to endow a student scholarship fund. After college in Iowa, he applied and was accepted to law school at Harvard and W&L, about which he had heard good things from hometown friends. That, combined with the fact that W&L’s tuition was $50 less than Harvard’s at the time, sealed the deal given that the less expensive school would make life easier financially for his father.

Due to the war, Naccarato left W&L for the Army Air Corps and was unable to return. Though he did finish law school elsewhere and spent his career working in the Pardon Office at the U.S. Department of Justice, he said not returning to W&L was one of the greatest regrets of his life. Naccarato’s affection and dedication to W&L Law will now live on in a way that was so important to him — lessening the financial burden law school presents to W&L Law students.

PAYING IT FORWARD AS A TRUSTEE, JESSINE

Monahan ’79L became keenly aware of the increasing debt burden experienced by law students across the country, including at W&L. She had been lucky to have received a bequest from a family member that enabled her to go to law school.

“Creating the Monaghan Family scholarship was a way for me to honor my relative and to address a growing need among W&L law students,” she said.

IN AUGUST, MEMBERS OF THE LAW CLASS of 1995 gathered in Lexington to celebrate belatedly their 25th reunion. They also dedicated time to remember and honor a friend and classmate, Toby McCoy ’92, 95L, who passed away in July from pancreatic cancer. Toby gave to the law

“Brian is a gift to W&L and so well loved by all of his students,” said Ray. “Starting Administrative Law by comparing the administrative state to Shakespeare and beginning Communications Law with a story about his time in the Peace Corps in Benin are lectures that are hard to forget — and make Brian a huge part of all of our law school memories.”

Knowing that there was more need than scholarship money, she also encouraged her law school class to fund a scholarship as a reunion gift. They named it in memory of their classmate Archibald Carter “Chip” Magee. Devoted to W&L, Chip served on Law Council for 11 years and also taught several courses in the law school, including the Business Bankruptcy Restructuring course, the Payment Systems course, and the Failing Business Practicum.

For information about endowing a scholarship, contact Elizabeth Outland Branner at brannere@ wlu.edu or 540-458-8191.