Viewing Terry Andrews: "Hamline University School of Law: A History of Its First Ten Years." (1984).

Terry Andrews: "Hamline University School of Law: A History of Its First Ten Years." (1984).

In 1984, Dean Stephen B. Young asked Terry Andrews to write a history of Hamline Law School's first decade, 1973-1983. Andrews was an accomplished St. Paul freelance writer who understood and admired the main characters in the story of the orphan school that had a Dickensian beginning, overcame obstacles to accreditation and finally found a permanent home and success. During the course of her research, she interviewed students, faculty, the first three deans--Richard T. Oakes, 1973-1975, Richard C. Allen, 1976-1980, and Young, who took the helm in 1981--as well as donors and members of the bar. She captured the idealism, energy and indefatigability of the school's founders and early students (at Hamline, there were "founding students"). She concluded:

"The founders were naive. In a sense, they didn't know enough not to try it. But they were also determined to move mountains. They felt it could be done, they did it, and what's more, they swept others up in their enthusiasm as they went.

"Hamline University School of Law did not arrive full-blown. It grew book by book, until a trunkful of books became a 160,000 volume library and a church basement an 80,000 square foot law center. It's a success story, pure and simple.

"The school was built by pioneers and guided by the realization that not only education makes a successful man or woman, but culture, back-ground, experience and determination do too.

"This is more than history. It is the stuff of legends and dreams."

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