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TI: Well, when you got in the school, how was that? I mean, the caliber of students, the faculty, how would you compare that to a Philadelphia law school? I mean, you didn't go a Philadelphia law school, but you probably had a sense of what that was going to be like.

CS: Right. Well, because the University of Washington is a smaller school than the Eastern schools I was accustomed to, it was more personal and I had the sense that my professors knew me as a person rather than a number in a book. And, but, again, it's sort of hard to draw comparisons. I can tell you how I felt about my law school experience, and it was probably three of the most enjoyable years of my life, University of Washington law school. My professors, I absolutely adored all of them, give or take one or two. They became my friends from law school until they died. I recently ran into one of my law professors whom I hadn't seen for fifty years. We greeted each other as if we were long lost brothers. I didn't even know he was still alive. He knew I was still alive because he has followed my career in the media. But law school, to me, was three years of an intense experience, more or less of a family nature. My law school classmates who are still alive -- and most of us are still alive -- are very close to me. We recognize each other's voices. If I got a telephone call and the person on the other end did not identify themselves, I'd know who it was. Because our law school class, which ended up with sixty-eight -- we started out with 120 -- and we ended up with sixty-eight. And of those sixty-eight, at least fifty of them are still alive. And just a close-knit group of people who lived and worked together for three years, and it was a magnificent experience for me, and to others of them, more or less. Whenever we get together, either individually or in small groups, we reminisce about the "good old days" in law school, about the professors and all of these things. And it was really a very, very fortunate part of my life, and in fact, it was part of the reason that I chose to abandon my earlier intention not to get a law degree. I entered law school in order to satisfy Dr. Gray, and I initially intended not to complete the three years. But I was so fascinated by the law school experience that I determined, "Well, I will at least get my law degree, but I won't practice."

So I went through law school, passed my courses, took the bar examination, passed the bar examination, and began a career in the legal field. I could not have chosen a better field than law. It has been the most satisfying decision I have ever made, which is to one, complete law school, two, go into law as a career. And it was something that I really had not intended to do.

TI: So although you were reluctant to do this, in, I guess, in some ways, Dr. Gray was right. He, he probably saw that law would be a good fit for you.

CS: Absolutely. And I'm sure, and he reminded me many times. [Laughs] But it was an area where I am on my own. I've had positions where I worked for somebody else, but I've been in total control of my life as a law-trained person, as a lawyer, and in my current role, I'm still a lawyer. Retired from the highest court of the state, and all those other things, and these were things that came rather naturally. I never strived for any of these things, I never strive for appointment to anything. On the courts I never had opposition, and all of these things are part of the package that is Charles Z. Smith, University of Washington law school, 1955, and Charles Z. Smith, 2004. What has happened during that period of time has been attributed largely to the fact that I made the decision to stick with law as a career.

TI: That's good.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.