Dedication.

• Author: Piersol, Lawrence
• Position: Catherine Vogt Piersol - Includes 6 testimonials - Testimonial

Volume 59 of the South Dakota Law Review is dedicated to Catherine Vogt Piersol. Spanning her distinguished career, Mrs. Piersol has been a champion for her clients as well as a great friend and alumnus to the Law Review. In August, Mrs. Piersol announced her retirement from private practice. To get a sense of Mrs. Piersol's accomplishments and contributions to the legal community, one need look no further but to the words of those who have known her best. As someone who has dedicated so much of her life to improving the practice of law as well as its scholarship, it is a great honor to dedicate this Issue of the Law Review to Mrs. Piersol. We here at the Editorial Board wish her the very best, and our sincerest gratitude for her work, scholarship, and friendship.

Catherine Vogt Piersol

No one had told me it would be a piece of cake, but going back to college after a twenty (20) year hiatus was plenty challenging. Having raised my children to a survival point and having only a high school sophomore remaining at home, was impetus enough to propel me into continuing my education. Of course, I was preparing for the last half of my life. Nowadays, as I march through my early seventies, I rather prefer to think of it as the last half of the last half. But I digress.

Graduating from USD with a degree in speech therapy, I was armed with the means to put my prospective husband through law school, while I gladly worked in Sioux City, Iowa, incidentally, my birthplace and where I spent the first two years of my life, and the first two years of Larry's law school. And then the twins were born. No more working. Moving to Vermillion, my husband, who was Editor-In-Chief of the Law Review, faced his muse in a green eye-shade and we muddle through, largely supported by the articles he wrote for legal publications. The Army followed--remember Vietnam--and finally a return to South Dakota. And mother hood and volunteerism and living like a proper lawyer's wife.

But in 1981, when I was 40 and the Women's Movement was in full swing, my directions, goals, and intentions had been dramatically affected. The legal needs of the poor cried out for redress and the civil liberties focus of legal aid provided an appealing vehicle. After an assessment of talents and the lack thereof, the choice seemed evident. It was law school for me. Having come from a family of lawyers made the choice pretty easy. Entering the family biz meant starting law school at 41. Not traditional, but not impossible. USD was good enough to accept me and this wonderful, terrible, challenging, fulfilling, adventure began.

My greatest joy in law school was probably the associations with students and professors and the Law Review. Lead Articles Editor gave me the chance to recruit outstanding judges and professors of national reputation, like Supreme Court Justice and UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg and our own professors with national stature like Jonathan Van Patten.

Mentoring student writers was not an obligation but an opportunity. It still makes me puff up a little to see what outstanding lawyers these mentees have become. I hasten to add, because of their own talents.

By graduation, Legal Aid had been riddled by a conservative administration. Little remained of the civil rights advocacy. I changed my direction and moved into private practice, focusing on civil litigation. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "a word is the skin of an idea." Lawyering was giving to the client who sought help. Giving counsel, being a place of hope in times of trouble, enriched by relationships with individuals seeking help...