"lest We Forget": the History of Mercer Law Review - Charles R. Adams Iii

• Publication year: 1998

"Lest We Forget": The History of Mercer Law Reviewby Charles R. Adams III^*

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!¹

It was one of those rare, perfect, early fall afternoons that occasionally favors middle Georgia. The stultifying heat of the 1948 summer had finally broken, and outside the open windows in the newly-cleared attic space on the third floor of the Ryals Law Building, the sky was the deepening color of blue that holds the promise of cooler weather and falling leaves. Inside, the air was still, but the atmosphere was electric with energy and a measure of tension. The group of students assembled there, led by Bill Tyson,² were about to try something new and different in Mercer University Law School's seventy-five year existence—the inauguration of a Law Review. True, all of the "Ivy League" schools had flourishing law reviews with long-established traditions,³ but, in making this bold move on behalf of a small southern school like Mercer, Dean O'Neal⁴ and Professor Quarles⁵ were really stepping out in front of the pack.⁶ Up to that point, student-published legal writing in Georgia had been limited to "casenote" type contributions to the Georgia Bar Journal, and Mercer students, along with their counterparts at Emory University and the University of Georgia, had participated in this activity.⁷ But, in the view of Dean O'Neal, that wasn't enough. Something more was needed to single Mercer out and, as he related, "get the Law School back fully on its feet after the toils of World War II."⁸

It was certainly a promising group of men and women who made the long, weary climb up the stairs to the top of Ryals that day. Although law students were excused from Mercer's rigidly enforced chapel attendance policy—a fact which a few of the more mischievous among them would "rub in" with the undergraduate scholars by pitching pennies on the quadrangle as the underclassmen hurried by⁹ —at least some of those charged with such an awesome task as bringing a new publication into the world must have sought divine guidance. Tyson and his cohorts were serious-minded men and women: Many of them, like H.T. "Hank" O'Neal,¹⁰ had distinguished themselves on active military duty before coming to law school; and others, like Patricia Beau-champ,¹¹ had come from families connected with the burgeoning Army Air Depot out at the newly-named town of Warner Robins.¹²

One thing all of them knew for sure: It would take hard work, and lots of it, for their venture to succeed. Dean O'Neal, Tyson, and several others had already made a lengthy automobile trip to LSU and "Ole Miss" to see for themselves how other law reviews were putting together their publications.¹³ Furthermore, the newly-assembled editorial team was the cream of the law school's academic crop, an elite group ranking within the top five percent of their class. They were the kind of scholars of whom Professor Karl Llewellyn would write about just a few years later in his masterpiece about legal education, The Bramble Bush:

We have in law schools an aristocracy of a peculiar kind. We may almost say it is a perfect aristocracy. One achieves membership exclusively in terms of his performance. Membership carries honor, but the honor that it carries is the duty to work and slave and drive oneself as no other student is expected to. A perfect aristocracy, then, because continued membership is based on higher performance than is demanded of non-members. Now this law review is a scientific

publication, on which in good part the reputation of the school depends. Here is a thing American. Here is a thing Americans may well be proud of. There is not so far as I know in the world an academic faculty which pins its reputation before the public upon the work of undergraduate students—there is none, that is, except in the American law reviews. Such an institution it is a privilege to serve. Such an institution it is an honor to belong to. And by virtue of the terms of tenure of office, of this you may be sure: to earn that honor is to earn an education. I hold out before you, then, as the goal of highest achievement in your first year, this chance to enter on real training in your second.¹⁴

As these "academic aristocrats" surveyed the Law Review's worldly possessions—a couple of desks, one long table, and some library chairs cadged from under the watchful eye of the school librarian, Jim Rehberg, a recent graduate on whose youthful shoulders the title of "Professor" had yet to settle¹⁵ —they likely felt more confused than noble. What were they going to accomplish in this venture? Would it succeed?

Now, let us fast forward a bit to the spring of 1949. Back from the printer is the first edition of Mercer Law Review, bright orange covers and all.¹⁶ It had been a wonderful, rewarding, educational experience for everyone involved. "If there were any disagreements or unpleasant-ries, they couldn't have been serious, because I can't remember any," remarks Bill Tyson from the vantage-point of half a century later. "My colleagues on the staff of the law review made my job incredibly easy by their hard work and dedication and their unwavering cooperation and support."¹⁷

It can't have been all work, however. On February 21, 1951, Patricia Beauchamp became Mrs. Hank O'Neal, thus inaugurating on the first editorial board a long and flourishing tradition of law review marriages.¹⁸ Furthermore, the inaugural year was rounded out with a great

"Victory Celebration Dinner,"¹⁹ also commencing the equally durable tradition of the annual student-faculty Law Review Banquet.²⁰ One and all took pride in the stream of accolades that poured in, including letters from such luminaries as Walter F. George, Georgia's Senior United States Senator for whom the law school was named, and Justice Hugo F. Black of the United States Supreme Court.²¹

Perhaps the single most important tradition inaugurated in those early years, however, came about as a result of Frank Jones having attended a Law Review Conference in Oxford, Mississippi, during the 1949-1950 academic year. The town in which William Faulkner made himself legendary by turning liquor into literature²² inspired Jones to a very different, but equally serious, literary pursuit—the inauguration of the Annual Survey of Georgia Law. Jones was graduated in the Spring of 1950, however, leaving Mercer to begin his brilliantly distinguished career.²³ The natural choice to take up this untried idea of a comprehensive review of twelve months of judicial decisions and legislation was the irrepressible Dublinite, Robert E. Hicks.²⁴ In a burst of youthful enthusiasm, Hicks decreed that "[t]he object [of the Survey] is to provide busy members of the Bench and Bar and law students with at least brief mention of every case decided by the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals during the [survey] period . . . ."²⁵ Although the volume of appellate litigation in the ensuing years²⁶ has forced later editions to retreat somewhat from this lofty aspiration to engage in more of a winnowing process, Georgia Survey remains without doubt the single most significant enterprise ever mounted by Mercer Law Review. There may be individual articles²⁷ or editions²⁸ that are noteworthy in themselves, but Georgia Survey stands alone as a premier example of the application of legal scholarship to an exercise of immense benefit to practitioners, professors, members of the judiciary, and law students alike. Like every other human endeavor, Georgia Survey has had its ups and downs,²⁹ but, in the main, it stands as one of the most indispensable tools available to students of Georgia law, of whatever discipline.³⁰ Frank Jones, Bob Hicks, and the other visionaries of that time are to be commended for the establishment of this valuable Georgia legal resource.

We really must resist the temptation to idolize these founders, however. In the spring of 1950, Bob Hicks and Professor Quarles journeyed to Columbia, South Carolina, to hear Professor Llewellyn speak at a law review conference. Faculty salaries being what they were in those days, and Bob's days of prosperity only a distant vision on the horizon, teacher and student shared an unairconditioned hotel room. Furthermore, Quarles borrowed twenty dollars from Hicks for spending money for the trip.

Envision the muggy darkness of a South Carolina springtime night. The window of this third-rate hotel room was open, in the vain quest for a breath of air. Inside, these two originators of Mercer Law Review were trying to sleep on lumpy mattresses, despite the din of a Beta Club convention which appeared to be taking place largely on the fire escape just outside. All pretense of sleep was abandoned in the next moment, however, when one of the conventioneers³¹ stepped through the open window into the room.

"Mr. Hicks," called Quarles, "are you awake?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you mind getting up and letting me pay the $20? In case we are robbed during the night, I'd rather not still be owing you the money."³²

How have the almost one thousand individuals who have been privileged to serve as members of Mercer Law Review attained that distinction? Aside from the one alumnus who griped in his questionnaire response that, like Groucho Marx, he "wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have him as a member,"³³ most respondents recalled their law review work as the most significant and challenging part of their legal education.³⁴ The initial editors, of course, were hand-picked by Dean O'Neal.³⁵ In the early years, apparently, membership requirements were less formal. Wallace Harrell, Editor in Chief in 1953, modestly recalls that "Jack Pippen who had been the Editor in Chief the year before simply asked me one day if I would take over for the next year and I agreed. If grades had been the criteria Leah Chanin, my dear friend and classmate, would have been the obvious selection."³⁶

The conditions for membership on Mercer Law Review have...