University of Hawaii Law School, Class of 1976

Our Facilities

Our Course of Study

What of this chapter title? It means we should be thankful for differences, generally used to refer to the difference between men and women. However, in our UH law school situation, let's explore the differences between what we had in 1973 and other, "normal" law schools. For example, the University of Hawaii at Manoa 1973/1974 School of Law brochure listed this as our schedule:

Fall Semester of the First Year	Credit-Hours

Regulation of Economic Activity: Real Property Law	4
Modern Methodology	3
Social Decision-Making: Judicial	3
Clinical Project/ Legal Method Seminar	3
Student Workshop	1
Legal Education and the Profession	1
TOTAL	15

Traditional First Year Classes

Were these classes the same or similar to that offered by other law schools? This would be a standard first year curriculum at school such as UCLA, Berkeley or Harvard:

Civil Procedure
Constitutional Law
Contracts
Criminal Law
Torts
Real Property
Legal Research and Writing

So except for "Real Property Law", it seems we were embarked on a first-semester experiment!

Modern Methodology?

More than any other course "Modern Methodology" does not seem to be a traditional first-year law school class - this was the brochure description:

Modern Methodology (3)1 (Prof. Hopkins)
An introduction to some fundamental concepts, principles, and techniques of scientific method. Topics to be explored include hypothesis formulation or model building, mathematical reasoning, empirical test design, data collection, sampling, statistical inference, measures of association, and computer science. Considerable attention will be given to the practical difficulties and epistemological quandries of empirical enquiry. The course will also explore the significance of semantics and symbolic logic for lawyers. Topics here will include the nature of legal "rules", legal "fictions", and "normative ambiguity". The ultimate concern throughout will be the possibility of applying scientific method in the business of lawyering—for example, in the prediction of court decisions and the presentation of evidence to a jury or legislative committee. In this connection, some effort will be made to deal with methodological problems that arise in the Clinical Project/Legal Method Seminars.

Puzzling and mysterious? It was unfortunate we did not read this description more closely and ask for clarification early in September! Chapter 6 of this history will describe much more about this class. There was drama and conflict!

So we were off to the races - together for all the classes except the seminars - divided into five sections, as described in the next chapter..

Our Books and "Other"

What else was different? Hardly any books! The likely incomplete historical records seem to indicate that we had books for Real Property, Contracts and Criminal Law. Otherwise, the apparent industrial-grade copy machine worked overtime to produce voluminous hand-outs for the other courses. Modern Methodology was the champ - by the end of the semester it weighed in at 10 pounds!

Although the brochure in Chapter 1 shows the faculty, James M. McIntyre was soon added an "applied behavioral scientist". It seemed odd from the start and would only get stranger as time went on. Certainly a difference?

Our Costs

Possibly the most significant difference - what did it cost to attend the UH School of Law? A UH receipt from that time period shows tuition was $218 for a semester! If $218 is adjusted for inflation to 2023, a semester at the Richardson School of Law should be only $1,435. Believe it or not, the 2023 tuition for one semester is $11,196! Perhaps we only got what we paid for!

Our Facilities

Finally, we were in "temporary" structures - nothing "permanent" would be constructed until years after we had graduated. This would be our home for the next three years:

The above photo shows the Law School in 1974. And the photo below (from Google Maps Street View) - nearly 50 years later - shows the building were not so temporary!

This is the view from above. The classrooms and the faculty offices were in the wings of the U-shaped building. Our large classroom was in the left-side wing, closest to the road. Our carrels and the library were in the section shown at the top.

The large classroom:

The carrels:

On the other side of the road (Lower Campus Drive) was another temporary structure that held the administrative offices and a break-room with a coffee-maker and refrigerator - it eventually became the "student lounge", mostly occupied on Fridays.

In the Sources page are many thoughts from "back in the day". See Part 6 - Friday Mornings, Friday Afternoons, and, sometimes, Friday Evenings". That essay may explain the scene in the photo below.

Across from our classrooms to the west (ewa) and behind the admin building was a large temporary building for dance classes - it also held backup restrooms. In the other, diamond-head direction was the aquatic center/swimming pool. The map below is dated 1976.

Next: Chapter 3 -"Omnis Juris Schola in Quinque Partes Divisa Est"

Table of Contents

January 3, 2024