Discovery Winter 2023 % Volume 9, No. 1
the newsletter from washington and lee university school of law
50 YEARS OF THE LAW NEWS:
‘Irreverence With Some Measure Of Reverence’ BY JEFF HANNA
A
s origin stories go, the birth of The W&L Law News isn’t complicated. As Ken Wernick ’73L recalled, he and classmate Toby Harder were chatting in Tucker Hall one day in September 1972 when Harder said, “You know, I think we should start a newspaper.” Wernick winced at the suggestion. He’d been managing editor of the twice-weekly Bucknell student paper. That meant he had the necessary experience to get a paper started. It also meant he knew what he’d be letting himself in for. “I’d thought a paper for the law school would be a great idea, but I remembered how my grades sank at BucknelI. I wasn’t one of these people who’d come from a family of lawyers,” Wernick said. “I needed grades. I needed to be in the library, right? I was also facing the Army.” But Harder, “Champagne Tony” as he was known, was persuasive. He assured Wernick that he’d put together a solid team to provide the stories if Wernick shepherded them through the mechanics of publishing. So Wernick signed on as managing editor under Harder as editor-in-chief. Fifteen names were on the first masthead when Number 1, Volume 1 of The W&L Law News appeared on September 19, 1972. The four pages comprised an assortment of hard news from around the law school (“Legal Aid, Research Finished Reorganization”), feature stories (“Lexington Eateries Offer Hometown Haute Cuisine”), and sports (“‘Roy’s Boys’ Seek Football Title”). The lead photograph on page 1 was historic: Sally Green Handley ’75L was shown registering for classes as one of the first six women entering W&L Law. The masthead was modeled after The New York Times, and the lead editorial in the first issue laid the foundation for the next 50 years: “A
Left to right: First edition of The Law News published in September 1972; 1981 Law News staff.
nick observed, “The women were coming; Dean (Roy) Steinheimer was flying around in his private plane recruiting students from all over the country; our reputation was growing beyond Virginia. The time [for a newspaper] was right.” In 2013, Howard Wellons ’14L, then editor-inchief of The Law News, interviewed Steinheimer as part of the paper’s 40th celebration of the paper. Wellon asked Steinheimer, known as “The Sky Dean,” what he remembered of the newspaper’s origins. “There were turbulent times in the sixties, in all educational institutions,” Steinheimer told
“The women were coming; Dean (Roy) Steinheimer was flying around in his private plane recruiting students from all over the country; our reputation was growing beyond Virginia. The time [for a newspaper] was right.” –Ken Wernick ’73L newspaper so pompous or impertinent as to mimic the masthead of the New York Times should give the readers of its opening edition some hint of a memorable editorial policy. We could ape the Times (and some of our classmates) by spewing profound inanities on all subjects passing through our craw. But irreverence tempered with some measure of relevance seems a more palatable blend to serve up to you.” Irreverence tempered with some measure of relevance was an apt vision statement. Over the next five decades the balance between those two — irreverence and relevance — has occasionally tipped more in one direction than the other. The newspaper’s appearance at that moment in the law school’s history was appropriate to chronicle the many changes underway. As Wer-
Wellons. “The newspaper sprang up because they felt they needed to have an additional means of asserting themselves. Well, I was happy to help them get organized. I didn’t put any blocks in their way. If they wanted a newspaper, fine, but they would have to have a way to operate it and so forth. And they did, and it was good.”
••••• Like most student-run newspapers, The Law News has had its ups and downs. Some years there were plenty of staffers to share the load; some years the paper struggled to find its footing. In Professor Brian Murchison’s view, however, the paper has always been an asset. Murchison arrived at W&L in 1982 when the paper was in its second decade. He’d worked on the Yale Daily
News and had helped launch a newspaper at the Yale Law School. Between those first-hand experiences and his scholarship in mass media and First Amendment issues, he has special insight into student media. “I think The Law News has played an important role in talking about the community as a community of human beings,” said Murchison. “I always thought the newspaper added the kind of information that reflects a real community rather than just a professional school. It brought out the humanity of the place more than its legal accomplishments.” At the same time, Murchison acknowledged the paper often had the irreverent streak that its founding editors promised. He described it as “properly irreverent” at times, which no doubt included the April Fool’s editions. “It would satirize some of us on the faculty, which allowed people to let off steam,” Murchison said. “As a free speech teacher, I think part of why speech needs to be free is to let off steam and to let people relax. It had an information purpose and a kind of humor purpose.” Before the paper’s birth in the pre-internet days, a primary communication tool for law students was a bulletin board above the drinking fountain in Tucker Hall. Announcements posted there were approved by “H.F.” “The posts were marked either ‘H.F. OK’ or ‘H.F. Not OK.,’” said Sally Wiant ’75L, an emerita professor of law. “Maybe somebody knew who H.F. was, but I didn’t. When we moved to Lewis Hall, the bulletin board was locked under glass, and ‘H.F.’ couldn’t make the approvals.” The Law News kept “H.F.” alive with its “Law School Advisor,” featuring tongue-in-cheek letters to “H.F.” and equally facetious responses, like continued on page 2