Page 50 - Briefcase Volume 36 Number 2

A.A. WHITE

Final Message

One of A.A. White’s first acts as dean of
the fledgling University of Houston law
school in 1947 was to scrape the mud off his
shoes from the north campus lot where he
had surveyed the converted World War II
barracks he was tasked with turning into a
bastion of legal scholarship.
Thirty-five years, thousands of students,
and countless lectures later, he delivered a
heartfelt message about life and career to
students in his final class at the school that
was then well on its way to becoming one of
the nation’s best.
Ann Kickler Boss was a first–year student
in that Torts class of April 19, 1982. Recently,
the retired labor and employment attorney
came across White’s handwritten notes
from that talk which he had shared with her
after class.
“Professor White was a dear man, and his
message was well-received by a bunch of
exhausted first-year law students,” she wrote
in forwarding his 36-year-old comments to
Briefcase. “Rereading his message, I was once
again impressed by the wisdom of his words.”
The blueprint for a successful life and
career in the law from the one-time Dallas
lawyer, who twice served as dean and
taught some 20 years in the classroom at the
University of Houston law school, is as valid
today as it was decades ago:

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