Maleng and UW: a special bond

Norm Maleng graduated from the University of Washington Law School in 1966. He was one of my first students and I felt a special bond because we both grew up on farms in rural communities. I think his commitment to public service grew directly out of his small-town roots.

The law school is proud of its graduates who have led lives of public service. They have included two of our nation's most powerful senators, a speaker of the House of Representatives and members of the judiciary who have risen to national prominence.

Norm Maleng was prominent in that company of leaders. He was a man of ambition and a man of values. But when he had to make hard decisions, values always trumped ambition. He was a deeply religious man whose religion was crucial in shaping his life, but he was too respectful of the views of others to be evangelical about it.

Norm had the gift of being grateful for the things that molded his character, enhanced his skills and helped him to enter the legal profession. He was always grateful for the early life that his parents gave him. He was also grateful for his education at the UW Law School, once telling me that the law school was where he got his "union card" and he would never forget it; and, he never did.

When I first became dean of the law school, I asked Norm to serve on our advisory board on strategic planning. He promptly became one of its most active and effective members. During our deliberations, he once said that almost all students enter law school wanting to do good and too often graduate wanting only to do well. He admonished us that this should never happen at the UW Law School.

Norm's influence has had an impact on our requirement that every student must fulfill a public-service obligation before graduating. He was happy to know that the most thriving group in the law school is the Public Interest Law Association, which raises surprising amounts of money every year to support summer public-service law internships for law students. Norm was thrilled when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation endowed one of the nation's most significant public-service scholarship programs at the UW School of Law.

From his early leadership on the law school advisory board, he went on to serve as a trustee of the Washington Law School Foundation for well over a decade. Norm became president of the foundation and had completed his term of office shortly before his death. During that term, he led an effort to solicit contributions to the law school from law firms in this city and especially from members of those firms who are graduates of the UW Law School. I like to think he reminded many that this was where they got their union card.

The Washington Law School Foundation has established a Norm Maleng Fund. I share the foundation's earnest hope that sufficient funds will be raised to establish a fitting memorial for one whose life has inspired so many of our students and so many lawyers in our community.

Roland Hjorth is dean emeritus and Garvey Schubert Professor at the University of Washington School of Law. For information on the Norm Maleng Fund, call 206-685-7564.