Gift is largest in 115-year history of the law school
Gregg Eriksen of Pine Bush, N.Y., talks with Hayley Campbell, of Potomac, Md. while studying for the bar exam Tuesday in Winifred MacNaughton Hall on the campus of Syracuse University. On the left is Emily Prudente of Delmar, N.Y. (Albany County). The College of Law buildings were relatively quiet, with a few dozen students scattered here and there studying for next week's exam. Syracuse, NY - The three adult children of a couple of Syracuse University College of Law graduates have agreed to donate $15 million to build a new $90 million law school on campus in memory of their parents.
Syracuse University officials announced the donation – the largest in the history of the 115-year-old law school and one of the largest in SU history – to kick off a campaign for the $85 to $90 million law school construction project.
The donation is being made in the names of Robert Emmet Dineen (law school class of 1924) and Carolyn Bareham Dineen (law school class of 1932). It is being made by the couple’s three children: Judge Carolyn Dineen King, Kathryn Dineen Wriston and Robert E. Dineen Jr.
The plan is to build a new 200,000-square-foot law school on the campus’ western edge, across Irving Avenue from the current law school buildings and the Carrier Dome.
King, a federal appeals judge in Texas, said Tuesday her parents would be “blown away” at the prospect of having a building at their law school alma mater named after them. She said she and her two siblings broached the idea with SU officials as a means of fulfilling what they saw as a “moral responsibility” to SU for all it provided to their parents.
Donors to Syracuse University law school, from left, Carolyn Dineen King, Robert E. Dineen Jr., Kathryn Dineen Wriston.“The Dineens are quintessential members of the SU family,” SU Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor said in a written statement. “Robert and Carolyn Dineen exemplified the spirit of Syracuse University, triumphing over challenges as they forged extraordinarily successful careers. Carolyn, Kathy and Bob have built on that proud legacy and we are profoundly grateful for the leadership they have shown within the SU community. To be a great university you need a great law school, and the new building made possible through this landmark gift will be a fitting testament to the Dineen family legacy.”
“I am truly humbled by the incredible generosity of the Dineen family,” College of Law Dean Hannah R. Arterian said in the campus statement. “Their gift will have a transformational effect on the learning environment of our students. This new building will be an iconic symbol for the College of Law, giving it a strong sense of place that law students, faculty, staff, alumni and guests will consider an inspirational home. This gift makes a profound statement about the Dineen family’s legacy and their commitment to legal education at Syracuse University College of Law.”
King said she hoped it would inspire other alumni to support the new project as well, noting she thought it was more important to have a new law school built than to see it bear her family’s name.
“But it’s very fitting to be named after them” she said of her parents. “It’s a good fit.”
It’s also nice that the new building is set to be located near the same city neighborhood where her father grew up in Syracuse, King said. The new building is planned for the current parking lot bounded on the north by the Irving Garage, on the east by Irving Avenue, on the south by East Raynor Avenue and on the west by Stadium Place.
According to SU, Robert Dineen had to choose between pursuing an undergraduate degree or going to law school, which did not require an undergraduate degree at that time. When he graduated in 1924 with a “certificate of law,” he was considered too young to practice law so he went to work as a claims adjuster for insurance companies in Upstate New York and Canada.
In 1926, he was hired by the law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King where he later became a partner. Judge King said her father worked as a trial lawyer for the firm before leaving the practice of law in 1943 to serve as the state’s superintendent of insurance, a post he held until 1950 when the family moved from Syracuse to Milwaukee.
Dineen then joined Northwest Mutual Life Insurance Company where he served as vice president before becoming the president and CEO. When he retired from that company at the age of 65, he became head of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a post he held until his “real” retirement 10 years later, his daughter said.
Carolyn Bareham Dineen was a Rochester native who earned a bachelor’s degree from William Smith College and a master’s degree from Columbia University before enrolling at the SU College of Law as one of only two women in the class. She worked as a newspaper columnist to put herself through law school because her father did not believe women should be lawyers and refused to help financially with her education.
She established a successful career with the local law firm of Costello, Cooney & Fearon and met her husband when they were representing co-defendants in a lawsuit.
King said her mother practiced law for about five years before giving up the career to raise her children. When the family moved to Milwaukee, her mother became involved in local charitable organizations and became very involved in hospital utilization issues, her daughter said.
The couple moved to Texas to spend their retirement years closer to their daughter and her three children, their only grandchildren, King said.
Robert Dineen died in 1989 at the age of 85. Carolyn Bareham Dineen died in 2001 at the age of 95.
While all three of the Dineens’ children followed them into legal careers, only Robert Jr. obtained his law degree from SU – in 1966. Judge King obtained her law degree from Yale University. Their sister obtained hers from the University of Michigan.
King also has an honorary degree from SU from 2006 and was the commencement speaker at the College of Law graduation in 2004.
King, the oldest of the trio, said her parents never talked to her about pursuing a legal career. She said her parents stressed to her and her sister that it was important that they – like their brother – be able to support themselves whatever career they chose.
The message of never having to rely on someone else was always in the back of her mind, the judge said, noting her original plan was to become a doctor until she decided she didn’t like the labs. So she decided to go to law school.
“I’ve loved it ever since and I’ve been very passionate about it,” she said.
King practiced corporate law for 17 years in Texas before she was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the federal appeals bench in Houston in 1979. She served as the chief judge of that court from 1999 to 2006 and remains a full-time judge on the court.
Her sister, Kathryn Wriston, practiced law for about five years before moving on to work with various corporate boards, King said. Wriston, now retired, is the widow of Walter B. Wriston, the former chairman of Citicorp who made his bank into the world’s largest.
Their brother, Robert Jr., worked his entire legal career with the New York City law firm of Shearman & Sterling, with extensive experience in public finance transactions, principally for companies involved in the oil and gas and pipeline business, and as a specialist in U.S. and international private banking and financial transactions, including equipment and project financing. He is now retired.
An aerial view shows the site of the proposed new law school at SU. The proposed location for the news school is the parking lot across Irving Avenue to the south of Irving Garage (linked by bridge) to the law school side of the street. The parking lot is located on the left of this photo. He also is a member of the SU Board of Trustees and a member of the College of Law’s Board of Advisors. Editor of the Syracuse Law Review when he was at the law school here, Dineen was honored earlier this year with the Law Review Alumni Achievement Award.
He was quoted by SU officials as saying his parents would be “overwhelmed” by having a building honoring their legacy and bearing their names. In addressing students at the Law Review banquet in April, he said Syracuse pride runs deep in every member of his family and that every member of the family owed his or her success to the opportunities and education his parents received at SU.
Kevin Quinn, SU’s vice president of public affairs, said Tuesday a new law school building has been a key element of the $1 billion fundraising “Campaign for Syracuse University” that was kicked off in November 2007.
“The goal is to have a 21st-century facility for the law school,” Quinn said. A new building would provide a unified facility for the entire law school program which is now split between two buildings, E. I. White Hall and Winifred MacNaughton Hall, he said.
Those buildings would likely continue to serve academic purposes but no decisions have been made about their future once a new law school is built, Quinn said.
A groundbreaking date for the new law school has not been determined, Quinn said. He said SU officials hope the Dineen donation provides a “jump start” to the campaign to raise the rest of the funds needed for the project.
SU Architecture alumnus Richard Gluckman of the Gluckman Mayner architectural firm in New York City will be the lead architect on the project. With fundraising just getting underway, there are currently no plans for what the new law school will look like, Quinn said.
King said she plans to be here for the groundbreaking and when the ribbon is cut for a new law school building. She said the money for the donation is coming from her and her siblings, not from any trust fund left by her parents. She then joked that as a federal employee, her part of the contribution was the smallest of the three.
Contact Jim O’Hara at johara@syracuse.com or 470-2260