Western’s Grads Are in Class by Themselves

At 41, with his gray beard, Popeye arms and red, robust cheeks, Thomas H. Lapping looked more like a truck driver than a college graduate as he was handed his law degree at Western State University commencement exercises Monday in Costa Mesa.

Actually, Lapping was a truck driver for years, but entered the university’s law school after just one semester of college--at Orange Coast College’s Assessment of Prior Learning division.

Jo Marie Escobar’s credentials before entering law school were no more impressive. She was in the Broadway choruses for “Hello Dolly,” starring Carol Channing, and the original “Funny Girl” with Barbra Streisand. Escobar, 42, ended up working for a legal publication; Western State happened to be on her sales route.

294 Graduates

They were two of 294 graduates at the university’s law school commencement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Western State, still struggling for better recognition, was turned down for accreditation this month by the American Bar Assn., which means essentially that its students who pass the State Bar may practice only in California.

If any of the graduates were bothered about that, or upset that Orange County already has 7,058 practicing lawyers, it didn’t show at the graduation, the first to be held in the glittering, new, multimillion-dollar concert hall.

“This is a wonderful day for both of us,” Lapping’s wife, Shari, said as she showered her husband with hugs and kisses.

Ronald V. Talmo, who has a successful civil-liberties practice besides duties as a constitutional law professor at Western State, said he is optimistic that the college’s graduates will do well.

“Western graduates actually have a better chance than others to get jobs in Orange County,” Talmo said. “We have so many alumni spread across the county, there’s always someone who wants to give a Western graduate a chance.”

But two faculty members said Monday that without national accreditation, Western State will always be considered “a second-class law school.”

Western State began 20 years ago as a night school in a rented building in Fullerton. While it still has night classes, it has grown to two campuses--in Fullerton and San Diego--and employs 33 full-time faculty members.

Average Age Is 34

It has always been home to an unusual assortment of students, with the Class of ’87 no exception. The average age of its graduates is 34. They came from 46 locales besides Orange County. Besides a truck driver and a chorus girl, its members included three physicians, a dentist and a mathematics professor, all with different reasons for seeking a law degree.

Lapping was a truck driver who got hurt on the job and had to look for a new career. He said it was his work as a Teamsters union representative that got him interested in the law.

Roslyn Snow, one of his professors in the Orange Coast College assessment center, said that its purpose is “to give people college credit for what they already know.”

“And Tom knows an awful lot,” said Snow, who added that Lapping is the first alumni of the center to graduate from a law school.

After one semester, Lapping got an associate of arts degree, which was enough to get him into Western State. There, he completed a bachelor’s degree while working his way through three years of law school.

“I couldn’t have done that anywhere else,” Lapping said. “It’s the only place that had enough flexibility in its schedule that I could work and still go to school.”

Lapping now works for the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. If he passes the bar, he said, he may stay with the organization as a lawyer. On the other hand, he said he has already had offers in the workmen’s compensation field.

Although he still has to pass the bar exam, he could not stop beaming after the ceremonies, as family and friends snapped pictures of him in his cap and gown.

“I guess I’m proud, because this shows I had the discipline to make a career change this late in life,” he said.

Escobar, who also posed for picture after picture Monday, had her own unique story about her decision to become a lawyer.

“She walked in the house and said, ‘I’m going to law school and I’m pregnant,’ ” her husband, Al, said. It was just before bearing down for classes that she gave birth to their son, Brett, who is now 5.

And it was Brett who was the first to hug his mother after she was handed her degree.

“I loved the theater; I loved the entertainment field,” a beaming Escobar said Monday. “But I learned that I was never going to be a great star.”

‘No Great Career Plan’

After seven years in the theater, Escobar had no “no great career plan” to switch to law. She went on to a series of jobs, including one as a cruise director. It was only after going to Western State several times while working for a legal publication that she decided to study law.

She eventually got her bachelor of science degree through Western State and was one of 13 students in her law school class to graduate with honors.

Escobar is now a law clerk for attorney Robert L. Wilkes. She has already taken the bar exam and is anxiously awaiting the results.

But Wilkes, who attended the ceremonies, said Escobar needn’t worry about becoming a good lawyer because “she already is one.”

Escobar’s goal, however, is to join the Orange County public defender’s office.

“I’ve always been for the underdog,” she said. “And I think in Orange County the underdog needs all the help he can get.”

If past experience holds up, more than half of Monday’s graduates won’t pass the bar exam. Statistics from the California Bar Assn. show that 44% passed in July, 1986, and just 28% in February, 1986. The February exam always has a lower percentage because it usually includes a higher number of people who have already failed the exam.

But for those who pass, well, their future is really up to them, said Stuart T. Waldrip, president of the Orange County Bar Assn.

Waldrip said he believes the standard for success among new lawyers who want to practice in Orange County is the same as it is anywhere else.

“Those who are good are going to make it,” he said. “Some who try to go it alone in private practice might have to tough it out and starve to death for a while. But if they’re good, they will make it.”