Law School

First American Financial Corp. was known as Orange County Title Co. and had only one office when Donald P. Kennedy, fresh out of law school, joined the family firm in 1948. When Kennedy began leading its expansion beyond the county lines in 1957, the title insurance company had annual sales of less than $1.5 million. By 2006, First American was one of the world's largest title insurers and was developing vast databases that helped transform the real estate industry. It had hundreds of offices in the United States and abroad and revenue topping $8 billion - an expansion attributed to Kennedy, who died Saturday at his home in Santa Ana after three years of declining health.

Vermont Law School, which has one of the top-ranked environmental law programs in the country, just released its second annual Top 10 Environmental Watch List of issues and developments that should be closely followed in 2012. Top of the list? Republican attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency. According to an innovative online database set up by L.A.'s own Rep. Henry Waxman, there have been 170 anti-environmental votes under the Republican majority in the 112 th Congress, and 91 of them attacked the EPA. Other hot topics on the watch list include that same EPA and the White House clashing over ozone standards, the activist effort to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, and landmark settlements under the Endangered Species Act. Because it's a law school, all of these issues are law-related.

Southwestern Law School, which occupies one of Los Angeles' most famous buildings, has announced plans to expand its quarters with construction of student housing. The move marks a breakthrough in the evolution of the century-old institution into a law school with an authentic 24-hour campus, officials said. Southwestern expects to start work in December on a $20-million project to create 133 apartments, an outdoor courtyard and underground parking next to the school's two main buildings.

Judge Jacqueline Nguyen had never met a lawyer before attending law school at UCLA. She fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon with her parents and five siblings all younger than 11 and started life in the U.S. living in a tent city with other refugees at Camp Pendleton. Now President Obama has nominated Nguyen, who two years ago became the first Vietnamese American woman to serve as a federal judge, to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco. “Judge Nguyen has been a trailblazer, displaying an outstanding commitment to public service throughout her career,” Obama said.

If all philanthropists were required to be morally upright, hospitals would be low on new wings and colleges would be starved for buildings. We'd also be missing a few beloved institutions outright — Stanford and Carnegie Mellon universities are cases in point. Charity is a virtue that should not be off-limits to scoundrels — if, in fact, they are truly giving to an institution rather than tethering their donations with strings that benefit them. Lowell Milken would probably be counted among the less pristine philanthropists, though not among the most scurrilous.

Standing near his chambers on the ninth floor of the courthouse, a judge peers out a window and scans the geography that maps much of his life. "There's my high school," he says, nodding at a cluster of buildings below. There, too, is the block where the church of his baptism stood. In the distance is the ballpark where he pitched as a kid and, a bit closer, the tree-lined neighborhood that still contains the humble home where he was raised. From this view, the community where Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kelvin D. Filer works, the one that he still calls home, has a postcard charm.

A $10-million gift to UCLA's law school from alumnus Lowell Milken is stirring debate on the campus about the decision to name a business law institute for the former financier, who was linked to Wall Street's junk bond scandal two decades ago. A prominent business law professor has raised objections to the Milken gift and to UCLA's announcement this month that it will establish the institute in his name. But other law school faculty, along with top UCLA administrators, say they welcome the donation, noting that Milken was not convicted of any wrongdoing.

When he was 35, Park Jin-hun quit his job, left his family and moved to Exam Village. Pursuing his dream of practicing law, the salaryman told his wife he would see her and their young son only once a month until he passed the bar. He gave himself two years maximum. Five years in a row, he failed the exam, each time resolving to stick it out for one more attempt. He spent his days in neurotic study rooms that demanded total silence (no paper rustling, please!), too consumed to think of anything but the intricacies of South Korean law. Sometimes he thought he was going mad. With each failure, he ratcheted up his study hours and became increasingly antisocial, driven by fear of failure.

Charles T. Manatt, who founded one of the biggest and most influential law firms in Los Angeles and then became a political power as chairman of the state and national Democratic parties, died Friday night. He was 75. Manatt died at Kindred Hospital in Richmond, Va., of complications from a stroke suffered after surgery in November, according to his daughter, Michele A. Manatt. Manatt assumed a thankless task as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, taking over just when the Reagan era was dawning.

As a high school kid in Illinois, John Chiang ran for student council on a populist platform: ridding the lunchroom jukebox of disco music. "That was the major wedge issue," recalled a friend who was his campaign partner. Disco was fading. Punk and new wave were coming in. They won. Chiang, now the Golden State's controller, became vice president of the student body -- a notable achievement for one of the school's few Asian kids and the target of name-calling and racial slurs.