Bob Dockery: From U.S. Senate Staff to Law School
"The ultimate test of every academic institution is its faculty. After a year and a half at the University of Miami School of Law, I know from my own first hand experience that it passes the test with flying colors! In fact, I am convinced that the only thing better at the University of Miami than its football team is its law school faculty. I use this comparison advisedly, bearing in mind that law school is clearly the academic equivalent of a contact sport. And as a 2L, I eagerly await the 'second half'."
The speaker is Bob Dockery, a second-year (2L) student at the University of Miami School of Law. At UM Law, he is unofficially referred to as a 'non-traditional student', that is, a student who has come to law school, not directly from an undergraduate institution, but after a substantial number of years in the workaday world. At the not-so-tender age of 58, Dockery is the eldest member of the Class of 2002.
Dockery grew up in southern California and while still in elementary school he began working mornings and afternoons in a small family-owned business. After graduating near the top of his high school class, Dockery attended Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. He graduated cum laude in 1964 and made the D.C. area his home until 1994.
After graduation, Dockery spent two and a half years as an economic research analyst at the Pan American Union, which serves as the secretariat of the Organization of American States. In June 1967, he moved to the Senate side of Capitol Hill where he had been hired by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, then chaired by the Honorable J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. For the next 14 years, Dockery served on the Committee staff and was involved in some of the most controversial foreign policy issues of that time, including the Vietnam war, the Panama Canal Treaty debate and the developing turmoil in Central America. And he can't hold back a smile at the memory of a young and gregarious Committee courier who came to work part-time while completing his undergraduate degree at Dockery's alma mater: the young man's name was William Jefferson Clinton.
Just before the 1980 election, Dockery went to work for Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, who was then Senate Majority Leader. He stayed with Byrd through the election period and its immediate aftermath, which ushered in the Senate career of Chris Dodd of Connecticut. Dodd had a special interest in Latin America, largely based on his Peace Corps experience in the Dominican Republic. Dodd soon became the newest member of the Foreign Relations Committee and invited Dockery to join his staff. The California native accepted the invitation and spent another 14 years working on U.S. foreign policy issues, with an emphasis on the Western Hemisphere.
But in the late summer of 1994, after nearly 35 years in the nation's capital, including almost three decades behind the scenes in the United States Senate, Dockery decided to call it a day. His reason for stepping down from a distinguished career with Congress: "I had had enough of long of the hours and the uncertainty. Because of the Senate's focus on unlimited debate, you never knew when the day was going to end. That made it almost impossible to plan for things outside the office, and most importantly, family events." Dockery says that Washington is particularly difficult on wives. "I couldn't begin to count the number of times I had to call my wife at 6 or 6:30 and tell her I didn't know when I was coming home because the Senate was still in session and it was unclear when the session would end."
When Dockery left the Senate, he and his wife moved to Melbourne, Florida, a quiet, residential community 200 miles north of Miami, on the east coast of the Sunshine State. For more than three years he enjoyed the benefits of semi-retirement, but still chose to serve as a community member on the editorial board of the local newspaper.
The intellectual stimulation and excitement that had characterized his career in government, however, was conspicuously lacking in his new sheltered life. Then, Dockery's youngest daughter, an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia and a Harvard Law graduate, persuaded him to sit for the LSAT exam. "I'll never forget that day," he says. "And I'll forever remember walking into that exam room and suddenly being confronted by the fact that everyone there was at least half my age." He confesses that the immediate thought that went through his mind was "What in the hell am I doing here?"
As the record shows, Dockery's decision to earn a law degree soon overcame any ambivalence about the exercise, even though he was now at an age when most people are in the final stages of planning for full retirement. Shortly after he submitted his application to the University of Miami, Assistant Dean of Admissions, Michael Goodnight, called him with an offer of admission and an opportunity to receive the prestigious, Harvey T. Reid Scholarship.
Dockery was surprised at the range of knowledge he encountered as he started law school, both in the breadth of areas of study and in the depth to which they are examined. And when asked about the Law School faculty, he is effusive. "The faculty here is the really 'Big-Plus'," he says confidently. "When you have professors of the quality of Terence Anderson and David Abraham, or of Martha Mahoney and Donna Coker, well, that speaks volumes!" He notes that these people are all very accessible and then points out, for example, their willingness to discuss career options.
Dockery is a veteran of Professor Abraham's Immigration Law course and offers this by way of further comment: "Nobody can finish his course without recognizing how extraordinarily capable this guy really is!" Then to complete his assessment, the 2L warns, "Abraham's tough but fair…. And nobody gives a more demanding final exam. Believe me, I know…. I've been there!"
Though still unsure of the precise legal field he will focus on, Dockery knows that he will focus on matters of public policy and public interest. And, although he could take his JD degree and simply settle into retirement, Dockery points out, "That is not a realistic option…. If nothing else, fairness requires that I do something positive with my degree. I will find some way to make a further contribution."
While others in Dockery's position might be tempted to walk away, he says he could not really do that because he says he knows how blessed and rewarded he's been by his legal education and the super scholarship that has made it all possible. "Look, there's so many things still out there to be done," says the 2L. "There's such a variety of need and there's such a range of opportunities. The real difficulty will be picking and choosing."
Dockery feels confident that his search will eventually all come together, in no small part because of the Law School's excellent Career Planning Center (CPC). There he singles out the work of Liz Stack and reports "she is always enormously helpful." He notes that she makes a point of staying in touch and passing along information as soon as it becomes available. He says that everyone on the CPC staff "goes out of his or her way to be accommodating."
