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Bar News - October 4, 2002 Pierce Law Dedicates F. Dane Buck, Jr. Building A Home for School's Clinical Programs FRANKLIN PIERCE LAW CENTER officially dedicated its new $3.3 million addition named in honor of the late F. Dane Buck, Jr. on Sept. 19. Buck taught at the school from 1974 until his death in 1999. "Buck was instrumental in expanding the school and its curriculum," said Pierce Law Dean John D. Hutson. "The new building is a testament to his legacy." The 16,000-square-foot addition houses the law school's many clinical programs, and was designed specifically to operate as a law firm would. The building features classrooms, clinic office space, conference and interview rooms and library and study space. It also houses a "smart" classroom, with seating for 75, equipped with state-of-the-art electronic presentation technology, and a classroom that facilitates distance learning, with seating for 25-35. The building has a large reception area with adjacent interview rooms designed to assure client dignity and confidentiality during all phases of intake and interviewing. A large conference room serves as an in-house courtroom to enable students to practice thoroughly before each court appearance. F. Dane Buck, Jr. left behind a career on Wall Street in 1974 to join the faculty of Franklin Pierce Law Center, where he was charged with developing new courses integrating the law of federal taxation with state business and inheritance law. As an FPLC professor, he taught classes in business entities taxation, estate planning, personal income tax and wealth transmission. Richard A. Hesse, a longtime FPLC law professor who served as the school's interim dean in 1999, and a friend and colleague of Buck's, offered keynote remarks at the dedication ceremony of the new building. Hesse recalled the early days of the Law Center, when it was "a rather decrepit looking former bull-breeding farm in the middle of a bucolic pasture," and noted how far the school has since come. "As I look around this complex, any prediction Dane or I might have made about the future of the Law Center did not include a vision as glorious as this," said Hesse. "Even in the dark times when the financial stability of the Law Center was in doubt, we aspired for more than mere survival. It was an unspoken, but shared, dream - it was an attitude. Dane was a constant and major part of that attitude," he said. Hesse pointed to the high-tech capabilities of the new building, saying that although the building's namesake "wasn't on the cutting edge," he was in favor of progress. "The F. Dane Buck building has enabled the Law Center to rightly claim that it has a state-of-the-art facility for distance learning activities that can link us to the world," he said. Hesse pointed out that although the new building is also aesthetically pleasing, Buck would have been one of the first to point out that it's not the building, but what takes place inside, that is important. "This new addition...has provided first-class space for the operation of a modern law office while retaining the role of advocate for the needy. We still have the hard work of providing good service and reforming the law, but finally we can do that work in an appropriate setting. The dream is not realized, but with this legal clinic, we have taken a major step," said Hesse.
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