When Reda Taleb (McLean Class, 2015) talks about “giving back,” she isn’t just reciting a slogan — she’s living by example. The daughter of immigrants from Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, Taleb’s parents, along with her six older siblings, laid roots in Dearborn’s south end, an area known for its pollution-emitting factory smoke stacks and community of Arab Americans seeking the “American Dream.”
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For a little more than a decade beginning in the late 1980s, on the morning of graduation, the Cooley Law School graduating seniors and the faculty engaged in a game of basketball.
THE STORY BEHIND THE CLASSES Nearly 10 years ago, I knew the Librarians had to do more than we were to help students be practice ready with research skills beyond what they learned in Research and Writing. Previously, the Librarians team taught an advanced legal research three-credit course. This was in the 90s. As our student body grew and the campuses expanded, we ran out of time to cover more than the basic classroom support so many of you experienced in classes like Research and Writing, Advanced Writing, Estate Planning, Pre-Trial Skills, the Externship classroom component, and many more.
Roger and Marilyn Grove had been donors and supporters of Cooley Law School. Roger was also a good friend of Judge Brennan’s. Both avid sports fans and athletes, they often met up for a match of tennis or racquetball or pickle ball, or a friendly duel in almost any sport. Roger was also a musician. He was a tenor and first baritone horn for the MSU Concert Band.
The do-it-yourself tradition at Thomas M. Cooley Law School survived its growth and success.
Pauline (Polly) Brennan was used to her husband, Tom — the late Michigan Supreme Court Justice Thomas E. Brennan Sr. — coming up with ideas — and plenty of them. Some were good, some not so good. “But some of his ideas were visionary,” she says, “And Cooley Law School was one of those.”
