Celebration Kicks off New Building and Mabie Law Library
This summer, the School of Law received over $2 million dollars in leadership gifts toward its initiative to remake the School of Law facilities. Thursday, those gifts were celebrated in the King Hall Courtyard with an event that included donors, students, faculty and a generous amount of spray paint.
Bright white, spray-painted lines and clusters of balloons marked the proposed new buildings boundaries. The lines offered guests an exciting visual, showing the ambitious scale of the building campaign.
The plan for the remade facility includes a significant expansion toward the traffic circle, and a new front door that faces east, allowing easy access from Shields Drive.
Guests expressed excitement at the prospects of seeing major changes at King Hall, which has not had a significant structural update since it was built in 1969.
This campaign will enable the School of Law to offer superior training for these young lawyers who will be populating our legal community, said Yeoryios Apallas 72, who facilitated a $1.5 million dollar gift from the William and Inez Mabie Family Foundation toward the building campaign. The schools library will be renamed the Mabie Law Library.
Apallas comes from humble beginnings as the son of Greek immigrants who worked shinning shoes as a youth. Apallas received his law degree in 1972 and joined the California Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general. He worked on many high-profile cases, including a number of cases involving oil company violations of the price control act.
Apallas shoeshine brush still holds a place of honor on his desk and is a sign that he will not forget his roots. Each new generation has a responsibility to the previous generation to succeed, and to give back as much as it receives. Apallas stated.
The campaigns fundraising goal is set at $8 million. In addition to the Mabie Foundation, leading donors include alumni Tom Stallard 75 and his wife Meg, Philip Satre 75 and his wife Jennifer, Pat Emery 74 and his wife Allison, Steve Machtinger 74 and his wife Susan, and Joseph Bernstein 74. In addition, Sue Wilkins, whose late husband Philip Charles Wilkins was involved with the UC Davis School of Law, is a major donor to the campaign.
The University and State are funding greater than two-thirds of the total building cost of $30 million, but UC Davis is relying on donors to supply the remaining funds.
Private support is crucially important to this campaign, said Rex Perschbacher, the schools dean. It bridges the funding gap and allows us to build facilities that are critical to our future in educating the highest quality legal scholars.
Philanthropic support of the School of Law increased dramatically overall in the fiscal year that ended in July. Both the Annual Fund, which increased 40% from the previous year, and the Graduating Class Gift program, which included 52% student participation, saw record-breaking years.