Charley commuted to law school at Case. The law school was located next door to the morgue.  Initially he did not enjoy law school at all and was not certain he would last. However, as time wore on he really came to like the law and the education pedagogy. When he finished in 1967 he still had his military obligation to complete. While in law school he applied for and was accepted to the Judge Advocate General Corps in the Army. 

Charley finished the Bar Exam in July, 1967, and did not have to report to the Army until March, 1968.  During the interim he worked for the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland in the downtown office and commuted from Brecksville. That was a wonderful experience because it gave him a new perspective on Cleveland and on a population which was grossly underserved by the legal community.

In March, 1968, Charley headed for the JAGC School at the University of Virginia. During the eight week Basic Course he discovered the JAG Corps had some teaching assignments at various service schools. Those assignments seemed preferable to some other assignments in 1967. He was assigned to the faculty of the US Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and reported there in July, 1968. He was part of a committee made up of lawyers, infantry officers, armor officers and others. His students were Infantry Officer Candidate Students. He taught them the basics of Miranda warnings, Article 15’s, search and seizure and the legal aspects of civil disturbances. He learned much of what he knows about teaching at the Infantry School. It was a great experience and he met some wonderful people.

After a year at the Infantry School, Charley was assigned to the 7th Infantry Division in Korea.  The 7th Division headquarters was located at Camp Casey north of Seoul. Korea was an amazingly poor country in 1969. During the year he spent there, he acted as a defense counsel and a prosecutor in the military justice system. Most of the cases involved assault and battery, drugs, currency violations and AWOL (which was difficult to fathom in Korea). During the year overseas he had the opportunity to travel to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. Charley recalls the end of the year just before he was to return to the states, he was riding in a Jeep along a newly cultivated field. As they rode along the dirt road, he experienced this amazing sense of nostalgia for this land he had so disliked upon arrival. That year in Korea doing trial work was a great year. He worked with lawyers and others in that office that he still knows to this day.

Upon his return to the US he was assigned to the Criminal Law Division at the US Army JAG School on the campus of the University of Virginia. There his duties involved teaching lawyers in the JAG Corps. He was a Captain in an office top heavy with Lieutenant Colonels and Majors so he did whatever no one else was willing to do. He met some fine folks at the JAG School and valued his time there.

“It was now time to go into the ‘real world’, as I mentioned I began this journey from William & Mary to Case Western Reserve to the Army because I did not want to be a teacher. At this juncture I had experience trying cases and experience teaching. What to do?  I had enjoyed both experiences, but there was something about teaching a good class that was a ‘two + two is more than four’ experience. I did not have that same feeling about the courtroom. So I left the Army and joined the faculty of the University of Akron law school in January, 1972. I had wonderful students at Akron, but the Northern Ohio weather had not improved in the years I was away. A person I had met in the Army was the dean at Wake Forest Law School. I contacted him and in August, 1973, I moved south.”

Wake Forest University was founded in 1834 in Wake Forest, North Carolina near Raleigh. In the late 1940s the R.J. Reynolds folks thought that Winston-Salem needed a university. So they gave the land and a lot of money to move the university from Wake Forest to Winston-Salem.  Had Charley not checked at the last minute before he flew to North Carolina for an interview he would have flown to Raleigh instead of Winston-Salem. In any event, the interview went well and he has been teaching at the Wake Forest law school for 36 years.

It has been a wonderful career path. Teaching is a career that comes with an enormous amount of control over one’s time. You are blessed each year with a new group of young people. They are a bright, interesting group of folks. During his time at Wake he has taught Criminal Law to first year students, Evidence to second year students as well as Criminal Procedure, Federal Criminal Law and Remedies to second and third year students. Charley worked for 20 years with the Wake Forest National Moot Court team. During that time Wake’s team advanced from the regional competition in Richmond to the national competition in New York several times. In 1986 the Wake team won the national championship.

“I feel very fortunate to have discovered this career path. I have always enjoyed coming to work.  In fact, it has not seemed like work. I have wonderful colleagues and wonderful students. I have taught a senator, and ambassador, judges, big firm lawyers and rural lawyers who are still paid in the currency of potatoes or car washes. One of the things of which I am proudest is a scholarship established in my honor by a group of students. The fund is in excess of $600,000 and I have had the privilege of teaching students who benefit from that fund for the past seven years.”

“As you can tell, teaching has been a huge part of my life. I am also active in the Presbyterian Church and served as a Commissioner to the General Assembly in San Jose, California in 2008.  I love to travel. My friend Sally and I have been to Ireland, Scotland, France, Alaska, Nova Scotia and many other equally delightful places. My sister is in Michigan and we see each other often during the year. I usually travel to Cleveland each year. A colleague at Wake is an Indians fan and we usually take in a game each year-sometimes in Cleveland; sometime elsewhere.”

“As I consider this life, I often think of my time at BHS and the teachers I had there and the friends I made. I believe the teacher was always in me. It just took some time to discover. I am certain a substantial part of who I am as a teacher was forged in Brecksville, Ohio at Brecksville High School. I am grateful to my classmates for making that experience memorable and positive!”