GW Law alumni, Irene Bowen, JD '76, and Larry Goldberg, JD '76, share the story of how they found love at GW Law.
"We met at Irene’s birthday party during our first semester of law school in 1973. Each of us had come from the Midwest, planning to return to Chicago and Iowa after graduation. We chose GW Law because of its location and its strong reputation for international, government, and public interest/clinical work. But our individual lives went in an unexpected direction: we met, fell in love, stayed here, and have been married for more than 48 years.
We began as friends. A few months later (on Valentine’s Day 51 years ago) love bloomed on a bench behind the law school. Then, in a more professional relationship, we enrolled in John Banzhaf’s Legal Activism class together. As an outgrowth of our class project, we and another student sought and received federal funding to establish the National Center for Law and Deafness, to advocate for the rights of people who are deaf. In law school, we worked there as Student Directors.
We got married in Chicago immediately after graduation and drove back the next day to start the bar review class. Larry supervised the Center’s legal aid clinic before going on to the Department of Justice and then the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services. Irene worked for a Ralph Nader organization and then joined the Civil Rights Division, where she enforced various civil rights acts including the Americans with Disabilities Act. We have fond memories of long talks on that bench, film matinees at Circle Theater, weekend hootenannies with classmates, Crumpets ice cream, and special-occasion dining at places that have disappeared: Morocco’s, The Red Lion, and the Astor. We owe much to our serendipitous selection of George Washington Law School: our love, our love of the law and legal activism, our careers, and life-long friendships."
