1st District Justice gives $50M to law school

Today's Recorder reports Late California Judge's Estate Gives $50M to Scalia Law School

• A record-breaking $50 million gift to George Mason University, announced Thursday, will go to the university’s Antonin Scalia Law School to support 13 new faculty members.
• The gift is a bequest from the estate of the late Justice Allison M. Rouse of the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco and his wife Dorothy B. Rouse. Allison Rouse was an appointee of then-Governor Ronald Reagan, who as president later appointed Antonin Scalia to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then elevated him to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Appointed to the 1st DCA in 1971, Justice Rouse retired in 1988 and died in 2005.

J. Anthony Kline, a colleague of Judge Rouse on the appeals court for six years, called him "a truly decent and caring man," one who "cared deeply about the law but was the kind of thoughtful, considered person who never got heated." "He was not an ideological person, although his experience was that of a prosecutor," Kline said. "He called cases down the middle and was pretty much a moderate."