Alan Wilner \u2762 will be the 1999 Distinguished Graduate Award recipient

Leary, Betty Lynne

English

Digital Commons @ UM Law

Annual Honors Banquet-Tuesday, April 13, 1999 ALAN WILNER 1999 Distinguished Graduate Award BY B ETTY L YNNE L EARY When Alan Wilner clerked for a rrial judge during his final year of law school , he found the work inrriguing yet couldn ' t fathom a judgeship in his own future. "There were so few judges at that time that I never imagined it was in reach," he says. "I never gave it much thought after that. " Today the Hon. Alan M . W ilner '62 reflects on a career highlighted by 19 years as a Judge on the Court of Special Appeals, including six as Chief Judge. In 1996, he was named to the Court of Appeals and was recently voted the 1999 Distinguished Graduate by the University of Maryland School of Law Alumni Association. Wilner began his career at a small firm doing public utility and general corporate work before joining the attorney general 's office where he repre-sented a number of state agencies. Then, after prac-ticing with Venable, Baetjer and Howard for four years, he moved to the governor's staff, eventually serving as Chief Legislative Officer. That position served as the stepping stone to the Court of Special Appeals where Wilner heard countless challenging cases during almost two decades of work. "T he court hasn' t changed much but the inter-nal workings had to become more efficient over the years to keep up with an exploding case load," he explains. W ilner describes the judgeship as one of the few jobs in the legal profession where you explore almost every field of law due to the variety of cases that come before the court. "It's velY creative intellectually," he says. "There is a lot of variety so you must keep abreast of every-thing. You read a lot because the lawyers always tell us what they think the law is. " When he's not on the bench, W ilner enjoys teaching a course at the law school on alternative metllods of dispute resolution. "It's more information sharing than a Socratic kind of thinkin g," he explains, noting that he finds today's students bright and that they like to be entertained . Wi lner recalls his own time in law school fondly, although he states it was a tough challenge at the time. "It was real ly a grind, wo rking during the day, going to class at night," he says. "But I loved law school, I really did." The courses back in the early '60s were more basic, W ilner adds, noting that students today have a wider range of courses from which to choose. "We knew a lot more about a lot less than today's students," he says, laughing. "We concentrated more on history, perception and how law developed. T here's a lot more information now but less analysis." While Wilner prefers the old-school approach, he admits that the law school probably would no t remain competitive in providing tile kind of students law firms want if they reverted to the old style of teaching. T he old style served Wilner well, however, from the day he achieved the second highest score on the Maly land bar exam in 1962, to Maly land's highest coun where he serves today, nor only as distinguished adjudicator bur as an honored and distinguished graduate of the School of Law. 13 JD MAGAZI E SPRI NG 1999 

1999 Distinguished Graduate Award: Alan Wilner

NELLCO Consortium Legal Scholarship Repository

https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1358&amp;context=jd

1999 Distinguished Graduate Award: Alan Wilner

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