Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1942 [PAGE 897]

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894

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[May 16

Mr. Trevor. F r o m the standpoint of the University and its several hundred employees who are concerned, the present arrangement is fairly satisfactory. T h e plan was worked out after conferences with former Attorneys General and Governors and has had their approval. T h e legislature has at least impliedly given its approval by making appropriations directly to the University for the payment of these claims. W e are willing to continue the cooperation on the present basis, or on any other basis the Attorney General may wish to suggest. 3. Student Debtors to Loan Funds The University as trustee administers nearly $400,000 of student loan and scholarship funds, with about 3,000 individual debtors at the present time. Substantial numbers are delinquent from time to time and require constant nursing and sometimes prompt and decisive invoking of legal remedies. This somewhat large loan business the University has not found practical to service at long range and has, therefore, handled it throughout the years without any assistance from the Attorney General. 4. Legal Opinions and Advice ( a ) Administrative and within the University Ever since the position of Counsel was established in the administration of Governor Deneen in 1907, or earlier, the Board and the holder of this formal title have fully recognized the fact that the Attorney General is under the Constitution the legal adviser of the Board of Trustees. T h e mixed problems of law and fact which began to arise in constantly increasing numbers as the institution expanded and became more complex, soon emphasized the practical difficulties which confronted the University in this behalf, due to the fact that the office of Attorney General was nearly a hundred miles away. T h e common sense solution seemed to be to give the title of Professor of Law and University Counsel to a member of the law school faculty. This position the late Judge H a r k e r held for twenty years, through the administrations of many governors, of many Attorneys General, and of swings of the pendulum of politics from one party to the other. "Counsel" here covers many activities within the University, from public relations, legislative matters, discipline of faculty and students, relations with the Federal Government and sundry questions of law and fact so interwoven as to be always difficult and sometimes practically impossible of segregation. In all these matters, new legal problems arising in connection with proposed University action are submitted to the Attorney General for advice, under direction of the President of the University and the Board. (b) Legal Advice to the Board of Trustees H e r e the function of the University Counsel is to formulate the legal question which the Board wishes answered and to submit it to the Attorney General for an opinion. T h e r e are many questions in part legal which the Board does not submit to the Attorney General. T h e r e are always members of the bar on the board—at this time five men admitted to the bar or trained in the law are members—and such questions, being ordinarily free from difficulty, are resolved by the Board by such aids as free discussion affords, without the necessity of formal legal advice. In this respect this body differs not at all from other public agencies which are constantly called upon to make decisions and take action from time to time without being led by the legal hand of official counsel. On the analogy of the practice of the departments of the Federal Government, it has been customary for the Board, with the approval and sometimes at the specific request of the Attorney General, to submit a memorandum with the request for the opinion, setting forth enough of the University procedure to make the problem clear to the Attorney General, together with any discussion of the law which the University Counsel may wish to offer. This procedure has received the express approval of other Attorneys General and will be continued unless a different course be directed by you. A s I said to you when we conferred on April 30, my purpose is to put at your disposal such cooperation as is possible and which, in your view, we may