Indio, California – a city of 50,000 located in the California desert – may have its own law school as early as 2011. According to news reports, John Dolan, an Indio attorney, is working to open the California Desert College of Law as a not-for-profit law school. I didn't know much about Mr. Dolan, other than what he has on his website. There we learn that he is the author of the "wildly popular Lawyer's Joke Book", he lives in Southern California with "his wife of 33 years, Irene the Queen", and one of his college debating performances was called a "Tour de Force" by Laurence Tribe.
On further research, I discovered that Dolan's Cal State Fullerton team lost in the octofinals of the National Debate Tournament in 1970 and 1971 – the latter time to a UNC team – Loveland and McGuire – that one major coach called the top debate team of the 1970's. What other law school entrepreneur got his start as an NDT debate star? Fast forward to the 1974 and 1975 NDT tournaments where the #5 speaker each year was UC Irvine's own Erwin Chemerinsky! Take that Larry Solum (#7 speaker in 1975)!
Let's talk smack…Northwestern University School of Speech produces the best debaters in history, including the noted academic and former NU speech school dean..David Zarefsky..other NU debaters of fame..national champ Mike Denger, a noted antitrust guru…but on debate generally, did u know that Larry Summers was an MIT debater and a former chief justice of Florida was a national champ..go WILDCATS!!!
Debaters? Let's take a look at Arianna Huffington, President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1971 (only the third woman to hold the position). And my favorite non-debate debate has to be Question Time with the Prime Minister in the House of Commons.