This is interview number 13 in the Raymond Getz World History Project.
Can you tell us your name, please?
So my name is Camille Abear.
It's L Camille Abear.
A name that I don't use, but yeah, Camille Abear.
And tell us a little bit about your career.
So people, if they listen to this interview, know who you are.
So I went to the University of Kansas Law School, graduated in 1982, spent a year clerking
for a judge on the 10th Circuit, Judge James K. Logan of the 10th Circuit, and then spent
five years at a Kansas City, Missouri law firm.
It was then Spencer Frayne Britton Brown.
I think it's now part of somebody else, but about a 70 person firm at the time.
And I was representing management, labor and employment law.
And then I've been at Ohio State College of Law for the last 34 years, where I also teach
labor and employment law subjects.
Did you ever talk to Judge Logan about Raymond Getz?
You know, I don't think I did.
I was trying to, because that would have been actually a natural, right?
Because Jim Logan was on the faculty and dean for a period of time, but I don't actually
remember having that conversation.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he hired him.
And sadly, I've missed my opportunity to talk to Judge Logan.
Did you have Ray Getz as a professor?
Yes, I did.
He taught me labor law.
Okay.
And when was that?
I think it was my second year of law school, which would have been 1980-81.
I think that's when it was.
It could have been my third year, but I'm pretty sure it was my second year, because
I was pretty interested in labor and employment law.
And so I would have taken the course as soon as I could, I think.
Had you heard anything about Professor Getz before you first saw him in class?
Oh, yes.
So I've discovered actually after now being a professor that our reputations do precede
us, although in fairness, my husband also, my now husband, we weren't married in law
school, actually also had him the year before, and one of my other good friends in law school.
So it may have been that reputation as much as his general reputation.
But yeah, I knew about his reputation before I had his class.
And what was that reputation?
Okay.
So I had like this is 40 some years ago.
I can't tell you like details about his class, but I can still tell you what I felt about
his class and what his reputation was, which is I was terrified.
So right.
The paper chase, right.
When I say the paper chase to my students now, they look at me like, what are you talking
about? Like you old lady, right?
Doesn't know she's talking about. Right.
So it came out in 1973.
I decided I wanted to be a lawyer when I was 15, which was in 1974.
Of course, I had no idea.
I just happened to be lucky and was right.
And then I started law school in 1979.
So right. Paper Chase had not been out very long.
I'd seen it. And he was Professor Kingsfield.
I mean, he was. He I never know.
Like now I never know if he knew he was Professor Kingsfield and whether he cultivated being
Professor Kingsfield.
But I was terrified of him.
You know, I was thinking I don't have a good mentorship relationship with him.
And I know, right.
But that's my fault.
Probably.
I'm not sure I ever went to see him outside of class because I think I was sort of terrified
of him.
Not because as much of what he did is simply his reputation.
Right. Yeah.
So, yeah, he had a reputation that preceded him.
Yeah. So was he different from that in labor law than you had heard from, say, people that
had him for contracts?
Yeah. So my husband actually had him for contracts and then had him for labor law.
And I think he was even more Professor Kingsfield in contracts than he was in labor law.
Right. But what I still write, I still sort of had that.
I was you know, it's really funny.
I was I was a pretty quiet law student.
I it's always awkward to say I did well in law school.
I'm a law professor. That's how people get to be law professors.
But when grades came out, like nobody knew who I was, no idea who I was, right, because I
didn't talk in class. Right.
So maybe I was a more timid law student.
I happened to be younger than most of my classmates for some bizarre reasons.
I was 20 when I started law school.
And so that may have contributed to sort of my kind of lay low during class.
Do you remember your first impression of Professor Getson in labor law?
Yeah. So so two impressions.
Right. And one of them is going to be sort of sort of the you know, he was scary.
Right. So he was demanding he he would ask questions.
And I do remember him going down the road.
Right. And I'm thinking, no, that's great.
I know exactly when he called on, except sometimes he'd go like so many people that
in here, like, you know, looking around, you're like, oh, wait a minute.
And I was always prepared for class.
You know, again, kind of the law school nerd.
Right. I was always ready for class.
So it wasn't that he was going to call me.
I was going to be unprepared.
It was just he's going to call on me and I like might give the wrong answer or something.
So, yeah, I had that sort of, you know, fear.
But I also had the sense that he was so interested and engaged and excited about the field
that it made me excited about it, too.
And what were his classes like?
So, like, you know, that's what I'm trying to write.
It's just been 40 years ago. Right.
So what I remember most was him.
I mean, ask, you know, a real Socratic method.
Right.
I barely use the Socratic method in class, I think.
Right. I do ask questions, but, you know, the true, you know, sort of demanding question,
asking questions, probing, you know, sort of continue, which is why he'd sometimes go
down the road and keep on going.
Right. Because he was so interested in the field.
Because people weren't answering it.
And he wasn't rude.
Right. I mean, when I say he was Kingsfield, right.
He was scary, but he wasn't rude.
I mean, at least I don't remember that part of it.
You know, sort of where he made like, I don't think he made me feel stupid.
Right. Right.
I'm not. But I think it's still his demand being demanding was intimidating in some ways.
Probably good, but intimidating in some ways.
What was the demeanor like in class?
He seemed really gruff.
So I was thinking about this the other day when I started to do the math.
So the this is the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Right. So born in 1922, I had him in 81 or 82, which means he was younger then than I am now.
I'm like, oh, I mean, totally different perspective.
I'm 62 years old.
And I was like, oh, that's not right.
But I would have thought he was older and not because he looked older, but because I was so young.
Right. You know, maybe I just haven't quite adjusted to the fact that I'm now, you know, in that age cohort.
So he was gruff. He was demanding.
Right. He asked a lot of questions.
He answered them, too, by the way, but he asked a lot of questions.
Yeah. How did he treat his students just generally?
So I think he was gruff, but polite.
That is, I don't think he ever.
Like, attempted to humiliate students, I don't think at all.
That's when I say, you know, the Kingsfield thing is like Kingsfield did try to humiliate his students.
Right. The fictional Kingsfield.
Ray Getz wasn't like that.
Right. I think Ray Getz was respectful, but he was demanding.
Right. He expected, as I think we have a right to expect, right, that people will have read for class, that they'll be ready to talk, that they'll be responsive, that they'll have thought about the material.
All things that I expected my students, although sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't.
Do you ever remember an instance when Professor Getz did not get what he expected, which was a prepared student?
So what I mostly remember is he would just go on like he would not, you know, sort of, I'll beat the student in any sense.
He would just go on. And sometimes that felt almost as bad.
I let students pass in class.
One time a student, early, it was early in my teaching career, I thought the student was testing me.
You know, a young woman, right, professor, and the student said something like, well, you know, I read that before, but I just don't remember.
And I said to the student, we'll wait.
And the look on his face, and I waited for like 10, 5 seconds, right, and then I went on.
Right. But then, but the look on his face is, I thought, oh, I might have overstepped.
He never passed again, ever passed again.
But that was probably my most, I was going to say Getz like, but it probably wasn't even.
I was going to say Getz like, but it probably wasn't even.
I don't think I don't think Ray did that.
But it was the one time I thought, you know, yeah, I expect you to remember this.
I expect you to read this. I expect you to look at it again before class if you don't remember.
Yeah.
Did you and your fellow students ever discuss Ray Getz's teaching style?
Oh, yeah.
What were those discussions like?
Oh, I again, I think I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record.
I think we were we were scared.
I mean, scared.
I don't know if that's the right word, right.
But it was it was for me, I think it was that I wanted to do well.
I wanted him to think like I knew what I was talking about.
Like I said, this was an area that I already thought that I wanted to do.
And so, yeah, a lot of, you know, we'd we'd talk about the classes.
We'd talk about what happened, like, oh, you know, that didn't go so well.
Well, that went OK. But, you know, I think it was sort of there was a general understanding about.
Again, I sort of feel like I missed an opportunity
not to talk to him a lot outside of class because I didn't.
And I got to know some of my professors quite well,
but didn't really get to know him.
And I kind of feel like that's a loss now.
Yeah. Did he invite your class over to his home?
I don't remember that.
That's not to say that he didn't, but I don't remember.
What did you think of him as a law teacher
since you went on to be a teacher?
But I thought so.
So in some ways, my style and his are probably almost polar opposites.
And that's not always that's on the criticism of him always necessarily.
So I'm not sometimes I'm not as demanding.
So the thing is, I don't think we actually know how we're perceived by our students.
You know, really, I perceive myself as not as demanding.
I sometimes ask and answer my own questions.
You know, like you're really trying to get them to talk and you realize
you're starting to answer like I never remember him doing that.
So I think in some ways, our styles are really different.
I I try if a student gets the answer wrong, I try to.
Make it a little right,
you know, and sort of to like, you know, I don't just want to say,
oh, no, not right, it's not at all.
So I think our styles are very different.
But I think what mode what again, what I found
that made me think that I wanted to do this, not only be a professor,
but teach labor law was the way he conveyed the importance of it.
So I sometimes say to some of my I've said this in front of other colleagues
that that labor law and employment law, like they're real issues affecting real people.
And they're like, oh, well, you know, we don't do that when we do.
But that's what it felt like, is it felt like I wasn't just learning rules.
I was learning rules that were important to either how employers ran their businesses
or how employees had a voice in the workplace.
That's what I felt that his excitement about the material conveyed to me.
And and I think that's partly why I'm doing what I'm doing.
I I feel the same way about labor and employment laws always seemed
real in a way that I just never felt that way about property.
I just didn't or tax, by the way.
The rule against perpetuities didn't set you on fire.
It did not not.
And I loved Mike Davis, who I had for property.
But the rule against perpetuities did not set me on fire.
So that, you know, do you have a sense of what it was about Professor
Gett that conveyed to you his
you know, your similar interests and excitement about labor and employment?
Well, was there anything in particular about him or his method of teaching
that conveyed that, do you think?
I think it was that if I don't know, is a method of teaching as much as it was.
So the way he talked about why the rules were important.
And again, this is just a sense that it's one thing to teach,
you know, what a one says and what a three says and all of that.
And it's another to talk about the way it actually works.
Right. And whether that was his arbitration practice that kept him
with a hand in real life.
And so so I sometimes feel like I've been at a high stake for 34 years.
My practice is really old.
And I don't I don't practice.
I've done I've done a little bit of arbitrating, you know, a few years ago,
but but very little.
And I think it was that he brought that reality that what
this really meant into the classroom in a way that that that excited me
and that made me see think it was something I wanted to do.
And I try really hard to do that for my students, too.
It's hard sometimes because, again, my practice is old.
But sort of talk about sort of the reality of, you know, sort of
whether it's union campaigns or whether it's sort of
the reality of how this works in practice.
Yeah, you can't discriminate on the basis of union activities.
But, you know, that's what I that's what I remember him conveying.
And what, again, I think has sort of shaped.
I don't teach the way he does, but what I wanted to do
and how I wanted to reach out to students.
Yeah. And I'm sure you were aware that he had substantially more
practice than your average law professor.
He was at, say, for Shaw for 16 years or so.
Do you think that played a part in his ability to communicate that to his students?
I really do.
So, you know, I had five years of practice.
I didn't do I didn't do most of the things that I teach about, right?
You know, sort of in that sense.
But he did. Right.
I mean, he did it from, I mean, 16 years.
I mean, 16 years is a lot of experience to do
sort of lots of, you know, lots of different things.
I always say you actually the best way to learn something is to teach it.
But but really, the best way to learn it is is to have that practical experience.
And I think, yes, I think it is.
I sometimes see people coming into teaching with very, very little experience.
Some sometimes none.
It's less common now, but sometimes.
And I think how are they ever going to really convey to students what things are like?
You know, like I said, I feel like it's hard for me to do
with five years of practice 34 years ago.
But for him, it was it was more recent.
Right. And there and more extensive.
So, yeah, I do think that was important.
I think maybe you've already answered this one, but I'll ask it again.
Did you ever go speak to Professor Gatz
during his office hours or anywhere else?
I don't ever remember doing so.
Doesn't mean that I didn't for sure, but I don't remember.
And it partly is I didn't actually do that a lot.
Like I should have, or at least I didn't at first. Right.
But, you know, so I I always tell my students, please, you know, come and do that.
That's important. But I just don't remember.
OK. Did you ever work for him as a research assistant?
Did we ever in his home at all?
That you recall that I recall. OK.
Do you remember
where you were or what your impressions were when you heard that he had died?
I'm sorry, I really don't.
I, you know, the problem is that I'm.
Not local anymore, and so I keep in touch with KU generally, but I I just don't.
That's fine. I ask everybody that question.
So you got it. You gave your answer.
Any other memories of Professor Gatz that we haven't talked about that you'd like to share?
I don't think I have any memories of Professor Gatz.
I don't think so.