Sturm College of Law News
Congratulations Rick Weare (MSJA, ‘74)!
December 01, 2011
Congratulations to Rick Weare (MSJA ’74) on Nearly 37 Years Serving our Judiciary!
Richard “Rick” Weare graduated from the Master of Science in Judicial Administration (MSJA) program in 1974. He describes his small class as one that “worked hard, studied hard, and played hard.”
Now, married for 43 years, one daughter, and two grandsons later and going into retirement, Rick passes on his wisdom and experience to the new generation of Master of Science in Legal Administration (MSLA) students.
Rick came across the then-MSJA program fortuitously. Having already obtained his Master of Public Administration, Rick was looking to become more involved in a court setting. While attending the Introduction to Court Management (ICM) Program in Aspen, he heard about the University of Denver’s MSJA program. He applied soon thereafter, was accepted, and moved to Denver.
While in the program, Rick recalls not only the classroom, but the softball field as well. One of his greatest memories is his undefeated softball team beating Harry Lawson’s faculty team; with Rick hitting the home run to win the game.
Rick also gained a wealth of knowledge before ever formally entering the job market. While in the program, he worked for his mentor, Terry Aragon, at the Municipal Court in Boulder, CO. After that, he went on to complete an internship with the Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit, MI. After completing his degree, Rick applied for and accepted the court administrator position at the 7th Circuit District Trial Court in western South Dakota. While in South Dakota, he pioneered efforts to obtain federal grants that would eventually help to reform the state’s current jury statutes.
During his time in South Dakota, Rick remained close with Harry Lawson. Harry apprised Rick of an open Clerk of Court position in the massive Eastern District of New York. Rick got the job in New York at 27 years old, making him the youngest Clerk of Court in the country at the time. Rick stayed in New York for eight and a half years before becoming the Clerk of Court in Arizona, where he has been for the past 26 years.
The MSJA program at the University of Denver truly helped to shape Rick’s career. When he graduated, the field of legal and court administration was new and emerging, and the MSLA program provided great training, as well as an edge in the field. Rick learned skills that he has utilized throughout his career; in fact, Bea Hoffman taught a class on how to write a one page memorandum, which Rick says has been a most invaluable skill. In court administration, “jobs are as good as the judges you work with,” Rick says, and he has been lucky in this regard. Even when challenges arise, the MSJA program has equipped him with the all the skills necessary to deal with them. Rick truly attributes his success to the program.
After 26 years as Clerk of Court in the District of Arizona, Rick is heading into retirement. Looking back, he finds the most rewarding part of his job to be that over the
years he has had seven chief deputies, many of them graduates of the program themselves. All of them have gone on to be clerks of their own courts. Rick will do contract work for the national Administrative Offices (AO) from Phoenix. For current and future MSLA students, Rick has this piece of advice: “Be willing to go where the job opportunities are, even if that means relocating from where [you] currently live to another part of the country. While [you] will graduate with a fine academic background [you] need experience. The only way to get that experience is to find a legal administration position, with some responsibility, and spend three years learning in a legal environment.”
Congratulations, Rick, on your retirement and thank you for all your contributions to the field!