Our Interview

Twenty Minutes with Matthew Reynolds, New Chair of the Legal Studies

PAGE 1 MARCH 2017

WINTER QUARTER

MARCH 2017

Q: Humphreys College established its paralegal studies about 35 years ago, offering a Cer-

tificate of Completion and Bachelor of Arts Degree in Paralegal Studies. Five years ago,

the program led by the late Rowena Walker, evolved into the Legal Studies Program...

Reynolds: Yes, the program was renamed. While the main focus of the program is and al-

ways has been to prepare students to become capable paralegals, the program actually accom-

plishes much more than just that. Our Legal Studies Program lays a solid groundwork for stu-

dents who would like to pursue law school and a Juris Doctor degree. The Program also serves

as a well-rounded, general interest liberal studies major for students who would like to focus

their college education on the law.

Characterize the main courses of the Legal Studies Program.

Reynolds: The core courses of the Legal Studies Program are split into three groups:

Outline the differences between the two degree programs offered by your department: Bachelor of Arts

and Associate in Arts in Legal Studies.

(continued on p. 2)

the substantive courses (Tor ts, Contracts, Cr iminal Law, Professional Responsibility, and Evi-

dence); they introduce students to the basic ideas of various substantive areas of American law

the procedural courses (Legal Research, Civil Litigation, Legal Terminology, Legal Office Proce-

dures, and Legal Practice Overview), dealing with the nuts and bolts of law office operations

the bookend courses (Introduction to the Legal System and Legal Studies Capstone), they intro-

duce the Program at the beginning of a student’s education and then bring everything together at the end

PAGE 2 MARCH 2017

Reynolds: A Bachelor of Ar ts (BA) in Legal Studies is a 4-year degree. An Associate of Arts (AA) in Legal

Studies is a 2-year degree. Students graduating with either degree are able to work as professional paralegals;

however, some employers either prefer or require an applicant to have a BA degree. Many students go on to seek

a BA degree after receiving an AA degree. In our Program, the AA degree focuses mostly on the procedural

classes that teach students how to work in a law office or a similar office environment. The BA degree adds sub-

stantive law courses on top of that.

Additionally, the catalog includes the Minor in Legal Studies and the Certificate of Completion in Parale-

gal Studies.

Reynolds: Yes, we also offer a Cer tificate of Completion in Paralegal Studies. Completing the Cer tificate

requires very similar coursework to the BA in Legal Studies, so many students seeking a Certificate also com-

plete the BA. Some students like the recognition of receiving a Certificate, which is very specific to paralegal

work, rather than the general acknowledgment of achievement that usually accompanies a BA. A Minor is for

students who have an interest in the topic but not enough of time (or interest) to major in the subject. A Minor in

Legal Studies only requires a handful of courses to complete.

Introduce the core faculty of your department. The founder of the paralegal studies at Humphreys, Row-

ena Walker, devotedly talked about three local lawyers who helped her with the curriculum development–

David Wellenbrock, Phil Urie, and George Abdallah...

Reynolds: Yes, David Wellenbrock, who cur rently teaches for Humphreys University’s Dr ivon School of

Law, alongside with Phil Urie and George Abdallah, now both local judges, were instrumental in helping Row-

ena Walker make the Program what it is today. Currently, we have many exceptional adjunct faculty members

who teach in the Program, including many lawyers and legal professionals. Michael Rishwain, Suzi Treganza,

Chad Wood, and Linda Swartz are among our adjunct faculty, although there are several others, as well. I am

very pleased with our current Legal Studies team and their dedication to our students’ success.

Characterize the job opportunities for the graduates of the Legal Studies Program.

Reynolds: Students graduating with a Legal Studies degree are able to work as paralegals. Another option

is working as a legal assistant or legal secretary. Almost all private law offices have some combination of legal

secretaries and paralegals. The larger the office, the greater the need for secretarial and paralegal work. Govern-

ment agencies that focus on legal work, such as the District Attorney’s Office, the Public Defender, the City At-

torney, among others, also employ legal secretaries and paralegals. Some companies, particularly larger ones or

those in industries with close ties to the legal world, have internal legal departments which also need legal assis-

tants. Banks and some constructions companies fit in this category.

(continued on p. 3)

(continued from p. 1)

Humphreys University Newsletter Supplement

PAGE 3 MARCH 2017

What are the main differences between a legal assistants/secretaries and paralegals.

Reynolds: The duties of both legal assistants/secretar ies and paralegals vary widely by employer and at

many employers there is significant overlap between the positions. In general, legal secretaries perform duties

more commonly associated with secretarial work: answering phones, maintaining schedules, typing letters, gath-

ering and filing information, and other administrative roles. In general, paralegals have a deeper level of involve-

ment with clients and cases: evaluating and organizing materials, helping to prepare documents, performing ini-

tial witness interviews, assisting with trial and trial materials, and conducting both factual and legal research.

Does your department offer student internships?

Reynolds: Yes, there are plenty of internship oppor tunities in the Stockton and Modesto areas. We are

working on improving our communication with students regarding these opportunities. If you are a student inter-

ested in an internship, please contact me.

Traditionally, some graduates of the Legal Studies Program moved to the law school. Last year, Hum-

phreys College decided to make this transition smoother. What are the main features of the Humphreys

University Legal Studies Program to the Laurence Drivon School of Law Transfer Plan?

Reynolds: Both the Legal Studies Program and the Cr iminal Justice Program offer select students the op-

tion to complete their last year of college and their first year of law school simultaneously. This means that the

classes students take in their first year of law school count towards both their Bachelor’s degree and their Juris

Doctor degree. Qualifying for the Transfer Plan is difficult; it requires both a high GPA in college courses and a

good score on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), but it can be an excellent option for those who qualify.

If you are a Legal Studies student and interested in the Transfer Plan, I suggest you contact me to discuss the

Plan in more detail, so we can ascertain whether the Plan would be a good fit for you.

~Stanislav Perkner

Humphreys University Newsletter Supplement

(continued from p. 2)

PAGE 4 MARCH 2017

Humphreys University Newsletter Supplement

I was a very lucky

child. I was not only

lucky because my

sainted Aunt Helen

and Uncle Emil visit-

ed our home very

frequently but lucky

because my uncle Emil took a personal interest in

me. Week after week we’d sit on the front stoop of

my home and he would teach me how to work with

numbers. At first he would start with easy arithme-

tic problems: How much is 3 and 5? How many

times does 4 go into 8?

Over the years, the problems gradually grew harder:

You are in a grocery store which sells lemons. The sign

says “3 for 5 cents and 4 for a dime.” Which would you

buy? If I answered “I’d by 4,” he would ask me “Why.”

All too often my answer would be, “The more you buy, the

cheaper it is.” One time he said, “Let’s pretend you are in

the grocery store and only have a nickel. With that nickel

you buy three lemons. You take the lemons home and your

father sends you back to the store with another nickel and

you buy three more. Now how many lemons do you

have?”

As time went on, the questions became progressively

more practical. Once, while I was in high school, taking

algebra, my uncle posed this question: I want to buy a share

of stock. The stock costs $97 and the broker gets $5. I

want to make 15% on my investment. The stock pays a

10% dividend every year. How long must I hold the stock?

In high school, I took algebra. Algebra was a requirement

of the college prep track. Report cards came out in mid-

semester and at the end of the semester. My mid-term

grade was an “F.” My mother was furious. She made my

father take me to school to talk to the math teacher to find

out what I needed to do to pass the course. It took the

teacher all of five minutes and all she did was say,

“Substitute a number for the letter ‘x.’” I finished that se-

mester and the following semester with three A’s. Ever

since 1950, when I have a math problem, whether it is a

number problem or a word problem, the first thing I say to

myself is, “Is that all there is?”

THROUGHOUT MY ACADEMIC CAREER,

except for the first half of my high school algebra, I found

that solving math problems was fun. In the summer of

1959, as a requisite for admission to the Philadelphia Col-

lege of Pharmacy and Science, I had to take a course in

trigonometry. The professor was a fun-loving German by

the name of Dr. Schildt. (I found this interesting because I

assumed that in Yiddish, schildt meant guilty.) At the time

I took the course, I had a problem staying awake, a condi-

tion diagnosed as narcolepsy. This problem manifested

itself in my only staying awake for the first lecture and the

final examination. I slept through all the rest of the lec-

tures. Upon arriving home, I went to my room and did my

homework.

(continued on p. 5)

Math Anxiety: What It Is and How to Overcome It By Darwin Sarnoff, Professor Emeritus, UOP

PAGE 5 MARCH 2017

Humphreys University Newsletter Supplement

The homework consisted of solving all the even numbered

problems at the ends of the chapters. My solution to get-

ting the information necessary to solve the even numbered

items was to read the chapters, work the odd numbered

questions, and compare my results with the keys at the

back of the book. My technique resulted in a 98% accuracy

on the final examination.

The last class of the summer was the day after the

final. On that day, Dr. Schildt handed back our examina-

tions and he said to me, for all the class to hear, “Mr.

Sarnoff, I should not give you a 98 because you slept

through all the lectures except the first and the final exam.”

My response was, “Dr. Schildt, aren’t you glad that I

stayed awake for those two or I’d have had a 100.”

The class just laughed. Dr. Schildt laughed hardest

of all.

THERE WAS ONE INCIDENT IN MY LIFE which

led me to understand how an insecure teacher can create

anxiety among a group of students. In 1959, I enrolled in

the already-mentioned Philadelphia College of Pharmacy

and Science. One of the required classes was a one-credit

course in pharmaceutical calculations to prepare us to con-

vert metric units to English units. The professor gave us a

pre-test on the first day. I passed it with a 98. Four semes-

ters later, I barely passed the course with a 70. Although

my answers were correct, and I should have been given a

100, I had not used the “correct” procedure. My self-

confidence, or perhaps my arrogance, was the only thing

that stood between me and being math aversive. I was not

about to allow this professor to tell me that there was only

one way to calculate the relationship of metric to English

units. (Many years later, I found out that my procedure

had a name: dimensional analysis.)

As a library assistant at Humphreys, it was my re-

sponsibility to administer an assessment examination con-

taining math problems to students who apply for admission

to the school. They are given 25 minutes to answer 36

math problems. Occasionally, a student will answer all 36

problems in less than the allotted 25 minutes. All too fre-

quently, a student will turn in the test booklet with fewer

than 36 responses in the math section. When I score the

math section of a student who has not completed the test, I

frequently find that either half or more than half of the cells

in the math section are not the ones specified by the key for

the choice. Almost without exception, the student would

say, “I was never very good at math.”

When a student said, “I was never very good at

math” or the student turned in an examination with fewer

than the 36 answers, I wonder if the student was, in fact,

not good at math or was suffering from either test anxiety,

that is, a feeling of a knot in his stomach, sweaty palms or

shortness of breath as a result of having to take a test, math

anxiety as a result of having to take a math test, or an ina-

bility to perform what I considered high school level arith-

metic. Not being aware of ever having said “I was never

good at math” makes me wonder if the student is suddenly

unloading an inappropriate amount of emotional energy

into a conversation in order to resolve the anxiety he/she

feels as a result of having to take an examination contain-

ing math problems.

(continued on p. 6)

(continued from p. 4)

PAGE 6 MARCH 2017

Humphreys University Newsletter Supplement

MY MOST OBVIOUS SHORTCOMING of the

research on math anxiety was the assumption that anxiety

is related to the academic environment. This observation,

combined with my backgrounds in pharmacy administra-

tion and economic research, made me wonder whether peo-

ple experience math anxiety in daily living.

Let me be specific. I was in a local grocery store

and I needed eggs. The eggs were $1 a carton of one dozen

and $2 for a carton of a dozen and a half. As I stood there

watching people buy eggs, I noticed that more people

bought the 18-egg carton than the 12-egg carton. I won-

dered then, “Why,” and even now, I wonder why? (I asked

the store manager whether there was a mistake in the pric-

ing. He indicated that the prices were correct. He was try-

ing to sell the 12-egg cartons before their expiration date.)

Today, when I go into that grocery store, I compare

the prices of the 12- and 18-egg cartons and have discov-

ered that the difference per egg is rarely over half a cent; I

still wonder whether the customers calculate the difference

and choose the less expensive eggs or use another criterion

for selecting the 18-egg carton over the 12-egg carton. (I

do not buy the 30-egg flat even though the price per egg is

significantly lower because I do not have a place to store

the eggs.) I have also found that there are many items in

my grocery store in which the per-unit cost of the larger

container is higher than the smaller container. When I see

it, I recall my Uncle Emil asking me, “Which is cheaper,

three lemons for a nickel or four for a dime?”

(continued from p. 5)

Darwin Sarnoff, Professor Emeritus, UOP; Philadelphia Col-

lege of Pharmacy (1968); Ph.D. from Purdue University in

Lafayette, Indiana. UOP courses taught: Pharmacy Admin-

istration, Computer Science, Pharmacy Management, and

An Introduction to Health Care Delivery Systems. Hum-

phreys College tutor (2005-2016). His hobbies include mu-

sic (violist at the Valley Chamber Orchestra), photography,

writing interactive fantasy, computer based stories, and rid-

ing around in his bright red, convertible, Ford Mustang. In

his spare time, he studies algebra and calculus.

Humphreys University Newsletter Supplement, March 2017

Stanislav Perkner, Editor, sperkner@humphreys.edu

Julie Walker, Co-Editor, julie.walker@humphreys.edu

Martin Valladares, Executive Editor, martin.valladares@humphreys.edu

www.humphreys.edu

PAGE 7 MARCH 2017

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