Visiting Law Schools

Brooks has heard back from most of the law schools he applied to to. He has received acceptance letters from Gonzaga (Spokane, WA) and Willamette (Salem, OR) and a letter from Montana stating his application was going into the second review process. We booked a trip for him to visit Gonzaga and then a few days later received an acceptance letter from Willamette as well. Luckily we were able to change his flight and he was able to fly to Salem, then Spokane and then home. It didn't cost much more and the timing worked out great. I really wanted to go with him on the trip, but it is a little late in my pregnancy to be traveling. Mark was able to go with Brooks to Salem which worked out nicely. Mark's brother, Dave, lives in Salem and attended law school at Willamette. Mark & Brooks stayed with Dave's family while they were there and Dave set up a visit at the school for Brooks. They flew in on Saturday and watched conference, went to Priesthood, and out to eat. On Sunday they all went down to the school between conference sessions and walked around. Brooks really liked it and said the school was very nice. He took lots of pictures to show to me. Out of all the pictures he took the whole trip, there is not a single picture with him in it!


Here they are walking around the school. The building in the picture is the law school.

There is a stream that runs through the middle of campus. How pretty! I guess it is cherry blossom season as well and all the trees are in bloom. It rained on and off every day he was there. I guess that is why everything is so green. Salem is about 45 minutes south of Portland. It is about a 1 hour drive to the beach and a 1-2 hour drive in the other direction to snowboarding. Brooks really liked the sound of that!

This is the law school. On Monday, Brooks was able to sit in on a law class and meet with the dean of admissions. He said both were a great experience. He really enjoyed the law class and had to restrain himself from participating. After the class, he met with the dean for about 20 minutes. When he left Oregon on Monday night, he was very happy with everything he had seen. It was a place he could see himself going to school and a place he could imagine our family living. He told me he hoped he didn't really like Gonzaga because it would make the decision a lot easier.

Brooks enjoyed staying at Dave and Kathy's place. He said their four kids were a lot of fun. I guess they pulled out the Wii a few times and had fun playing that. It was great that Mark was able to go with him and that they had somewhere to stay to free. Everything worked out so well! Brooks flew to Spokane Monday night while Mark flew home. In Spokane, he picked up a rental car and actually stayed the first night at the Hawker's home. Brooks had served with Josh Hawker on his mission and it was great to have that connection in Spokane.

Halfway through the trip, Brooks decided to visit the University of Montana as well. Spokane is only 2-3 hours from Missoula, MT and it just made sense for him to visit the school while he was so close. On Tuesday, he drove to Missoula and saw the law school. He loved the drive over and thought the town of Missoula was beautiful. Before he went on this trip, Missoula was probably his top choice of schools. The area sounded appealing to him and there was just something about it that interested him. He ended up not liking it much. The law school felt uncomfortable to him. He actually said that as soon as he got there, he wanted to leave. To me that was a pretty strong answer that it wasn't the place for us.

This is the main school area at University of Montana. He actually didn't take any pictures of the law school.

Gonzaga ended up being a different story. He absolutely loved it there! This is a picture of the law school. He thought the law school was really nice and he said he kept running into LDS people. Gonzaga is a Catholic school, and we had read that the LDS population was low there. From talking to other students in the law school, it sounds like there are actually quite a few LDS students in the law school. Some said as many as 25%. On Wednesday he was able to sit in on a class there and meet with admissions as well. He enjoyed both and felt like he had a lot of his questions answered. Brooks said he could see our family living there as well. Now we have a big decision to make. He loved the two schools he has been accepted to and this is a big decision for us. We will do a lot of praying and pondering over the next couple of days before the decision needs to be made. We are happy that we have two great choices and feel that either one of them will be good for Brooks and our family!

Brooks saw this groundhog and had to take a picture. He said he had never seen one and I don't think I have either.

By the school is a great system of parks and walking/biking trails. This river runs right through the park area by the school. There are a variety of family friendly activities to do around the park.

Brooks had some extra time on Wednesday before his flight home and drove around the town a bit. He said in about 5 minutes time, he drove from the center of town into pine trees and forest area.