PILG Auction 2008

Nothing feels as good as doing good—and doing good feels even better when you’re the winning bidder.

On March 28, students, staff, faculty and friends of the law school gathered at the Randall Gallery for the annual Public Interest Fellowship Auction to raise money to help support the Dagen Fellowships. The gallery walls were lined with large-scale paintings and tables filled with this year’s offerings for the silent auction. Everything from Cardinals baseball tickets to dinners at professors’ homes to trips to museums and the Missouri Botanical Garden tempted students to part with their scarce cash for the opportunity of spending quality time with their professors (and to marvel at how strange it is to see professors in their natural habitat).

Forget any notion you might have of a Sotheby’s auction that takes place in library-like hushed silence, where the bidders communicate their bids with understated nods and paddle raises. In the case of the PILG auction, nothing could be further from the truth. The live auction this year was nothing less than a raucous, high-energy dance that had Professor Alan Howard running up and down the center aisle trying to keep up with the frenzy of bidding in the packed gallery. Some of the more interesting items offered at the live auction this year were the life-size cut-out of Professor Eric Miller dressed in his native Scottish kilt; a trip for four with Professor Anders Walker to exercise the Second Amendment right to shoot the handgun of the winner’s choosing at a local shooting range; a day at the horse races at Fairmount Park with Professors John Ammann, Barbara Gilchrist, Sue McGraugh and Patricia Harrison; and a trip for 10 to Missouri wine country (including limo!) with Dean Christine Rollins.

The auction is not really about what the bidders win, though, or who triumphs in the bidding. It’s about the students, faculty and guests knowing their money is going to a cause they can support philosophically as well as financially. Those who participate, whether they win an item or donate baseball tickets or help organize the event, can see the results of their contribution. That trip to the shooting range or dinner with a favorite professor has a real, positive impact on society in the form of enabling a student to advocate for the underprivileged, or work in environmental law or with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It’s an interesting journey from an evening of laughing and socializing and waiters passing through with hors d’oeuvres—for a few hours everyone free of the pressures of law school—to the serious work of serving the public interest in various offices throughout the country. The evening passes quickly, but the effect of everyone’s efforts is lasting. And that’s a fine way to live the law school’s mission of service.

Sidebar:
$12,000
Net raised from the 2008 auction

$6,000
Contribution from the Dean’s Office

$50,000
Amount from the Irvin and Maggie Dagen Fellowship Fund

$68,000
Total amount going toward summer fellowships in 2008