Law Grad, 69, Expects Degree of Success

Robert Warren Trescott, one of 309 graduates who received degrees at the Western State University College of Law commencement ceremony Monday afternoon, says he is serious about his 20-year law-career plan.

It involves practicing law for five years, being appointed as a commissioner for five years, serving as a judge for five years, capping that off with five years of collecting fat legal fees, then retiring.

He’s serious, but he also laughs about it. Trescott, round-faced and heavy under his mane of white hair, will be 70 years old in October.

Western State officials have told him that he is the oldest law school graduate in California history.

He may not hold that title long, though. One university official told Trescott after the commencement exercises that a 70-year-old has applied for admission.

At the ceremony, held at the Orange County Center for the Performing Arts in Costa Mesa, there were hugs and kisses from family members, congratulations from fellow graduates and plenty of news cameras on hand to record the occasion.

But just a few hours before, Trescott had been alone with his thoughts.

As he does every year on Memorial Day, Trescott, a Word War II veteran, visited the Loma Vista Memorial Park cemetery in Fullerton, not far from his home in Brea. It’s a visit he makes to honor the memory of friends who died in what he calls “my war.”

Trescott, an Army Signal Corps major, was involved in three European assaults during the war. His unit, he said, suffered the highest percentage of casualties in the war.

“It’s just sort of a meditation thing I do on Memorial Day,” he said of his visit. He did not intend to let even the graduation ceremony interfere with it.

Trescott did not enter Western State to set a record. He did it partly because one of his daughters, Pamela Trescott Ashman, an Orange County business lawyer, challenged him to try it.

“I was always complaining about the government interfering with the small-business man,” he said. “So one day she said, ‘Why don’t you stop complaining and do something about it? Why don’t you go to law school?’ So I did.”

Trescott did not finish at the top of his graduating class, but neither was he at the bottom.

“So much of law school is memory, and some of these young folks are just whizzes at it,” he said. “I always went more by instinct than memory. But I did OK. Law school isn’t so bad once you get the hang of it.”

Referring to the other students, Trescott said he quickly came to feel “like I was one of them.”

“Age was not an issue,” he said. “Either you produce or you go.”

He likes telling, though, about a small class celebration for Norwood P. Beveridge, one of his professors, on the man’s 50th birthday.

“I told him, ‘Son, 50 really isn’t so bad.’ ” That brought a howl from the class.

Trescott was among the last in the alphabetical list to receive his degree in jurisprudence from Dean James M. Brower. He ambled slowly across the stage, giving the dean a big grin and a shaking his hand firmly. It was, he said later, a moment to savor.

“It really was a great feeling,” he said. “I don’t always show it, but it was a big moment in my life.”

It clearly was for his family, too--his wife Helen, two daughters, a sister from Rhode Island, a granddaughter and a son-in-law were all there to share it.

Arrived in 1947

Trescott came to to Southern California from Rhode Island in 1947 and became involved in the agricultural chemical business. Fifteen years ago, as agriculture in the county was waning, he said, Trescott decided to switch careers. He worked as salesman for a small hydraulic valve company, eventually becoming its general manager and a vice president.

Trescott then worked as a consultant and “sort of dwindled down to retirement” in the late 1970s. But he was never content sitting at home, he said. He was looking for a new interest, he said, when his daughter inspired him to think about the law. He wants to specialize in business law, as his daughter has. Indeed, he expects to practice with her.

“People really don’t know how much the government gets involved in small business,” he said. “I want to try to do something to help these people. Because I’m retired, fees won’t be that important to me. The quality of my service is what matters to me.”

The first thing, of course, is to pass the bar exam. Trescott said he will take it in February.

During the lighthearted exchanges with his family after the ceremony, his daughter’s husband, Charles Ashman, asked him teasingly: “Pop, who is going to be senior in the office? The one with the most legal experience or the one who’s the oldest?”

Pamela Trescott Ashman hugged her father proudly and said, “We’ll just flip a coin.”