On the first day of law school, Bill Allport (LAW ’69) stood on the steps of the old law school building, waiting for the doors to open, and struck up a conversation with a handful of other students. It seemed ordinary at the time. Looking back, it marked the beginning of friendships that would last a lifetime.
“About seven or eight people got together,” Allport recalled. “It’s absolutely incredible to believe this, but we were still together all the years since we graduated.”
Those friendships, Christine Lewanski (LAW ’95) said, were part of her upbringing. Bill’s daughter and a fellow School of Law alumna, she grew up watching her father and his classmates remain deeply connected to one another and to the law school. “I remember going to Squire Valley View Farm for their reunion,” she said. “Every single one of those classmates was incredibly successful in their careers.” More striking than their accomplishments, though, was their loyalty. “It’s just really extraordinary,” she said, “to have found a group of friends and they stayed together—just complete loyalty to one another.”
For Allport, that special bond reflects what makes Case Western Reserve University School of Law special: rigorous legal training paired with enduring friendships. More than half a century after his graduation, Allport still speaks of the school with the affection of someone who found not only a profession there, but a lifelong community.
In some ways, his path to CWRU was preordained. “I was actually born in Cleveland,” he said. His family later moved to Pennsylvania, then back to Cleveland, and on again to Connecticut and New York as his father’s career advanced. Despite the distance, the school remained a familiar presence. “My dad graduated from Case Western Reserve, and my mom and all her sisters and brothers graduated from Western Reserve,” Allport said. “So I knew it well.”
When it came time to choose a law school, familiarity was only part of the draw. So was the school’s reputation. “Case Western Reserve was number one in Ohio,” he said of the rankings he consulted as a prospective student. “And we were ranked in the top 20 in the nation, which was an unbelievable draw.”
Once enrolled, he embraced the demands of legal study with energy and purpose. “I was picked for the law review,” he said, later serving as one of its editors. He remembers the faculty with deep admiration, especially the legendary Professor Lew Katz, who Allport and his classmates honored by creating a scholarship fund in his name. “The professors were great,” Allport said. “They were just such good people.”
Law school in those years required a different kind of discipline. “Of course, in those days, we didn’t have computers or anything like it,” he said. “So you had to spend all your time at the law school, looking at the books themselves.” Allport lived in the nearby Little Italy neighborhood and could walk to campus, immersing himself fully in the life of the school. “We spent a ton of time there,” he said. “It was great.”
What has remained with him most, though, was the character of the people around him. From faculty to classmates to staff, “Case was a place built on seriousness of purpose, humility and mutual regard.”
That spirit has stayed with him to this day. Over the years, Allport built a distinguished legal career while remaining deeply involved with the law school through alumni leadership, class fundraising and volunteer service. “We all wanted to do it, because we liked the law school so much,” he said. His commitment was recognized with induction into the Society of Benchers, a distinction made even more meaningful because his closest law school friends were there to celebrate with him.
By the time Lewanski was applying to law school, CWRU already occupied a special place in her imagination. “It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing to come to Case Western Reserve,” she said. Though she considered other options, she was drawn by the school’s reputation, alumni network and professional opportunities. “The reputation in Cleveland, at that time, was unparalleled,” she said. “The networking of alumni was a huge benefit for me too.”
Her own law school experience echoed her father’s in meaningful ways. She remembers the first-year cohort model as an instant source of connection. “You really bonded with them because it was all so new,” she said. Coming from a small liberal arts college, the transition was significant, but so was the growth. “I really loved law school,” Lewanski said. “I would go back in a heartbeat.”
For Allport, seeing his daughter graduate from his alma mater was almost too emotional to describe. “I can’t begin to tell you how happy and how proud I am,” he said.
Lewanski understands her degree as part of something larger than herself. “You feel like a part of a continuum,” she said.
That may be the best way to describe the family’s connection to the Case Western Reserve School of Law: a continuum of family, friendship, service and shared purpose. In Allport’s life, the school offered far more than a legal education. It gave him a circle of friends who helped shape Cleveland, a professional home he never stopped serving and a legacy his daughter now carries forward.
