Transformational gift
by Catherine Deyarmond
At the St. Mary’s University School of Law, the intersection of business and the law is embedded in its history. Still, a transformational philanthropic gift will allow this area of legal education to flourish to an unprecedented level for future generations of students.
A well-rounded understanding of business and the law has enabled many St. Mary’s Law alumni to enjoy successful careers armed with the ability to manage their own private practices. At the same time, other graduates have chosen to work in transactional and business law, where their knowledge is critical to private, public and governmental entities.
Before his death in 2022 at the age of 80, Bennie Walter Bock II, a 1968 graduate of the School of Law and a longtime New Braunfels resident, was in discussions with the University about a gift to create a new center for business and transactional law.
The $5 million gift from the Oatman Hill Foundation establishes the Bennie W. Bock II Center for Business and Transaction Law at St. Mary’s, which includes a program fund, an endowed professorship and a student support fund. The Oatman Hill Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created by Bock’s estate for such philanthropic gifts.
“St. Mary’s University is incredibly grateful for the generosity of the Oatman Hill Foundation and the lasting legacy of Bennie Walter Bock II for enriching the educational pathways of our School of Law students,” said St. Mary’s University President Winston Erevelles, Ph.D. “By creating the new Bennie W. Bock II Center for Business and Transaction Law, this gift will elevate the study of business law in our region through the many careers it will inspire.”
Bock, a seventh-generation Texan, was a passionate public servant, businessman, attorney and rancher. Born in Lockhart, his family moved to New Braunfels when he was 3. He earned his B.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and his J.D. from
St. Mary’s Law.
For 10 years, he served as a Texas State Representative for Comal, Guadalupe and Caldwell counties. After his tenure in the Legislature, Bock lobbied on behalf of farmers and ranchers, raised and showed cutting horses and racehorses, owned and operated many businesses, including an automobile dealership and a radio station, and continued to practice law.
“St. Mary’s University is incredibly grateful for the generosity of the Oatman Hill Foundation and the lasting legacy of Bennie Walter Bock II for enriching the educational pathways of our School of Law students.”
— St. Mary’s University President Winston Erevelles, Ph.D.
Suzanne Bock Badger, his daughter, said this gift is a legacy that supports her father’s interest in innovations in the law.
“Dad was a visionary who believed in using the resources that God gives you not only to better yourself but to help others,” she said. “Dad was very passionate about helping people in the community who needed it.”
Badger said her father welcomed new lawyers to the community.
“Many young lawyers benefited from his generosity,” she said. “He would introduce them to leaders in the community and serve as a resource while they were starting out. Dad would love the idea that this gift is helping the next generation of lawyers.”
The Hon. William D. Old III, J.D., judge presiding over the 25th Judicial District of Texas, serves as director of the Oatman Hill Foundation. Old said Bock mentored him during law school and throughout his career. Bock created the foundation to support education and the arts.
“St. Mary’s is the perfect vehicle, and the new center is the perfect avenue for advancing education in business and the law,” Old said. “Bennie found a home at St. Mary’s School of Law. He was proud to be a St. Mary’s graduate.”
Through the gift, Old said Bock’s legacy “can address the need to educate law students who will serve their community either by assisting businesses or having their own business; not all students are meant to be litigators.”
“This gift will allow students to make their lives better and to serve the public,” he said.”
A legacy of leaders
School of Law Dean Patricia Roberts, J.D., said this gift will be transformative not only because of its size but because of its focus on business and transactional law, an area of legal education with significant existing faculty expertise to build on in response to the growing student interest.
“Mr. Bock’s legacy will educate generations of law students who will become leaders in their communities and in the businesses of tomorrow,” Roberts said.
The Bennie W. Bock II Center for Business and Transaction Law fund will be created with the goal of developing opportunities for students to learn how to successfully navigate the legal and business worlds with a focus on ensuring that law graduates are prepared for the business acumen needed for the rapidly changing field of law practice. Initial center activities are projected to begin in the Fall 2025 semester.
“The center will offer us the opportunity to have an umbrella for all business law activities that we are already engaged in and will be a place where our new transactional law clinic can be housed,” Roberts said. “The future of business and law can be explored through the center with burgeoning technological advances in both fields. Students who are more interested in transactional work than litigation will now have a place to explore their interest.”
The center will house a business transactions clinic and other initiatives that may include curriculum, programming and experiential learning opportunities for students. The clinic will serve businesses and entrepreneurs while providing transactional training for law students. The center also will support interdisciplinary initiatives involving faculty and students from other academic schools.
The gift creates the Bennie W. Bock II Professorship to fund the center’s leadership.
“The endowed professorship will provide a talented business law leader the opportunity to direct the center and determine strategic plans to meet the needs of the University, law school and future students,” she said.
The center also establishes the Bennie W. Bock II Student Fund, an endowed fund to support student participation at the new center. This will support Bock Scholars, talented School of Law students interested in business and entrepreneurship, with scholarships or learning opportunities outside of the classroom.
“This final allocation of the gift will support student initiatives and activities that are important to the center, including interdisciplinary student opportunities across the University,” Roberts added.
A strong history
Ramona Lampley, J.D., Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, said she is excited to see this generous gift allow St. Mary’s Law to take educational efforts to the next level.
“St. Mary’s Law has always had a strong set of faculty members who are experts and teach in business law areas ranging from business associations to the Uniform Commercial Code to human rights implications and social governance implications for businesses,” she said. “Now, we are going to be able to help our students take their learning and knowledge to the next level and enable them to be even more successful business and legal innovators and entrepreneurs.”
Lampley said when students first start law school, they are apprehensive about financial classes or classes that involve sophisticated business concepts, adding, “We do a great job as educators to make the material relatable and accessible to our students.”
Lampley, also a Professor of Law, teaches a number of law courses, including Constitutional Law, Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) Article 2, UCC Article 9 and Consumer Finance.
While students may be uncomfortable with learning something like UCC Article 9 Secured Transactions at first, they attain enough knowledge and insight that they may want to clerk for a bankruptcy judge or work for a law firm structuring million-dollar deals, she said.
“Business and the law are incredibly interrelated,” Lampley said. “As we know, business drives the economy. There is a significant need for lawyers who are specially trained in business law and have the foundational skills to embrace that practice or even start their own business with the legal insight.”
Lampley said the gift also will support the School of Law’s joint J.D. and MBA with the Greehey School of Business.
“We are the only university in town with a law school and a business school. These students get exposure to the two biggest fields for professionals in law and business,” she said.
In addition to the joint graduate degree, the University began offering a new B.B.A. in Business and Law major in Fall 2023. The major, a collaboration between the Greehey School of Business and the School of Law, is unique among San Antonio’s universities.
A continued integration
Rishi Batra, J.D., Professor of Law, agreed that St. Mary’s Law has a forward-thinking approach that integrates experiential learning, interdisciplinary perspectives and technology into the business law curriculum.
Batra teaches Contracts Law, Property Law, Intellectual Property and Alternative Dispute Resolution.
“Our students have opportunities to engage in real-world simulations, transactional drafting and negotiation exercises, allowing them to build practical skills before they enter the workplace,” he said. “Additionally, our focus on legal technology, entrepreneurship and dispute resolution prepares students to navigate emerging challenges in the legal industry.”
The law school’s commitment “to accessibility, innovation and student success ensures that our graduates are not only well-versed in legal principles but also prepared to apply them in dynamic and evolving business environments,” Batra added.
Chad Pomeroy, J.D., Professor of Law and James N. Castleberry Jr. Chair of Oil and Gas Law, said the basics of business law are important to every kind of lawyer.
“If you want to practice business or transactional law, all facets of business law are important to you,” he said. “Even if you don’t, there are few practices that don’t have some level of facility with business law. Whether you are litigating or involved in family law or estate planning, all these areas of law will likely at some point touch upon some aspect of business law.”
Pomeroy, who teaches business and property-focused classes, said many St. Mary’s Law alumni open their own practices or are involved in closely held practices for which “the information, ideas and legal concepts we communicate in connection to business law will be important to them.”
A career specialty
Samantha Alecozay (J.D. ’20), Practicing Faculty, is a formally trained opera singer who earned her Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of the Incarnate Word before starting law school. In her first year, she took Contracts with Colin Marks, J.D., Ernest W. Clemens Professor of Law, who convinced her to take Secured Transactions in her second year.
In the transactions class, Alecozay said it all clicked for her.
“Everything made sense now: the code structure, the comment structure by the drafters, the formulaic approach, the way all these provisions work,” she said. “All the components have to work together. It affects everything, whether you buy a house or groceries. Secured transactions are everywhere.”
She said she took all the classes she could related to secured transactions.
“It is what I love,” she said. “I found my passion because it is just this great structure of how certain statutory laws work.”
Alecozay went on to found Alecozay Law Firm, PLLC, specializing in the areas of corporate law and corporate bankruptcy. She returned to campus to teach Secured Transactions.
She said she believes the new gift will allow St. Mary’s Law to continue to expand its efforts to teach corporate transactions and litigation.
“Business law is so critical because it is what makes the world go around,” she said. “Having knowledge of these systems, regardless of whether you own your own practice, makes a difference for students’ personal and professional lives to have these skills that are offered through business law courses.”
A new generation
Daniel Ramirez, who will graduate in May with his J.D., said the business law classes he has taken helped him while working in the summer of 2024 for a civil litigation firm.
“Our faculty has a lot of experience, and I really learned when they shared their personal legal experiences throughout the courses,” he said. “It was exciting remembering what I had learned and using it at the law firm.”
Ramirez loved the business law courses because of the complexity.
“There are no easy answers,” he said. “You have to go through a couple of cases. Every time is a little different.”
Truc Nguyen, who also graduates with her J.D. this May, said she is a non-traditional student, starting law school nine years after completing her undergraduate degree. Nguyen previously worked at small businesses overseeing bank reconciliations, financial reports, annual audits and payroll.
“Business law was what interested me and what I’m good at,” she said. “It circles back to what I did before law school.”
With graduation coming soon, Nguyen said she hopes to work for a firm where she can be involved in business and corporate law, intellectual property and financing.
“I would like to stay on the transactional side of law,” she added. “I hope to work with small businesses and individual clients. The idea of helping a startup company by being a consultant or strategist as they navigate growing their business and the law would be very fulfilling.”
As a first-generation college student, Nguyen said she truly appreciates Lampley and her other professors sharing with her the opportunities to work in business-centered law careers.
“I have talked to so many professors about my plans after law school,” she said.
“They have been extremely helpful in giving me ideas about getting where I want to be. I appreciate the foundation in business and the law that I received at the School of Law.”
With the $5 million legacy gift from alumnus Bock, St. Mary’s Law is poised to prepare generations of future law students to enjoy successful careers involved in business and the law.
