The following is reprinted with permission from The Daily Reporter, April 27, 2001. It appeared in the paper’s weekly section on the Columbus Bar Association.

The 2000 Columbus Bar Association’s Directory listed over 150 law schools as alma maters for the city’s practicing attorneys.

The directory has never listed members’ undergraduate institutions; however, if such a list were to appear in a future edition, the list of graduates from Wittenberg University in Springfield would read like a veritable “who’s who” in Columbus law.

Compared to the mammoth 48,000- student enrollment of Ohio State, Wittenberg is a small school which today, enrolls about 2,000 students each year. From those small numbers have come several of Columbus’ most influential practitioners.

John Waddy, ’75, solo practitioner and two-time appointee to the Ohio Bar of Examiners; Janet Jackson, ’75, former Assistant Attorney General and judge who currently serves as Columbus’ City Attorney; Larry James, ’74, the first African-American attorney to be named partner at a traditionally majority law firm (Crabb Brown & James); Peter Davis, ’72, executive director of the Correctional Institutions Inspection Committee of the Ohio General Assembly; Christopher Jones, ’78, magistrate, Franklin County Court of Common Pleas; Jeffrey Brown, ’76, managing partner for the law firm Crabb Brown & James; and Yeura Venters, ’74, Director of the Franklin County Public Defender’s Office.

The CBA recently spoke with Janet Jackson and Yeura Venters and asked the two public sector chiefs about their memories of being Wittenberg Tigers, and how that experience helped shape them into the leaders they both have become.

When asked what single factor she thought was most influential in the success of the many Wittenberg alumni practicing law in high profile positions in Columbus, the city attorney talked about the Wittenberg faculty, and how the professors paid extraordinary attention to the student body both academically and socially.

Characterizing them as “incredibly nurturing,” Jackson credits her professors with helping her and others realize the most from their individual talents.

A native of Randolph, Virginia, Jackson knew little about Wittenberg until a summer visit with relatives living in Pickaway County resulted in a brief excursion to the public library in London, Ohio.

There, Jackson says, she saw a photograph of the quaint campus and “fell in love.” “Wittenberg gave me so much, and I tell people that I could never pay back that debt.

What I try to do instead is ‘pay forward’ by giving as much time as I can,” Jackson said. Today Jackson serves Wittenberg in a number of capacities such as being a regular university speaker and as an alumni association officer.

Yeura Venters, the recently appointed Director of the Franklin County Public Defender’s Offices, had to travel even farther to find the Springfield campus. Venters is originally from Houston, Texas, but has equally fond memories of his stay at WU.

He says that Wittenberg allowed him and other African-American students to freely express themselves and remembers playing an active role in helping to shape university policy regarding African- American studies.

The campus student organization, Concerned Black Students, of which he, Jackson, Davis and several others were members, was “instrumental in making sure black students had a voice,” Venters said.

When describing his classmates, the words “passionate,” “committed,” “purposeful,” “focused” and “hard-working” appeared several times in his retrospective assessments. “No one’s success comes as a surprise to me,” Venters said.

“I knew then that I was surrounded by people who would be successful, because each of us realized what a great opportunity we had been afforded.”

Today, Venters says he uses his Wittenberg experience as a model for his current leadership position by ensuring that his staff has an opportunity to brainstorm, to freely express their ideas, and to put forth their best work in furtherance of goals.”

— The Daily Reporter