Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law is pleased to announce a recent gift of $2.78 million dollars from the Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation to benefit the law school’s library.

Mr. & Mrs .Darling relief artwork


A relief of Hugh and Hazel Darling installed in the Law Library entrance after the Darling Foundation’s first gift of $1.5 million.



The Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation has had a longstanding relationship with Fowler School of Law, and specifically the law library, for more than a decade. This most recent gift made by Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Trustee Rick Stack on behalf of the foundation will be combined with previous donations to total $5 million. In recognition of the foundation’s generosity, the law library will be renamed the Hugh and Hazel Darling Law Library in the spring.

The gift will be invested in a permanent endowment.  The income from the endowment will supplement the compensation for the Law Librarian Chair, now occupied by Professor Linda Kawaguchi. Whenever a gift of an endowed chair is made, Chapman University allows the donor to name an individual whose bronze sculpture will be placed on campus to inspire our students. In this instance, Mr. Stack has asked that the bronze bust be of Winston Churchill, as he was a hero to Hugh and Hazel Darling.

“We continue to be immensely grateful to the Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation for their ongoing and very generous support of the Fowler School of Law, its programs and its library,” said Tom Campbell, dean of the Fowler School.  “The law library is at the heart of a law school, the nexus of its knowledge and scholarship, providing research assistance, reference materials, instruction to students in doing their own research, and a place to study without distraction. There could be no more appropriate names to associate with our law library than those of Hugh and Hazel Darling, given their lifelong reverence for language, scholarship and achievement.”

The Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation was founded in 1987 by Hazel Darling in honor of her late husband with the goal of advancing legal education in California with particular emphasis on support of legal education and programs calculated to impart a better understanding and appreciation of the legal system under which we live. After graduating from the University of Southern California School of Law in 1927, Hugh Darling practiced law for 58 years in Southern California. Over the course of his career, Hugh also served as president of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, a member and vice president of the State Bar Board of Governors, mayor of Beverly Hills in 1960, and lecturer at the UCLA law school.

Fowler School of Law will host a special ceremony to dedicate the Hugh and Hazel Darling Library in the spring.

Read more in
The Orange County Register
.