HILARIE BASS, ’81
Momentum2 Campaign
MOMENTUM2
The BRICKS Add BASS
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hen Hilarie Bass was a student at Miami Law, the law school quadrangle known as the “Bricks” was the gathering spot for catching up with classmates, comparing notes, and chatting up the occasional professor. Today, it bears her name as a testament to the influence Miami Law has had in her life. Bass, J.D.’81, is the CoPresident and top female executive at the storied international law firm, Greenberg Traurig. The firm, founded in Miami in 1967, now has offices in 36 cities throughout the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. “I chose the Bricks because it is the center of campus life at the School of Law,” said the native Miamian. “I have fond memories of the time I spent there and hope that future students who gather on the Bricks will leave inspired to fulfill their own dreams and great successes within the legal community.”
Her $1 million commitment to Miami Law will honor the value of practical experience and training afforded to the school’s law students. “The law school taught me to solve people’s problems; being a good lawyer is more than just being able to write a great 20-page memo. While detailed legal analysis is the foundation on which everything else is based, clients want a straightforward, twosentence answer about how you can solve their problems. I have to credit Miami Law with teaching me those important skills,” Bass said. Even though as a young girl she dreamt of stage and screen, going so far as to win the nation’s most highly regarded student award—the Silver Knight—in drama, and as a budding young actress in New York with a recurring role on the soap opera Somerset, she would eventually find herself leveraging her magna cum laude degree in political science from
George Washington University for a spot at Miami Law. Bass loved law school. “It was like a mind meld; I totally got it. I got what they were looking for,” she said. “I loved taking law school exams; it was like a game.” Not surprisingly, she graduated first in her class, summa cum laude, and as editor of the University of Miami Law Review. She would morph a summer internship into a 30-year (and counting) career at Greenberg Traurig, never forgetting the institution that armed her with the skills for success. The spunky, dark-haired beauty is a vice chair of the University of Miami Board of Trustees, a member of the School of Law’s Visiting Committee and Momentum2 Campaign Committee, as well as generous contributor to UM’s School of Education and Human Development, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Athletics.
Alumna and Board of Trustee Member Laurie Silvers and Husband Establish Named Scholarship at Miami Law
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ew non-practicing attorneys regret the hours and the effort they put into law school. In fact, quite the reverse; they credit their education with their achievements, no matter the arenas of their choice. Laurie Silvers is no exception. Even though she would practice law for ten years, she would go on to build a media empire. She was the CoFounder of the wildly successful SyFy Channel. She is owner of Home Town