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When law school alum Bill Bates moved back to the Peninsula from San Francisco five years ago, he made a conscious effort to reconnect with Stanford.
"Since I was going to be living in Stanford's backyard and taking advantage of what it has to offer to the community, I was even more motivated and realized the importance of getting involved," says Bates, a partner handling high-tech commercial litigation at the law firm of Bingham McCutchen.
Bates and his wife, Kay, enjoy all the campus has to offer, from the docent tours of the Rodin sculptures at the Cantor Arts Center to evening refresher courses in French. In return, Bates has become a law school annual fund donor and serves as a member of the school's Board of Visitors and co-chair of the Silicon Valley Law Society. He also is an inaugural member of the Dean's Circle Leadership Council, through which he encourages fellow alumni to give.
"The law school is very dependent on the support of alumni to maintain its quality of programs," he says. "The business and high-tech programs at the law school are amazing, and absolutely appropriate for a leading university that finds itself situated in the heart of Silicon Valley.
"It always amazes me to see how high tuition is and realize it supports only a portion of the cost of running the school," Bates adds. "In my mind, a commitment to support the school is a lifelong, continuing process, because the school's livelihood depends on it. It's a belief every alum should share: that they should be giving back."
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