Allan Stewart received his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of New England (the one in Australia) on Saturday, October 7. This is notable for two reasons: (1) he finished a year and a half early, and (2) he is 91 years old.
Stewart said he had hurried to finish the program because he didn't want to die before he got his law degree. "There is a saying in law that time is of the essence," he said. "I think if I had let it run too much longer I might not have finished it." I think he was in such a hurry that he missed the second part of that saying, which actually goes "Time is of the essence, so for God's sake don't waste it by starting law school when you're already eighty-seven years old." If time was of the essence in that sense, I wouldn't spend any of it learning the Rule Against Perpetuities, that's for sure. Although, now that I think about it, I didn't learn the Rule Against Perpetuities anyway.
It actually takes six years to finish a law degree in Australia, apparently (Stewart did it in four and a half). According to him, however, it wasn't the duration or the content of the classes that was the biggest challenge. It was learning to use the Internet. "I was not literate in computers at all," said Stewart, described by the AP as a "sprightly nonagenarian" who was born in 1905. "I was completely self-taught as far as that was concerned." Showoff.
Link: AP via FindLaw.com
