Class Note 2000
Issue
May-June 2026
Class Note 2000. This month I heard from Lucy Buford Ricca, who was recently appointed executive director of the Stanford Law School William H. and Sally B. Neukom Center for the Rule of Law.
I was curious to know how she ended up there, and Lucy was kind enough to share some backstory. As Lucy told me, not all of us knew exactly where we fit in the world in the first decade after graduation. For some of us, “It’s only in the last five to 10 years that we have really found ourselves.”
As a history major, she had no real premonition of a legal career. But after graduation she traveled abroad in South Africa and interned at an impact litigation firm.
This led her to the University of Virginia law school, a clerkship in Virginia, and then six years at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in San Francisco. With time, she began to realize that neither “full-time lawyer” nor “full-time law professor” was where she belonged.
As an undergrad in Rocky taking the Women in Government course, Lucy was captivated by the assigned Justice and Gender, a landmark book by law professor Deborah Rhode. Intrigued by an opening at the Stanford Law School Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession, she applied and was named executive director.
Working there, she finally found her place: bridging the gap between academia and the world outside of it.
Moving to the Neukom Center was a logical extension of her work at the Rhode Center. The name Neukom likely sounds familiar: Bill Neukom ’64, who passed away last year, began advising Microsoft when it was all of 12 employees and was a Dartmouth trustee during our time at the College. He was also the father of Jay ’97.
Outside her professional life, Lucy is married to a law school classmate and has two teenage sons. When not in the San Francisco area, they can often be found skiing in nearby Tahoe.
—Ben Patch, 56 Ridge Road, Bristol, RI 02809; dartmouth2000secretary@gmail.com
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I was curious to know how she ended up there, and Lucy was kind enough to share some backstory. As Lucy told me, not all of us knew exactly where we fit in the world in the first decade after graduation. For some of us, “It’s only in the last five to 10 years that we have really found ourselves.”
As a history major, she had no real premonition of a legal career. But after graduation she traveled abroad in South Africa and interned at an impact litigation firm.
This led her to the University of Virginia law school, a clerkship in Virginia, and then six years at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in San Francisco. With time, she began to realize that neither “full-time lawyer” nor “full-time law professor” was where she belonged.
As an undergrad in Rocky taking the Women in Government course, Lucy was captivated by the assigned Justice and Gender, a landmark book by law professor Deborah Rhode. Intrigued by an opening at the Stanford Law School Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession, she applied and was named executive director.
Working there, she finally found her place: bridging the gap between academia and the world outside of it.
Moving to the Neukom Center was a logical extension of her work at the Rhode Center. The name Neukom likely sounds familiar: Bill Neukom ’64, who passed away last year, began advising Microsoft when it was all of 12 employees and was a Dartmouth trustee during our time at the College. He was also the father of Jay ’97.
Outside her professional life, Lucy is married to a law school classmate and has two teenage sons. When not in the San Francisco area, they can often be found skiing in nearby Tahoe.
—Ben Patch, 56 Ridge Road, Bristol, RI 02809; dartmouth2000secretary@gmail.com