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ELIZABETH STAWICKI: In 1953, Walter Mondale, felt the combination of joy and outright terror that comes with the first day of law school.

WALTER MONDALE: For most of us, it's pretty audacious to think you could become a lawyer. That was more true then than now, maybe, but this was a pretty gutsy thing to do.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: Mondale worked hard to get there. He washed windows, pots and pans. He waited tables. At 20 years old, he was already making a name in Minnesota politics by helping organize Hubert Humphrey's successful US Senate campaign in 1948. But it became clear to Mondale he needed a profession other than politics, and he chose law.

WALTER MONDALE: I needed my own skills, my own sense of self worth. I couldn't just latch on to the political system and feel independent. I wanted to be in the Democratic Party, but I wanted to be there on terms where I could-- if I didn't agree with something, I could walk.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: Mondale didn't have the money for law school, so he enlisted in the Army in part to take advantage of the GI Bill. With that support, and free room and board at his mother's house, law school became a reality. He says law school changed his life.

WALTER MONDALE: I think young people have, if they're like me, when I grew up, a self confidence problem. You come up, you're not sure what you can make of your life. You're not sure what kind of stairs you can climb. And the law school for me not only gave me tools, but it encouraged me to believe that I could aim higher.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: His former classmates, like criminal defense attorney Ron Meshbesher says, while Mondale may have lacked self confidence, everyone else knew he was a rising star.

RON MESHBESHER: I remember going to his wedding, and my fiance had never met Mondale before. And she explained to her who he was. And I said, keep your eye on this guy because he is going to be governor of the state of Minnesota someday. And she says, how do you know it? I said, I just know it. This guy is going to be governor of the state. Well, he made a liar out of me because he skipped the governorship and became a United States Senator and then, of course, Vice President.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: Getting into law school during the 1950s was fairly easy. Staying there and rising to the top of the class was difficult. That's according to Mondale's former bankruptcy law professor, Mike Sovern. Sovern left the U shortly after Mondale graduated and eventually became president of Columbia University. Later, Sovern helped Mondale prepare for the 1984 presidential debates by playing the role of Ronald Reagan. He remembers Mondale, the student.

MIKE SOVEREIGN: He wasn't average. He was one of that very special group-- bright, attractive, obviously people with sparkling futures. But he was not alone in that.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: Mondale's class was filled with smart students who would become some of the state's brightest legal stars, including Mary Jeanne Coyne, the Minnesota Supreme Court's second woman justice, William Canby, who's now a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Doug Head, who, like Mondale, became Minnesota Attorney General, Larry Cohen, Mayor of Saint Paul and now Ramsey County's chief judge, and seatmate federal judge, Harry McLaughlin.

HARRY MCLAUGHLIN: He was quiet. He didn't raise his hand to be called upon very often, which, after you were there a little while, you realize it was a smart way to go because you could get yourself under the gun with some professor, and he would-- he or she would take it out on you for the rest of the day for some reason.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: Despite the tough competition, Mondale earned a spot on the law review, where he wrote an article about campaign finance reform. Decades later, that article was quoted by Republicans who noticed that Mondale, the law student, agreed with their stance against caps on campaign spending. President Clinton named Mondale to a bipartisan Commission on campaign finance reform in 1997. Mondale says he now disagrees with much of what he wrote in that article. The reason, the education he later received on big money in American politics.

WALTER MONDALE: The demoralization to the public from the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of dollars of unlimited amounts of money, selling the White House, of selling influence. Even though I think a lot of what goes on is honest, more honest than the public thinks, the spectacle every day of this big money slopping around undermines public confidence and trust.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: Another of Mondale's classmates, Attorney Don Weiss, a Republican, remembers Mondale as a hard working student who sparked heated political debates. Despite their political differences, Weiss says he never questioned Mondale's integrity then or now.

DON WEISS: There's never been a whiff of scandal or anything adverse, personal or otherwise, that has ever been associated with Mondale's name. And I think that was the impression we all had of him in school, and he has carried that on through his whole political career. And to this day, he is like that.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: The law school is naming its building Mondale Hall, not only because of his political successes, but also because of the integrity that Weiss describes. Retired Judge Harry McLaughlin says Mondale's integrity was instilled by Mondale's mother, Claribel.

HARRY MCLAUGHLIN: Fritz was very, very fond of her and felt very deeply that he wanted to live up to her standards as to what sort of a person he should be or what sort of a political figure he should be. I remember one time he was saying, boy, I wonder what my mother's going to that.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: The U of M law faculty was so impressed with Mondale, the student, it considered offering him a faculty position after his graduation, a fact he didn't know about until informed by MPR. Yale Kamisar, who joined the Minnesota Law School faculty in 1957, the year after Mondale left, remembers the discussion about Mondale.

YALE KAMISAR: And I remember that Mondale's name, because they called him Fritz Mondale, came up, and somebody said, yeah, I heard him speak. And he's a very forceful speaker, very insightful, very clear. And so he was somebody high on our list among recent Minnesota graduates. And then I think the feeling was, well, let him have some seasoning. And then the next thing we knew, he became attorney general.

ELIZABETH STAWICKI: Governor Orville Freeman appointed Mondale to Attorney General in 1960 to fill the vacancy left by Miles Lord, who was named US attorney. Mondale had just successfully managed Freeman's gubernatorial campaign. Mondale was just 32 years old and only four years out of law school when he became attorney general.

Mondale and Yale Kamisar's paths would cross again and make legal history. As attorney general, Mondale and Kamisar filed a brief on behalf of a Florida man named Clarence Gideon who couldn't afford a defense attorney. At the time, states were not required to provide attorneys to poor defendants charged with serious crimes. As a result of Mondale and Kamisar's brief, defendants charged with serious crimes in both federal and state courts are provided attorneys if they cannot afford one. The Gideon case is required reading for all first year law students. I'm Elizabeth Stawicki. Minnesota Public Radio.