Donor Spotlight: Doling Family Legacy Lives On

Albany Law School has always been there for Stuart P. Doling ’63. As the story goes, law school instructor Andrew Clements—who would later become dean—gave Stuart’s father a ride to the hospital when Stuart was born in 1938.

That, plus the fact that Stuart’s father, Irving, and an uncle, Harold Altus, had graduated from Albany, made Stuart’s decision to attend an easy one—and the right one.

“I’ve always felt that I had a great deal to be grateful for,” Stuart says. “Most of my teachers were extraordinarily good. They taught me life lessons, not just their subject matter.”

Law school was especially enjoyable for Stuart because of his relationship with his father. Each day, he would share with his dad what he had just learned.

“I wasn’t looking for him to teach me. He was asking me to show him what had gone on,” says Stuart, who is retired from New York state government. “At times we disagreed and had interesting conversations. The thing that those discussions did for me was that I never once at the law school had the feeling that a teacher could ask me a question and I couldn’t deal with it.”

For Stuart, giving back to the law school was another easy decision. He created the Doling Family Scholarship, a nod to his father and to the scholarships Stuart received when he was in school.

Next, Stuart funded a summer fellowship aimed at helping women and children who enter the legal system for issues of abuses and abandonment with their immigration problems. He also chose the school as part owner of a life insurance policy.

“I use what they taught me in law school every day. Every single day of my life,” Stuart says. “That imposes an obligation to give something back. That’s the way I see it.”