Morgan took a patch of dirt and vague wishes from the legal community and in less than 10 years transformed them into one of the nation's most respected new law schools.

The school's clinics and graduates' dedication to pro bono work have made it a vital element of the local legal community.

Morgan retired last year after a decade at the law school's helm and nearly 30 years in academia.

Within weeks of retiring, Morgan was working in a part-time consulting position for the state's largest law firm, Lionel Sawyer & Collins.

He also serves as a consultant for the Vista Group and continues work on numerous boards and committees.

He said he finds his new roles - in which he is not the boss - refreshing.

Answer: Oh, I feel very good about it. Obviously it's a place that I miss. There are a lot of people there who I like very much, and I'm very, very proud of the program. And I had a great 10 years as founding dean of that law school.

But I'm very happy to have moved on to do other things and to watch the successful change in leadership at the Boyd Law School.

I think new leadership every now and again - and a decade is certainly every now and again - is a good thing.

I'm happy that the law school has good, new leadership, and I'm happy that I'm freed of the responsibility of being dean of the law school.

It's much different. It really is much different. As you said, I left the practice of law in 1980 and so it has been almost 30 years that I've been away.

I'm not really practicing law now. I'm "of counsel" to the firm, which means I consult with the firm on a variety of matters - try to assist them - but I'm not a lawyer in the same sense that I was in the 1970s when I practiced law in Los Angeles.

I'm enjoying my role with Lionel Sawyer very much. (The people there) have been very good to me - they're offering me interesting projects to work on and to consult on.

In addition, I've taken on some boards of directors and compliance committee kinds of assignments as well. I'm a consultant to another company, to the Vista Group, which is run by Mike Saltman.

So I have a whole variety of part-time, interesting consulting kind of roles that I'm playing, and I like it very much.

I don't have any single responsibility for one enterprise as I did during the years that I was dean of three different law schools, but I have very interesting projects to work on and very good and sophisticated people to work with.

And I'm still finding time to get out of town with my wife on personal and family trips. It's been a nice change of pace.

Being dean of a law school involves a lot of consensus-building, trying to establish a vision for the enterprise; trying to foresee what in the long term the enterprise - the law school - can accomplish; trying to articulate a vision to get there; helping to set goals to get there for that long-term vision; and trying to get the people in the law school to buy into that through consensus-building and persuasion.

The kinds of projects that I work on in the law firm are more short-term kinds of projects. I think I'm helping to build the law firm for the future, but it's not my responsibility to set the vision and to get everybody on board.

I work on discrete projects, which, if I succeed in making them work out well, will make the law firm a better place. But I'm not the overall visionary, not the overall orchestrator of the good of the law firm.

No! It has not been difficult for me. It's been surprising.

When I announced my retirement from the deanship of the Boyd Law School, I really thought that I was going to be mostly retired. You know, sitting around doing whatever it is that retired people do.

I knew that I would have a couple of compliance committees for gaming companies on which I would serve, but I didn't expect those to take too much of my time.

I was surprised - and grateful - that once I announced my retirement I had a number of folks come to me and say, "We'd like to retain you to assist us on a consulting basis," including Lionel Sawyer & Collins, which offered me an "of counsel" position, and Mike Saltman, who offered me a consulting role at the Vista Group.

I was surprised by the number of expressions of interest I got from people. I mean, I'm just a broken-down administrator, and I didn't know if there was anything useful I could do for folks, but I got a number of very interesting part-time jobs.

So I guess the part about the transition that's been most surprising is how busy I've been.

In addition to the part-time paying engagements that I have, of which there are several, I'm also involved in a number of volunteer boards and organizations. I'm helping with Opportunity Village matters and Clark County Legal Services matters, and I'm doing a lot of work for the American Bar Association in its stewardship of law schools around the country and I'm still on the board of the National Judicial College up in Reno.

Well, in terms of the law firm offer, Lionel Sawyer & Collins is a firm for which I've had great admiration ever since I came to Las Vegas. There are many fine firms in Las Vegas for which I have great admiration, but this one's right at the top of the heap.

The senior people in this firm are excellent examples of professionalism and what lawyers ought to be. I was very flattered that this firm asked me to come in on an "of counsel" basis.

So, for me, it was an easy choice just because I've had such great respect for people like Sam Lionel and Bob Faiss and Paul Hejmanowski and Dick Bryan and Cam Ferenbach. The people at the top of this firm, I think, are second to none. I talked to a few other law firms as well, but this was the one that I really was focused on the entire time.

In the other areas, if the organization that asks me to work appears to be a quality organization I've tended to say yes.

I'm working on some strategic advising and consulting for a number of clients in the higher education area.

Because of my expertise in starting law schools and in dealing with legislative and regential matters, I'm working with higher education clients around the country that are either thinking about starting law schools, have started law schools and want help in improving those law schools or clients that are dealing with legislative or regential issues.

So it's really kind of government relations, lobbying, consulting more than it is lawyering. It's not real lawyering.

I'm also out in the community, giving speeches and serving on boards and participating in philanthropic activities and trying to be visible, all in the name of Lionel Sawyer & Collins. And hoping that my efforts in the community will help bring clients and business to the firm. And I continue to use my connections in Las Vegas to try to bring business to the firm.

Not at the moment. I mean that could change. It depends on the role that I decide to play in the law firm. If I become a practicing lawyer and represent clients in all phases of legal matters, I'll have to. But that isn't my plan.

When the firm took me on, they wanted me as a consultant, community relations, internal education type as I've described. The roles that I'm playing in the law firm don't require a license. I'm very careful to limit myself to consulting kind of things as opposed to giving legal advice.

So I don't have a plan to take the bar exam. It's a very painful thing to gear up and take an exam. And, of course, there's always the risk that you flunk it, which would be mortifying.

But mainly it's the fact that I don't intend to practice law again. And if I don't practice law again, there's no need to have a law license in Nevada.

If that changes, and I decide either that I'm so eager to practice law that I want to do it again, or that I need for some reason to have a law license to appropriately represent a client, then I'll take the bar. But I hope not to. I took one bar exam back in 1971, and that was enough.

Not really. I mean, when I was dean, the word that I got from most of the lawyers in the community who commented on our students was a positive word. Most of what I heard about our students were good things: that the school was turning out people who were good writers and professional and people who were devoting themselves disproportionately to pro bono and community service projects.

Occasionally I'd hear a bad thing about a specific student where a lawyer had observed some behavior in court or in negotiations of a Boyd student that he or she didn't like, but that was fairly rare. Most of the general comments were quite glowing. And I would say it's the same now.

I heard yesterday a negative comment about a particular Boyd student regarding lack of professionalism, but mostly what I hear either around the law firm or from other lawyers in the community are positive comments - that the school is doing well.

In fact the (Las Vegas) Sun ran an article a while back about Boyd graduates and the contributions they're making to pro bono and that type of thing, and that kind of commentary is what I'm used to hearing.

Now I'm not naive enough to believe there aren't problematic Boyd graduates out there, and I also recognize that it's human nature that if people are going to talk to me about Boyd graduates (they are going) to talk to me about the successes rather than the failures.

So I'm sure it's not a 100 percent success rate as far as our graduates being excellent professionals, but in general, what I hear now and what I heard when I was dean of the law school is pretty much the same.

Emeritus is actually Latin for "has been." It simply means a person who served in the position who is now retired.

But schools will award the emeritus title to people who have served for some significant period of time and sometimes on the basis that they've done something significant.

I mean, it's not a great honorific to be dean emeritus or professor emeritus, but to me it was very meaningful. I wanted to be dean emeritus at the Boyd School of Law just because I was so proud of what we accomplished in the 10 years that I was there.

And also my friend and mentor Willard Pedrick who had been the founding dean of Arizona State University's law school found great pride and pleasure in his emeritus title after he'd stepped down. That was the one thing I asked for at UNLV when I left. You don't need to give me sabbaticals, you don't need to give me teaching assignments, you don't need to give me an office - just give me the title.

And fortunately the faculty and (UNLV) President (David) Ashley and the regents agreed and gave me the title dean emeritus.

It's not a hugely important honor in the big picture of things, but it's important to me.

Not much, but to some extent I am. I wouldn't say I'm not involved at all. The Boyd School is planning the celebration of its 10th anniversary. We actually opened the doors to students in August of '98 so the school is coming up on its 10th year now. And there was a kickoff for that 10-year celebration a couple of weeks ago and Dean (John Valery) White invited me out to speak at the kickoff. And I and President Ashley and Dean White spoke to the group and talked about the law school.

But I'm not involved with the school much.

I do serve at Mike Saltman's request on the advisory board of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution, which meets probably a couple of times a year to talk about the affairs of that program. And I serve on the Thomas & Mack Legal Clinic advisory board, which meets quarterly. So I am involved in advising on matters for those two programs.

I have a lot of great friends and contacts at the law school and a lot of respect and admiration for the law school. But I'm also trying to keep a little distance between myself and the law school just because there is new leadership, and I don't want to be in the hair of the guy who's now trying to run the place.

The way I've left it is I'm available for advice, consultation, lunch, whatever people want me to do, but I'm not going to hover around and try to see what's going on out there. But from everything I hear, the school is doing well. Things are going very well.

It's a little weird at times.

That's another of the reasons, I guess, why I don't hover around out there too much because I think it would be a little strange.

When I spoke at the law school back on April 11 (for the anniversary celebration), John White, of course the new dean, presided and did a very fine job with his opening remarks and his closing remarks and in introducing the speakers ... and I had to restrain myself (and) remember this is not my show. You know, you should get up and talk for three minutes and then you should sit down.

And I did. I went and sat down. But then I had to keep restraining myself from getting up again because when I'm out there I'm used to going to the podium and presiding and introducing people.

So I thought, "This is a little strange, you know, he's actually doing that, and I'm not."

But he did a good job at it, and I'm pleased that the school is in good hands, and I did manage to avoid embarrassing myself. I didn't actually leap to the podium and take on the role of dean again. I managed to sit in the audience and behave myself.

I think it's the provision of legal services to the poor. Las Vegas is populated with a tremendous number of excellent lawyers, excellent law firms, excellent public law offices that do a pretty good job, a very good job of bringing legal services to the business, middle class and the wealthy clientele and they even do a pretty good job of representation of poor folks that are involved with the criminal system.

And there's certainly room for improvement in all those areas, but we're in pretty good shape in those areas compared to the (civil) legal services provided to the poor.

The Clark County Legal Services and Pro Bono project, with which I'm heavily involved as a volunteer, is an extremely important part of the fabric of this community, and it does a great job given the resources that it has.

Over the last 10 or 15 years, the number of people that it serves has doubled. But, of course, the population of Las Vegas and the need for services to the poor has burgeoned over those 10 or 15 years, too.

I personally think the way that a legal system treats the least-advantaged people in the society as a mark of the success of the legal system ... I would like to see our community improve legal services to the poor, which means finding more funding for Clark County Legal Services and finding more lawyers to volunteer their time for the Clark County Pro Bono Project, which is part of Clark County Legal Services. And that's one of the reasons why I've chosen to spend a fair number of hours on a volunteer basis with that organization.

I think that's probably the greatest challenge and there certainly are other challenges facing the profession as well: An ongoing one of which is to continue to remind lawyers that their job is not to be combatants but to be effective problem solvers for their clients and to continually remind them that they're not to be businesspeople, that they are professionals who need to keep their professionalism and their ethics at the forefront of their work as opposed to the economics. But those are challenges that have been there forever and always will be.

I would put at No. 1 finding more resources and better lawyers to get involved and to help poor people with their civil affairs.

It's been a little challenging, although I'm happy! I am busier than I expected to be. I thought I'd spend half my time hiking in Red Rock or sitting in my living room watching "Oprah" or something - reading books and maybe half of my time doing other kinds of things.

Instead I'm either very, very busy when I'm in Las Vegas, taking care of my volunteer commitments or my compensated commitments, or I'm out of town.

There aren't an awful lot of days when I'm in Las Vegas where I'm finding time to go hike in Red Rock or read books or watch television. I'm pretty busy.

But then, by the same token, I'll be up in Boise for two weeks at a time or I'll be in Hawaii for a week at a time on vacation or visiting family in Manhattan, Kan.

So I think the balance is there, but it's a busier balance than I had expected. I had expected some down time where I didn't quite know what to do with myself. That downtime comes when I'm off traveling on these family trips or ski trips or whatever. And when you're skiing there's no down time, you just concentrate on skiing. And on family trips there's usually not either - you're there for four or five days visiting people, and you're busy and you're active.

Well, I guess the first advice that I would have for them is to take their studies - if they're still in law school - very seriously.

People in law school, me included, are often very eager to get out. It's like the light is at the end of the tunnel: If I can just get these three years of pain out of the way and get my ticket, then I can go do something.

Those three years are very important to your professional development and success as a lawyer. Take law school seriously, drink at the trough of knowledge that you get in law school thirstily, because the better you do there, the better you're going to do in the profession.

The second piece of advice is treat yourself and others as a professional while you're in law school and after you get out of law school. And that means to behave in ways that are appropriate - realize that you can destroy your reputation very, very quickly. You can engage in years of appropriate behavior, but a few acts of inappropriate behavior can drag you down. And realize that anything you do can come back to haunt you later on.

One of my pet peeves is the e-mail culture that we live in now where people are quite comfortable committing to e-mail or Web sites or whatever, all kinds of stuff that you would never type onto a piece of paper, as if the stuff that goes into cyberspace can never come back to haunt you. And it can.

And my advice to people is that whatever you write, write it in a way that if you see it again in a courtroom or in a legislative hearing 20 years from now, you won't be embarrassed.

So I guess I would just pound on them about taking their studies seriously, preparing themselves well and behaving professionally.

And, also, trying to find some balance in their lives. To not become workaholic automatons, but to have a family and an extra curricular life that brings you some balance and some happiness beyond your work.

I love Las Vegas and the run that we've had here has been terrific. I came here in '97 - it's been the best years of my life professionally, far and away. I expected that it would be.

I thought founding a law school at a good place like UNLV would be a great professional joy and it was.

Looking back on it - both on the professional aspect and the personal aspect of how my wife and I have enjoyed life in Las Vegas and the relationships that we've developed in Las Vegas - I would simply say we're very, very satisfied and very content with the way things have gone.

I am glad to be in a position to be looking back on the law school, even though it probably would have been fun to have been there for a while longer. To know that my era of responsibility for the place is over allows me to take great satisfaction in what we've accomplished in 10 years instead of worrying about what's going to happen to it next year. And I like that.

And I should also say that the law school would not have succeeded without the community's support. I played a role in the law school, I hope an important role. But it would not have succeeded if people like Bill Boyd and Jim Rogers and Mike Saltman and the Thomases and the Macks and the other major contributors to the school hadn't come around.

It wouldn't have succeeded without Carol Harter's undying support from the presidency of UNLV and the leadership of (Assemblyman) Morse Arberry and (state Sen.) Bill Raggio and (Assemblywoman) Barbara Buckley in the Legislature and others. It's not an exclusive list. The regents were greatly supportive.

The press was very good to us. We had very good relations during my deanship and I think it's continuing, which it should be. Law schools should have relationships with the press where they provide resources to the press and are open and accessible to the press.

I would just say the reason for the success of the place may have had something to do with my leadership, but it had more to do with the community getting behind the school than anything else.