“Why wouldn’t one want to leave Indiana?” Kellye Testy said, somewhat in jest, under white studio lights. Testy, Seattle University School of Law’s dean, announced in May that she would be accepting a position as dean of the University of Washington School of Law. But on an April afternoon, only weeks before her announcement, Dean Testy sat in a vibrant red leather chair across from District Court Federal Judge Richard Jones answering questions about her life as the cameras rolled. Judge Jones also played clips from people in her life over the years. This intimate interview with Testy was the opening event for Seattle University School of Law’s first annual alumni weekend. The goal — to get inside of Dean Testy to find what makes her tick.

It is often said that people are shaped tremendously by the environment in which they are raised. This statement rings true for Testy. She was born in Brazil, Indiana, then reared in another small Indiana town. The daughter of a construction worker and secretary, Testy grew up on the Slab, a concrete strip where she played basketball.
Before leading Seattle University School of Law through drastic changes, she was passionate about practically every sport imaginable. There was basketball, of course, but there were also more obscure sports, including a limited foray into pole vaulting that led to her “falling” from a roof on several occasions so that she could get over the fear of the descent. “If I’d been better at math or physics,” Testy began, “I would have known that I wasn’t going to be good at it.”

Judge Jones peppered Testy with questions about her youth, seeking to find what motivated the desire to leave her hometown. She recalled, “At the high school I went to, they weren’t talking about college.” But between perfecting her fastball — once knocking out her father with it — and morel mushroom hunting, Testy realized she was excelling academically. In high school, she began taking creative writing classes at the local college, and soon she was 17 miles away in a dorm. Testy was a first-generation college graduate.

After graduation, she moved west. “We’d never seen oceans or mountains,” she said. “I don’t even think I’d ever been in an airplane.” Despite her family’s worries, Testy survived, and then returned to Indiana to study law.

At Indiana University, Bloomington, she was first in her class, receiving accolades and awe from everyone she met, including a young civil procedure visiting professor named David Skover. One day, he had to explain to her that he could not call on her every time she rose her hand — she was that type of law student. But seldom does “that type of law student” also end up on the floor of a fellow student’s apartment with her civil procedure professor, eating Runts candy and drinking scotch. Nor does “that type of law student” have parties so popular that a hundred people pile into a one-bedroom apartment. It was clear early on that there was no “type” that would adequately describe her.

Law school was important to Testy and her general sense of equality. It gave her words, doctrines, and theories to attach to what she had always known was right. After her second year, she clerked at the mammoth law firm Kirkland & Ellis. After graduation, she held a judicial clerkship on the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals as she decided what to do with her life. She felt a need and a call to teach. With the motivation provided by her first-year civil procedure professor, she interviewed at University of Puget Sound for a teaching position, and got the job. It could be said that the rest is history.

It was with grace that Dean Testy told her life story to Judge Jones before the cameras and the lights. Over the coming months, the spotlight will remain on her as she introduces herself to the University of Washington School of Law community.

As published De Novo, Official Publication of the Washington State Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, June 2009.