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'If you want to activate your brain, try going to law school,' says retiree who graduated with son

By Debra Cassens Weiss

May 14, 2024, 8:50 am CDT

A father who was bored with retirement and his son have earned cybersecurity degrees this month from the Texas A&M University School of Law.

David Lawson, 75, and his 49-year-old son Shannon earned degrees from the law school’s master’s of legal studies program with an emphasis in cybersecurity law and policy, according to a law school article republished by Texas A&M Today.

Above the Law noted the story.

Shannon and David Lawson dreamed of one day attending law school. When Shannon Lawson saw an ad for the master’s program, he texted his father. They began attending classes online in January 2023.

Shannon Lawson is the chief information security officer for the city of Phoenix, while his father is a Florida retiree who previously worked for 45 years in information technology.

Shannon Lawson, the father of a 10-year-old boy, continued to work full time while attending classes.

“So my plate was full,” Shannon Lawson said in the article. His father often completed assignments first. But attending the classes together was “extra special,” Shannon Lawson said.

David Lawson said in the article the program helped “open a side of me that I always knew was there.”

“You’ve got to think and write, think some more, and then write some more,” David Lawson said. “When you get older, people talk about the importance of exercising your mind. If you want to activate your brain, try going to law school.”