6/6/2016

It was Delaware Law School that brought Rick and Faith DiLiberto to Delaware in 1983, and 33 years later, it is still a presence in their family life.

The Pennsylvania couple, who both hold law degrees from the school, have now watched two of their daughters graduate from Delaware Law.

“No question about it. We love Delaware Law School. It’s almost like a second home. I feel like I owe Delaware Law a debt I could never repay,” Rick DiLiberto, who graduated in 1986, said.

He and Faith moved to Wilmington in 1983 from their native Pennsylvania, where they met in high school. Faith would take their one car to her job at a preschool, and Rick rode his bicycle to campus from their apartment off Naamans Road. He remembers arriving at school with road spray on his back from the ride, and classmate Francis G.X. Pileggi asking him about it, then offering him a ride home in the rain. Today, the men are best friends and Pileggi is godfather to the DiLibertos’ oldest daughter, Amanda.

Faith watched her husband work hard at his studies, and she decided to enroll as he was graduating. She earned her degree in 1989.

“It grew on me as I watched him,” Faith said. Today she is a professor at Delaware Technical & Community College, teaching classes in constitutional law, psychology and English.

Amanda pursued an undergraduate degree in education at the University of Delaware and her mother says she often told her she’d make a great lawyer. “She had a lot of the skills and personality traits,” Faith said. They were pleased when Amanda decided to pursue a law degree. “She’s a real Delaware person and we thought it was a great idea.”

When Amanda graduated from Delaware Law School in 2014, her parents were on the platform to congratulate her and hand her the law degree. Today, Amanda is a deputy attorney general in the Delaware Department of Justice.

Second daughter Ashley enjoyed her undergraduate years at the University of South Carolina, but when she earned her bachelor’s in public health she was ready to return to Delaware and be near her family. She saw what a fulfilling career her father had as a lawyer, and how she’d watch him use his degree to improve people’s lives. Law school had appeal.

“This is the only law school I applied to,” Ashley said. “They had nothing but wonderful things to say about it.”

When Ashley graduated in May, her parents and Amanda were on the platform to congratulate her and hand her the law degree. She will take the Delaware bar exam in July. There were two weeks, while she was studying in a summer bar preparation course, that her father was across campus, serving as volunteer faculty to the Intensive Trial Advocacy Program. The program prepares rising 3Ls for the rigors of courtroom practice.

Rick DiLiberto started at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP in Wilmington in 1987, after a year working as a judicial law clerk. Today he is a partner at the firm, handling personal injury litigation. Faith DiLiberto recalls thinking the couple would return to Pennsylvania after Rick got his law degree. Instead they stayed in the first state and have remained an active part of the Delaware Law School community, giving back through time, volunteer service and financial gifts.

The DiLibertos have one more daughter, Aria, their youngest. She is an education major at the University of Delaware. No one is pushing her toward a career – the parents believe in letting their daughters find their own paths – but she’s thinking about things, and has mentioned law school.

“Every so often she’ll say ‘I might want to do that,’” Faith said.