A Sharon native returned to the Shenango Valley Wednesday to speak to local lawyers on Law Day.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. told about 40 people that he normally doesn't speak at Law Day functions, but he agreed to come to Mercer County because its Law Day celebration was resurrected to honor former Mercer County Common Pleas Judge Albert E. Acker, who died in 1998. Wettick spoke at the Acker Memorial Gazebo in Buhl Farm, Hermitage.

Wettick recalled growing up on Alcoma Street with his parents, R. Stanton and Katharine Wettick, and playing basketball with Henry Ekker, now a partner in the Sharon law firm of Ekker, Kuster, McConnell & Epstein.

Wettick, a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, said he looked up to Acker and other judges who are activists.

In the past, he said, judges were very passive, but judges like Acker worked to establish rules for pretrials, trials and other procedures.

"We are a very different legal system now than we were when we had the first Law Day," Wettick said. He called Acker "one of the finest trials judges we had here in Pennsylvania," and he attributed the changes in the legal system to Acker and his colleagues. Wettick said the law constantly needs to be examined to keep what the system has and to improve it.

Lawyer Paul Powers, a Law Day organizer, said 20 lawyers volunteered to speak to students about law at nine local schools on Wednesday. Throughout the rest of the month, lawyers and judges will continue to speak to students, he said.

One program, called Stepping Out, teaches high school seniors about common legal issues they may face after graduation such as signing leases, Powers said.

He added that local lawyers have been very willing to speak to students, and he hopes to expand the program and get more schools involved next year.

Law Day was created in the United States to offset the former Soviet Union's celebration of May Day. It languished in Mercer County at the end of the Cold War but was resurrected in 2000.