50 Year Anniversary Speech

By Herbert H. Franks, ISBA Past President and Class of 1961

Today we remember Pearl Harbor and the day of infamy. This is a day of infamy also for Gov. Blagojevich. He got 14 years.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "the life of the law is not logic, it is experience." Holmes must have had our class of senior lawyers in mind when he made this quote, because if there is one thing the people in this class have, it is experience.

I wonder how many people in this room expected to reach this day. I sure know I didn't.

After being raised on a farm and slopping the hogs and milking the cows twice a day, almost everything you do in later life is easy.

How different is the world today! When we were in law school, there might have been one or two women in our class. Now, women are the majority of law students.

When we came out to try and make our mark and living, the electric typewriter was just gaining acceptance. A few years later came fax machines, and then in dizzying speed came computers, cell phones, iPads, laptops and the list goes on. How we had to change and learn to use these things, things that our grandchildren can do automatically.

When we became lawyers, Gideon had just been decided, and all felony defendants were entitled to a lawyer for the first time. Unless there was a full-time public defender, we gathered at the courthouse on Monday mornings and the young lawyers were assigned people to defend. I still remember that we got $60.00 for pleading our client guilty or $250.00 if we gave him a jury trial. Not having a lot to do, I started trying jury trials. Since the prosecutor was just as young and dumb as I was, occasionally I would win.

Another thing we young lawyers in rural areas did was join organizations to get our name out. Invariably as we joined the Jaycees, Rotary, etc., we were named secretary. We thought it was because of our good looks and winning personalities. The real reason was we had a secretary and we could get the minutes typed and get the notices of the next meeting out.

In rural communities, we were expected to do farm income tax. I didn't know much about income tax so I bought a J .K. Lasser book, which was the bible of tax preparers. I would sit at night and figure out the tax returns for our local farmers. I soon learned that if a farmer owed more than $100.00 in income tax, obviously I hadn't prepared the return right. Farmers constantly explained to me how the good preparer was, that they had before, that he knew how to properly prepare taxes and they rarely had to pay anything. I soon decided that was not my field of expertise. It was funny, the farmers didn't ever earn much taxable income, but many died millionaires.

Young rural lawyers soon became the attorney for the Villages, Townships, School Boards, Drainage Districts and other taxing bodies. This required evening after evening of meetings. Of course, after the meeting you didn't go home, you repaired to the nearest establishment purveying alcoholic beverages where the real business got
done. (Nothing about the open meeting act). As the taxing body's attorney you were expected to do a little more than your fair share of the buying and drinking.

Since I was one of the few Democrats in my area, I was appointed a Special Assistant Attorney General for approving the inheritance tax returns at that time, a law I am sure you were all fond of. Another of my jobs as Special Assistant Attorney General was to go around the state to the counties and lose the objections filed to the bond issue so the court could then rule that the bonds were legal and then could be sold. Many lawyers will brag what their percentage of wins were. I am proud to say I had almost a 100 percent losses at that time. However, I won a case once, to my utter amazement, because the judge was mad at the county board because the county would not listen to his ideas when the county was rebuilding the courthouse. This broke my unparalleled record of losing cases. I really had to explain this win to my boss in Springfield.

With many hours, hard work and a modicum of luck, we were able to provide for our families. As our hair grew more gray, we even became respectable in our community, which for me was one hell of a jump.

We were all young and everything was possible. Some went into politics, some poured ourselves into our law practices, some went into business that our clients introduced us to. We developed a certain style that was comfortable for us and we persevered. We were congenial, and for the most part, we respected each other in what they did and what we did.

About 20 years ago, I noticed there was many brand new lawyers coming to our counties, and for some reason they didn't seem to be as well prepared as they should have been. When I looked into it, I found that the law schools had decided it was a very profitable business grinding out new lawyers.

There were more than 2200 new admitees in last month's class. The bar exam which had once been a pretty good selector and eliminator was being revised to raise passage rates. At one point, it became 95% pass.

These young lawyers now had large loans, often in excess of a $100,000. Since 50% ofthe class were not in the top half of the class and were not getting jobs, they decided to hang a shingle. Someone seems to have told them that if they became very aggressive, they would get clients and thus make a living. They needed to prove how
aggressive they were. Civility became a thing of the past in dealing with them.

Since I have three sons who were lawyers or on their way to becoming lawyers at the time, I felt that something had to be done I talked to the then-chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court (the Chief Justice had a lot to do with setting pass rates). He explained that I was being racist and was trying to reduce the number of minorities which could become lawyers.

I expressed the opinion that every new lawyer should be able to pass the same test that everyone else did, and that the Bar needed to be set a high standard.

I decided to run for president of the bar, because of that issue and by the slimmest of margins was elected. Finally, I presented my case to then-Chief Justice Moses Harrison. And would you believe it, he actually agreed with me and expressed some of the same fears. Somehow we need to stem the flood of young lawyers who desperately needed to pay student loans and do what they deemed necessary to make a living. We needed to bring back the professionalism and respect for the profession. I sincerely hope we are moving in that direction.

We still have something to give, namely our experience. We have wisdom of the years on our side, a gift we may still may give to our young associates should we still be working.

I was blessed to have Leonard Ring, a lawyer who adopted me and became my mentor and worked hard to try and make me a lawyer. He was an inspiration in my life and I still grieve his death to this day. It is my sincere hope that young lawyers coming out will find such a mentor.

At this stage in our lives though, we should simply be grateful. Grateful for our families, grateful for our careers, and grateful for each passing day. We must learn to take the time to enjoy life and the fruits of our labor. We have earned it.

I would like to end my remarks with another famous quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes. In his 80th year, Justices Holmes and Brandeis were walking down the street when a beautiful young woman walked by. Holmes turned to Brandeis, and with a twinkle in his eye, said "Oh to be 70 again."

CONGRATULATIONS, we made it!