Brewster, Francis Anthony Oral History 10232014
Brewster, Francis Anthony “Tony” Oral History for Dane County Bar Association.
Interviewer: Ed Reisner
Date of Interview: October 23, 2014
This is Ed Reisner. It is October 23, 2014. I'm here with F. Anthony Brewster. And the purpose is
to do an oral history for the Dane County Bar Association History and Memorials Committee.
Q Let's start with a little general background. I'm gonna call you Tony.
A Please do.
Q Thank you. First of all, the F is for Francis?
A Yes, it is.
Q Francis Anthony Brewster?
A Yes.
Q You have probably the most interesting resume that I've ever seen because of the first sentence where you say you were born in China.
A Yes.
Q Tell me about that.
A Well, my grandmother and my grandfather were Methodist missionaries in China. And they went single, though, hadn't met each other till they got to China in 1881. And my grandfather, William Desmond Brewster, was an ordained pastor in the Methodist Church. And my grandmother, Elizabeth Fisher Brewster, who claims that she's a first family Virginian. The Fishers come from Field Jefferson. Field Jefferson was the brother of Peter Jefferson, and Peter Jefferson was the father of Thomas Jefferson.
Q Wonderful.
A But -- and I have never checked that out because my grandmother, 4'11" Elizabeth Fisher, did not tolerate many questions about the family. But in any event, they went to China separately. They met there. And as so often will happen in this era of Christian colonialism, if I may, the Presbyterian Church took the north part of China, the Methodists took the south part, and my good friends in the Roman Catholic Church took the whole country in terms of Christian colonialism.
But they first built, if you might know, a church. Then -- this is background because it shapes in some way my approach in my later life with seven daughters. The Chinese in that era, the second daughter was either killed or, if the mother could get that little girl out of there, she would be taken to my grandparent’s church and left on the front step. From that came a, if you will, an orphanage for my grandparents. And then years later when my father's brothers, and so on, and sisters went on to college, the family formed a hospital. So, that's the background.
I was born in China. My older brother was born there. My mother and father met. Mother is a Stoughton-born girl; worked her way through the University, a Junior Phi Beta. Took her six years to get through, two years, and then worked for two and then came back to finish. And she went to China after agreeing with her daddy that she would do that if her father straightened out his life a little bit. I won't go into any detail, but it was a covenant, and they did it. And mother went to China and met my father there.
And mother was a great lady. She was, as I said, a Junior Phi Beta, nothing but A's. And she worked with the Needs Office in her last two years, and the Dean in her senior year said, "Eve" -- her name was Eve Melby -- "nothing but A's, but I see you have an F in accounting." And mom said, "I never got that, sir." The dean said, "We're gonna erase that."
So -- but that's by way of background. It gives you some idea of how great of a mom she was, bless her heart.
But she met dad on a trip going to China, or around the coast on vacation, and they were married. There's a story there, but that's neither here nor there either. But my brother, born in '25, and I was born in '29. Dad had been in U-Cal Berkley where he graduated. That was, if you will, the China West school. It still has a heavy preponderance of folks from China, ambassador’s kids and so on that had well-to-do families. And he graduated in 1916.
A little background on him because his influence on me is tremendous. My first abiding hero, my father. He was a light heavyweight boxing champ, Pacific Coast. They played rugby then. They didn't go to football till after World War I. My dad was very good at rugby. Navy, he was aware of the importance of the Navy, but he took a commission in the ROTC. And at that point in time Pancho Villa was invading this country, and our small military -- back to the Constitution,
for another day -- Woodrow Wilson was besought by the people of the country and the Congress – sound familiar -- to do something about this. So, hurrying up, dad was a freshly-minted second lieutenant. And Woodrow Wilson looked around and found a brigadier general named Pershing and sent him to the West Coast. And Pershing said to this lieutenant, my daddy, his buddy, another fresh lieutenant, "Any troops out here?"
And this is so interesting in terms of culture. Dad said, "Yes, sir. We have a thousand at Camp Ord, but, sir, they're black." And Pershing, of course, at that point in time and in the Second World War, the culture was black troops could not fight without white officers. But dad said,
"These people can fight." To shorten the story, Pershing said, "Let's go." Congress had appropriated $30 million. They chased Pancho Villa out of the country. Never caught him.
And then, of course, World War I. But dad finished with World War I, had four Battle Stars. His mother, my grandmother, Elizabeth Fisher Brewster -- my grandfather had died -- raising money
back in the States in '16. That's how you did it in those days for those foreign missions. Dad went back to China, became a very well-to-do businessman. He had a total of seven Brewster kids. Those missionary grandparents of mine didn't do mission work all the time, obviously. But there were five boys book-ended by two daughters. And my father did very, very well, put his younger brothers and sisters through college, Harvard and many other schools as well. But he backed a younger brother in a frozen fish venture -- and again, I'll try to keep it short -- which went south. My father had signed a charter party agreement. And my father, because this is what we do in our family and many others, my father bailed out his younger brother, went bankrupt, and we came back to the country, the United States, in 1930.
Q So you just lived one year --
A I was 18 months old, and my brother was five years old. We came back to Madison where mom's home was. And dad went on, if you will, to New York City where the import/export bankers, if there were any left, were going. But got a job at Manhasset High School, where we moved to, Manhasset High School perhaps best known by Jim Brown. You remember Jim Brown of the NFL?
Q Oh, yes. Cleveland Browns.
A He was the little boy of our maintenance man at church, yeah. And I got to know him, the little fella, but -- at Manhasset. So that's kind of the background of being in China.
My uncles and aunts were all missionaries in Burma or China. My grandmother, for what it's worth, was in China during World War II. She was told after the war by Mao Tse Tung and Zhou Enlai to get out of the country. And my grandmother, then a widow, said, "I will, but only if you release the other missionaries that you have here." They did. She did. She came out of China in 1950, and so on.
But enough by way of background. It's that form of service that shaped my life in a legal sense. It did. So, but --
Q So your elementary education was in New York?
A Manhasset, Long Island, as we say, yes.
Q High school there?
A Well, dad went back in the service in 1942. He taught high school at Manhasset High and was very popular. He was called "Pop" by the kids. And I remember as a little boy growing up in Manhasset, I did resent the fact all these big kids were in there talking to Pop, my daddy. But he taught English, Economics, and History like nobody else ever taught it, and the kids really followed him. And so he went back in the service in '42, picked up five more Battle Stars in World War II, worked for George Patton, a citizen soldier, had a regiment with George Patton and was involved in the Battle of the Bulge and so on.
That's where we came to the family farm. I digress yet again. In 1934 my dad and my mother's older brother borrowed on their retirement funds -- dad was teaching at Manhasset High School – and bought a farm in Clark County, 240 acres for 50 bucks an acre. And the purpose of that, because this was before Social Security, my Norwegian grandparents needed a place to live, and my mother's oldest sister was single. So -- the older sister was put with her -- the grandparents, and the other buildings were given to another aunt whose husband was a farmer. And that was well before, if you will, Social Security -- well, not too far. It was the first farm corporation ever in Wisconsin, Melby Brewster, Inc. My dad was behind that. But that's -- and that's the farm we went to.
When dad went back in the service, he had to take a leave of absence from Manhasset High School, and we moved to Wisconsin. And I had my sophomore, junior, and senior years at Columbus High School, which was about 12 miles from where the farm was. But mom said that's the best high school in the area, that's where you're gonna go.
Q So when did you graduate from high school?
A 1946.
Q And on to the University of Wisconsin then?
A Yes.
Q As an undergrad?
A Yes.
Q Where you played football.
A Yes, I did. I came down to the big State U, as they called it, at 6'5" and about 250. And my classmates and teammates were Red Wilson, who just recently passed, a close friend, fellow class officer; Jimmy Embach, who came from Washington; and then Lyle Blackburn, Jr. Blackburn was a Navy ROTC scholar, as I was. Red worked his way through. But we had a great time together playing ball. And we were there when Harry Stuhldreher was our coach, and we shifted out of the Notre Dame box into the T or what the single wing and so on. Quite a story in itself there.
But I got hurt playing after two years. We were 18-year-old kids coming down here playing with
veterans of World War II -- Boomer Rennebohm and Wally Dryer and Jack Wink and Dick Limfy and on and on and on. But they kind of took us under their wing, were just like big brothers to us, they were.
Q So you graduated from undergraduate in about 1950?
A June of '50.
Q And you mentioned that you were in the ROTC. So that interrupted your educational career?
A Yes, it did. It changed my life again forever. I chose -- the Navy ROTC at that point was the continuation of the V-6, the Holloway Plan. You know, I was very fortunate to take a competitive exam coming down here in August of '46. We didn't have a bed to hiss in. But my mother and father said -- my dad was overseas as a military governor at that point -- "You'll go to college." So I said, "Yes, ma'am." And she joined him that summer. And I went down to the old Buick garage across from the First Congregational Church, which to this day is the Navy ROTC headquarters, and took a physical and then a three-day academic exam, which is the national exam. For some reason, I was fortunate enough to pass it and got this great scholarship, 50 bucks a month, books, and tuition. And key to the Naval Academy -- the trade schools we call it the Marine Corps -- were the ring knockers. But that's a story for another day. The graduates of the academies all have rings, and they knock them on the table when –
Anyway, I chose the Marine Corps. No question about it. I was very -- my father had me going on that. He was tied in in World War I at Beauregard, and his Army rifle company was a part of the Marine 5th Regiment. And he said that -- dad told me, "Son, those are the best fighters I ever saw in my life. They were knocking off Boche at 800 yards with 03's." And I said, "Dad, that's where I want to be." And my mother heard him say that, and she said, "My son is not crazy."
But back to point. Yes, I chose the Corps. And (UNINTELLIGIBLE) United States Marine Corps, overseas and back with the Korean War, Harry's police action. I won't talk about that because those are things I don't talk about, except -- oh, I'll say this to you. I was in the killing business. That's what we were trained to do.
And I came back out of the Corps. I worked for a legendary Marine named Chesty Puller, five Navy Crosses. And he loved big jock lieutenants. And he ran our butts. He really did. I never forgot that. But whatever it's worth, to me, it's been a lifestyle, team sports, called team ball. And I learned early on from my missionary background and my sports career, and this is applicable in any phase of life, that there are always people who are better than you are, and accept that, and back them up, and make them look better, and hopefully they'll do the same. Well, that's what I learned also in football.
Harry Stuhldreher, our coach, was fired. We lost to Yale in '48, 17 to 7. And the students in Camp Randall sang "Good-Bye, Harry" to the tune of "Good-bye, Mary" and so on. So -- but our team was terribly concerned because we liked Stuhldreher.
But in the Marine Corps, same thing. Same thing. We learned it, and if this were -- I suppose that maybe the Corps is special. We're very good at what we do. We're very well trained. We love each other. And when we're not fighting, we're battling with the Navy or other branches of the service who love to insult the Corps. And, of course, that's fine. But we -- when I came back out in '52, I came back to law school. But that background had, for what it's worth, shaped the rest of my life.
Q Sure. So 1952 you come back to Madison, start law school. Now, I'm familiar with the old building. It was gone by the time I got here, but I've heard all the wonderful stories.
A The pair of gargoyles.
Q Pair of gargoyles, one of which still exists. It's in the atrium of the new building. And the dean's office with a working fireplace, and ultimately classrooms where the ceilings were falling down. There were bats in the lower --
A Yeah. John Conway?
Q Yes.
A Conway came a little later. Conway came -- I'm not sure when he came, but he ended up as reviser of statutes.
Q Right. He came from the TBA.
A Okay
Q So let's talk about law school. We were talking about professors that you remembered or classmates that you remembered, classes that you remembered. What's memorable from the three years of law school?
A Willard Hurst.
Q Oh, yes.
A Legislation. Dick Campbell in Negligence.
Q Oh, come on, Tony.
A. The -- Nate Feinsinger. It's difficult for me to remember all these names after six concussions, four of which were at Camp Randall. Howard Hall would be another.
Q The interesting thing for me about Feinsinger is I had Feinsinger in the tail of his teaching career. I mean, you could see little memories of his greatness. But I learned that he was actually recruited by Lloyd Garrison –
A Yep.
Q -- to teach domestic relations.
A That's what we called it then.
Q Yeah. He was not a labor lawyer when he came to Wisconsin.
A Well, a little bit, if I may, about Nate. Nate was a major player with the General Motors Corporation at the UAW. He was their contract arbitrator –
Q Yep.
A -- and had an enormous and well-deserved reputation in labor relations, which was critical in that period of time because in that era, the unions were all powerful, the Teamsters, the UAW. I have so many stories about that. Perhaps let me put one on tape.
Q Sure.
A 1958, I had taken a job on my own, following up on papers I had written as an undergrad on five corporations. One of those was Scott Paper Company, which was number two in the country, but number one in tissue paper. And I was sent there in the Corporate Law Department, and I got one of the highest salaries coming out of law school, 450 bucks a month. Many of my good friends who were smarter than I went to the big firms for much less. But what's that got to do with background, you say? When -- because of my background, I was sent to Detroit to be the division personnel manager at Scott -- for Scott's plant that at that time had difficulties that I was able to help with my boss.
Again, the team sports. Those were Midwestern Americans at that plant that had been recently acquired by Scott Paper Company, an eastern establishment company, and they worked seven days a week, swing shift, 1,500 hourly, 150 salary. But on the other side of the fence, this is Detroit, even then, and they had not been handled properly. And I was able to square that away from (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with Mark's help. We went from the bottom of the list of Scott plants to number one across the board. Simple matter of, hey, take care of people, helping them understand what the problems were and what we needed to do about it and how we needed them to help.
So in any event, I was there. A couple of my former friends who played for Michigan in '47 remembered me, and they got ahold of me and they said, “Tony, how would you like to sit in on the first management caucus between General Motors”, as they looked at the opening offer from the UAW of Walter Reuther running it. Roger Smith was chair of General Motors. So I did.
And this is a revelation in terms of our country today, and it saddens me, in a sense. I went, and
McWilliam and Bobby Van said, "Tony, you're gonna sit between us, and you're gonna have to behave." Well, they knew me pretty well. So I was 15th floor, General Motors Building,
walnut wood, Filipino guys in their white gear, whatever you want by way of libations. They served no booze at that point, two o'clock in the afternoon.
The meeting was called together, big old elliptical table. Chairman Smith sat at the head of the table. Around there was the promising managers and the division managers, Chevrolet, Pontiac, and so on. And they were there to review the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) first just have a conversation. Three of the members were brand new, freshly-minted MBAs out of Harvard Law School, Peter Drucker and Jen Rodorio students. And when the meeting was convened, Roger Smith said, "Gentlemen, do you have anything you want to say?" One of those young MBAs punched his arm over there and -- as if it were yesterday -- Chairman Smith said, "Son, what do you want?" And the young man said, "Sir, I've looked at the offer, and if we were to give them anything that they asked for, we would be put out of business. They just would raise their wages out of sight, and they would have some changes in our manufacturing process, which were even more dangerous."
And here's the key. Chairman Smith leaned across so everybody could hear him and said, "Son, we have a 58 percent market share. We'll tell the American public what kind of cars they're gonna get and how much they're gonna pay for 'em." That was the culture at the time. That still, if you will, has some impact, talks about some of the problems. And of course today at General Motors, 18 percent maybe. So, well, what an experience.
I got cherry-picked at that point by RCA, which is now gone. And they wanted me to be assistant general counsel at 32. David -- he invented –
Q Sarnoff?
A Yes, David Sarnoff. Yeah, the general. Roosevelt made him a general in World War II. And Sarnoff had a son named Bobby. And Bobby ran NBC. And he wanted me -- the general did, wanted me to help Bobby. That was an attractive offer, but there the same thinking. And I -- don't misunderstand me. I'm a private sector person. I feel strong about capitalism, its strengths and its weaknesses. But I could see -- I went. I made that change and lived in the downtown Y in Camden, New Jersey for six or seven months and left my family behind, snacking in there. I learned that in the Marine Corps.
But then I went to work for RCA, and I could see its attitude and approach was a problem. So I left after nine months. But during that period of time at this, looking back at it, they were foolish to let a 32-year-old kid have that kind of responsibility. I had -- on my desk I had a white phone for the defense department. I had a red phone for -- what was that called – Cape Canaveral. And I had a blue phone for the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System because RCA was the prime contractor. And I had access to the jet, and I flew around settling problems where we could.
But I came away thinking -- and this, again, was either a strength or a weakness. I said, "I don't really think I need to do this. I'm not sure I'm helping anybody." And so I came home to practice law.
Q Before that happened, before you came home, the nature of your legal practice with both Scott and RCA, general corporate law? Labor law? Some of each?
A Very difficult question to answer, and I'll try to. It was a general practice, really. Some of my work which used to drive me nuts made me think I was a bond lawyer because I was examining supply contracts, fine print, page after page for this plant, this plant, this plant. Part of it was reviewing television ads that Scott and then later RCA for "Father Knows Best", that famous with Robert what?
Q Robert Young?
A Robert Young. And I would take the 30th Street train into Pennsylvania Station, sit down with our advertising agency and go over the script. On a little aside, always got there early because those advertising execs, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and others, those guys were one person in the morning. They would have two- or three-martini lunches, and they were different guys in the afternoon. These are things that perhaps should not be recorded, but these were all learning experiences for me.
Q This is one of the things that I would expect that has changed dramatically in corporate law is that I don't expect that there are many general practitioners in at least larger corporate legal staffs anymore. I think maybe like private practice, there's a great deal more specialization. So I'm a little surprised to hear you describe it as a general practice. But interesting.
A This was the era, the late '50s and early '60s, outside general counsel for Scott was Morgan, Lewis and Bockius in Philly. And this is before the firms like ML&B expanded all over the country. I did quite a bit of labor work with -- first with Norb Swann, who was the partner at Morgan Lewis in terms of labor, negotiating agreements around the country. And that, of course, is why I got picked off by RCA.
My background, which I came home with, was very knowledgeable representing employers in labor disputes, 'cause there wasn't anybody here in town that had that experience. But it was -- and the law or the outside counsel were used very rarely. But -- and that's a rather complicated story because when I left, I could see the cost of outside counsel was so significantly higher as a group that inside counsel grew. They added more folks inside.
Q All right. So in 1961 you left the East, came home to Dane County --
A Yes, sir.
Q -- and joined a small firm.
A What I did, I came back, and two well-known names -- one is still -- Margo and Joe Melli. Joe had done work, and I had worked with Margo in law school. She was a research associate with Earl Sachse, who was the Executive Secretary of the Joint Legislative Council. And Margo was, as always, a key member of that staff.
And I came and I went to work for -- oh, I worked for -- my brother got me a job at Madison Newspapers when I came back freshly at a-buck-nine-and-a-half an hour, and I worked the night shift at the Madison Newspapers my freshman year. It was interesting. From a troop commander with a pretty good combat record, I was suddenly learning how to bundle newspapers. Again, a character builder.
But then I got an opportunity through my friends at Aberg Bell at that point to go to work for Earl at a buck-and-a-half an hour, and that's where I ran into Margo. And now back to point.
That job, I moved from there to the Aberg firm for my senior year as a clerk. But the year and a half or so with the Joint Legislative Council I learned so much about how both sides of the aisle worked together. And Margo was an expert in helping to draft legislation, to consult with and so on. And I got to know Joe. And Joe did my family work. Mother died along the way. And when I came back, Joe kind of put me on -- I learned how to practice law from Joe, and I taught him the opportunity there was because there wasn't anybody else representing employers in labor. And that's the story. Joe ran with it very well.
Q Yes.
A He ran with it with a different approach. Joe's approach was more litigious because he had had some background with Halla McAndrews in that smaller firm. I came at it from the point of view, "Hey, wait a minute. We're partners. We're not enemies. If you
do your job and I do mine, we'll be back in a couple, three years to do it again." So that was a difference in philosophy.
But I respect -- Joe passed on. Good guy. And a very able lawyer. And I'm very indebted to him. And Margo, bless her heart, what a great lady. She was the first female tenured professor at the law school.
Q That's correct.
A And just to this day, I love her dearly.
Q That lasted a couple of years?
A It was Melli, Smith & Brewster. Bobby Smith, who died -- gosh, 1996, Bobby. Bobby had been with Reiser Mathys, and we, of course, had him come over and join us. Bob was a good litigator also, and we were trying to build a practice. There were no Milwaukee firms in town at that point, so I did Foley's work -- it was Miller, Mack in those days -- because Lyman Trecourt, one of the partners at Foley, was the football team manager when I was playing ball. See the connection?
Q Small world, yes. And you formed your own practice then?
A Yes, in 1963.
Q Yes.
A Bud Huiskamp, a dear fellow, Bud Huiskamp, Huiskamp & Brewster. And we were -- I was swamped with work and was fortunate enough, I was trying to buy my own business. And people who know me well would say, "Tony, that's very difficult for you to do." We had a lunch at the Dane County Bar and Warren Stolper was sitting across. I said, "Would you pass me the rolls." And Stolper said, "What about a merger?" And I said, "Has that got anything to do with rolls?" But squeezing the story down, Murphy, Stolper & Desmond had seven lawyers and had work for four. And I was swamped. This was a merger made in heaven. And so we merged. The first time that's ever happened. Huiskamp & Brewster, and I had Mike Clayton with me at that time, another dear buddy. Milo G., we had played ball together, football, years before. So we went from -- we had what? Eleven? Yeah. Seven from Murphy, Desmond and three from ours. And we formed Murphy, Huiskamp, Stolper & Desmond. And they had a (UNINTELLIGIBLE), it was called Murphy's Youth Camp. And we grew -- we did, we did -- to 23, 24 in that era.
But as often will happen in a general practice firm, I was busy flying around the country and driving. My practice covered pretty much of the country; did a lot of litigation work. And those who were either before and who are as old as dirt, as I am, and did trial work, if you were fortunate and smart enough to pick clients correctly, you would prevail. But if there was an insurance company involved in the defense, they would stiff you. And if you wanted to get paid, you had to settle. And if you tried to meet a payroll in a law firm growing, you had to have money every month.
I looked at that situation for a while and I said, Okay, okay. Trial work is fun. It's hard work.
You're all alone. You don't have in those days an array behind you and paper-blizzard everybody with discovery. You had to know what you're doing. And you can take that for what it's worth. A number of us were lucky in that regard. So I said, “Wait a minute. I'll use my business background with the clients that I was able to develop and then transactional, and I'll swing to a business practice.” Developing that and having it paid every month because you get paid with businesses. And we met our payrolls. They grew from there. But through -- that lasted for 18 years.
Q During that period that I came to know your firm and know a lot of the people in that firm -- and I mentioned to you earlier that we met in 1972 when I was helping one of your associates, Bob Lehmann, on a project for the State Bar, and I know Warren Stolper was active in the Bar and economics of the practice, and I remember you were one of the first firms that had computer -- computerized accounting systems. And Bob Murphy was a mentor for me, even though we weren't physically close. But over the years that I knew him, I just admired the man immensely, and he seemed to be interested in all kinds of activities of the legal profession as a whole.
I discovered as I was researching for this interview that you had interest in professional responsibility back then and have a published article in the Marquette Law Review.
A Good heavens, you've done your homework. Well, and this, of course, because of the background you've already got, I was very concerned about a problem that had been developing in terms of attorneys and their clients and disputes over fees. Okay? My article was
on that subject. But it was malpractice and the exposure which was just beginning to develop. And I could see that.
And so I was -- I was given support by the firm, they cut me loose, and the Bar was very receptive. And we built what is now, of course, the Mandatory Fee Arbitration. And I still chair that. But it's one of the great joys of my life. And one of the many times, including those when I was doing labor in the fifties and I would run up against the Teamos, who had a lot of big, tough guys, I always thought I was as big, as tough as they were, an ex-Marine. That helped. Well, the same philosophy was helpful to me as I went around the state to the County Bar Associations, and they permitted me to talk to them about the importance of resolving the disputes between attorneys and their clients because that's a public concern, and it's detrimental to the Bar to have this floating out there, have people, "You know what he did?"
So that began a program which I had (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Fast forward. We set up the Mandatory Fee Arb, which was, of course, mandatory. The fee arbitration was mandatory. Okay? The decision. The panel and I -- there were hundreds of lawyers around the state. I had the southeast, southwest corner. I had 55 lawyers who had at least five years or more experience, 25 or 30 public members. And fee disputes, when we began this, I was getting just in that area about, oh, 110 a year, 10 or 12 a month. Because we'd done a job with the lawyers - and I'll footnote this by saying when I started out, you know what the lawyers told me, my colleagues? "It's none of your gol darn business what I charge my clients." I said, "I disagree, and here's why." And the colleagues have come around dramatically, and we now have, I'm down to eight or ten a year in terms of disputes. But that was a contribution that I had lots of support in. I'm very proud of that part of it, the fee arb.
Q Do you sense that there's less of the professional spirit in law firms today? Is the pressure to produce business and to earn fees diminishing the interest of lawyers working on public service kinds of projects?
A You know, that's an outrageous leading question. Let me try to field it, answer you in a short answer, “Yeah. Yes.” Now, it saddens me. The pressure -- what's the key, I can't really say -- is far more now than it used to be. But yes, in a sense it is. I can remember when I began the practice, and we had a situation where the fees were to be developed, and we went to an hourly basis and went to the Supreme Court on that one, 1958. Warren Stolper was involved at an hourly rate --
Q Yes.
A -- which was 15 bucks an hour in 1958. Well, as the need for lawyers increased, we could see that more and more pressure was put on fees to increase them, and the competition in a country where there was lots of jobs available and demand. Lawyers had to increase
their starting pay for capable young lawyers, and that became competition. Their competition had to go up, and the law firms (UNINTELLIGIBLE) business, a chunk of it, had to adjust their fees accordingly.
And so what happens, frankly, as fees went up, clients became more and more careful about who they went to, and we had specialization beginning to develop. We began to develop staff and legal assistants. And that's a sensitive area because clients may or may not wish to have a legal assistant at a fraction of the cost. But that's -- my short answer was “Yes.” A longer answer is that's one of the problems that I see now -- and you realize I'm older than dirt. You realize that. Goodness. I'm aware of hourly rates of $500, $600, $700, $800 an hour.
Q Yes.
A When I was in New York in the late fifties, Whitney North Seymour was 1,000 bucks a day. So -- and what that has led to is specialization. It has led to a much more intensified competition. The Madison Bar, in all candor, you remember who -- I represented Foley because of the football manager was a partner there. But Foley came to town, Quarles, changed the culture. My friends and I, some of whom you've already interviewed, and that's reassuring, we would walk around the Square at noon and often settle cases.
Q Yeah.
A It was in the interest of the clients as well as to the Bar. And why to the clients? Because I would say to them, and my colleagues would too, "You have a chance to have input sitting right next to us in terms of this dispute. It's a roll of the dice, a crap shoot, if we have to go to court because we don't know. But here you have a chance." And that was very appealing, and properly so, which led to another problem. And I found it -- and I'm sure in your conversations with other lawyers, one of the primary concerns of the teaching I did -- and I was blessed to do that at the Law School as well as every day in law firms -- I would tell the young lawyers coming in, "It's not your case. It's the client's case. And don't get emotionally involved. Try to avoid that if humanly possible because then you cease to be the objective professional and you don't tell the client what's really at risk here and what the concerns are. And you need to do that."
But that's a continuing problem, more so today as we have specialization because they tend to focus, but the problem is still there. Don't get emotionally involved. Do the best you can for the client. And if you don't know the area of the law, tell the client that, and make sure the client understands that, and then you get a referral.
Another innuendo -- a bad word maybe – but competition in the law firms has become problematic because so often the lawyers who are the rainmakers build pyramids, and the pyramids are their backups, which they need people.
Q Yeah.
A But what's happened often now, the lawyers at the top will pick and choose who they want in their pyramid. And that becomes very difficult to manage a law firm when you have futile barons in that law firm. And the corporate world I learned also is not dissimilar.
But these are some of the problems that are truly -- and I must say as I rattle on -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- the cost of lawyering today is such that it's made in-house law firms, law departments, larger, and they are more responsive to budgets and the impact on the outside practices. You better find ways -- and the automation has helped, truly -- to be able to offer a service better than the inside counsel for a cost that's not unreasonable in terms of what the budget already has so the manager of the law department (UNINTELLIGIBLE). This, the competition, has a not chilling, but somewhat a necessarily restraining effect. It's affected the practice.
Q Without going into the personalities or anything that may be private, economics was one of the causes of why the Murphy firm split up; was it not?
A Oh. I'll try to answer that. You obviously have inside information. I would characterize it in a different direction. There were those of us who'd been at it in the practice, but also felt that we had a duty to bring our talents and our time to various committee activities. And I was known in that law firm as the outside man. I -- school board, University of Wisconsin Board of -- System Board, visitors and on and on and on. And perhaps we'll get into this later.
But that approach -- you mentioned Bob Murphy, a mentor and a good friend, Stolper another, Johnny Desmond, and so on. I don't mean to exclude anybody. But the older lawyers were also involved, and that caused a certain amount of discord among the younger lawyers, for whatever reason, and that led to some differences. And what it led to ultimately was, how do we determine compensation? How do reward somebody -- and these are Brewster phrases -- house cats and alley cats. Okay? I don't know how long, if that's widespread. Those who know me best say, "Yeah, that's Tony."
Well, house cats had to be very good lawyers, but they also have an ability to attract clients. But they need to be smart enough to realize to retain those clients, they need the house cats, the backup, the back shop, good lawyers, but who don't have that skill to attract. That's called a law firm. Now, when you have a collision between house cats and alley cats, and then certain house cats line up certain of the house cats, you have situations in a firm which make it very difficult to manage, and you have problems in terms of compensation. Wait a minute. You're telling me that that house cat is worth this, but the alley cat is worth that? They work together. And this, of course, is a part of the cost of lawyering. But it continues to be a problem.
And we tried to solve it. We were the first to bring in an administrative nonlawyer to run the law firm.
Q Yes.
A But the problem there was that person became like a leper because he or she was neither an alley cat or a house cat, and we had -- they would say, "We're just trying to make this firm more businesslike instead of having all you prima donnas running around saying, 'I need this, I need that right now' when you've got colleagues who have the same problems." Prima donnas. You heard me say that. I guess I'm one of 'em.
Q Well, anyway, 1985 -- 1985, some of you struck off on your own, a smaller firm. Can you describe that practice?
A You mean after we wiped their blood off ourselves?
Q Right.
A Well, the termination was basically approach the practice, approach the community. And ten came out with me. And I was pretty old at that point and was -- didn't -- Bob Murphy another. Bob stayed and I left. Warren came with me. Not easy. It was a divorce, in a sense. But it happens, and much more frequently now. We set up a firm, and we merged that with a family law firm, Allan Koritzinsky. And the difference in the practice is significant. The business law practice is driven by hourly rates and client relationships of a business nature. And businesses that include corporate clients ran on budgets, and you dealt with that client on that basis, and you billed and you collected monthly. And your hours were very carefully monitored through, if you will, supervisors in the shop.
The family law group, we used to call it domestic relations when Nate was teaching it. Well, that -and I did some of that. You had to early on to fill out a practice. I had over 200 during the first 35, 6-40 years I was practicing. Yeah. And so I knew that drill. And in family law, you spent an enormous amount of time with clients.
Q Counsel.
A Yeah. And you can't bill it all. But those firms that had a compensation key to ours, and you couldn't bill all those hours, right away that was a problem with the business lawyers versus the family lawyers. And that was there and led to all kinds of spirited discussions. And that firm was Stolper, Koritzinsky, Brewster & Neider, all capable lawyers. That was the name of that one. But regardless of what name goes first, I could care less. I just wanted, frankly, to practice law. But you don't get away with that. And that firm -- go ahead. You had another question there. Am I helping at all?
Q You are, yes. By the time that firm -- you left that firm, you were already -- I'm trying to calculate.
A Fifty-six.
Q Fifty-six?
A Yeah.
Q But you weren't done practicing, by any means.
A 1985, no. I love the practice. And I was very fond of the lawyers that came that I was allowed to go with -- let's put it that way -- and those I left behind because I'd had personal touches with them. Respected them. Regretted the necessity. But it was a difference in philosophy, and I was not comfortable with the philosophy that said all we do is practice law, we don't want to get involved in the community, we don't have time for that. Okay? If that sounds critical, perhaps it is. I continued, I was allowed to do that being involved with the University, with the Bar, with the committee. I ran for School Board. One of the nicest things that ever happened to me, in 1969 -- this is jumping back -- I was out campaigning at the same time I was managing partner for Murphy, Huiskamp, and the city, my dear friend, was in siege. This is late Sixties.
Q Oh, yeah
A Dow Chemical.
Q Oh, yeah.
A Tear gas everywhere. Now, this raggedy old Marine was familiar with CN and tear gas.
They had fires at the various intersections, escorted our help back and forth. My shop at that point was the third floor of the National Guardian Life building. The first three floors of those windows were broken. And Cambodia, the spring of '70, what was that little school in Ohio where we had the shootings?
Q Kent State.
A Kent State, yeah. That was all part of the unrest of lawyers. And this is going to be taken -- and I will be crucified, but I'm gonna get that anyway – the quality of lawyers changed entirely because of ‘Nam. There was an opportunity, if you got married and had a child, you could avoid the draft. That had an impact on who we hired, and an attitude. You got the Marine talking to you again. That's a bad scene now. Okay? But that -- all these cultural changes impacted our law firm because we deliver personal services.
Q Yeah.
A So, yeah. We formed Stolper, Koritzinsky, Brewster & Neider. And then again we had the philosophical differences between the family lawyers -- Koritzinsky is an excellent family lawyer -- and his group. But their approach is entirely different, and their hours that they recorded could not be fully billed because of the need. But the business lawyers said, "Well, wait a minute. You can't write that down, and you can't get paid for it if we didn't collect." So there you go.
Q So there was built-in tension in that law firm.
A Even more so than you would get with prima donnas in the first place.
Q Nevertheless, you continued in that practice for nine years.
A Yeah.
Q And then you spun off again?
A Well, if I may, Foley hired away Koritzinsky and his staff in '90 -- or no, Tony -- in '94. With all my concussions, I have difficulty remembering dates. But Allan, an immensely-qualified family lawyer, took his staff and built Foley's Madison practice, because all the years I represented Foley, starting with Miller Mack, family law, divorces, that was not the kind of work we did.
Q Okay. We had a slight pause there, but we were talking about Koritzinsky's firm moving into the Foley practice.
A Koritzinksy's team. Team.
Q Correct.
A Very capable. But two years before that, two extraordinarily capable, Balisle and Roberson, broke out on their own. They had learned the practice from Allan, and they were very talented. And they've done very well. They're specializing in family law. So we had by 1994 a substantial change in the departure, if you will, of the family law group. And for a business group -- pardon me -- there was a sigh of relief because not as to the quality, but because of the nature of the practice.
Q Sure.
A And one of the things -- I'm leaping ahead, but it's relative -- accounts receivable, a significant problem for lawyers, whether they like to admit it or not. If you work at it, okay. But you have to be careful up front what you do and your relationship with that client. Tell the client what they expect. What are your expectations? And answer them as best you can. Clients are very bright. All they expect is candor. And they don't expect perfection or they wouldn't be coming to lawyers. Pardon me, but that's true. But in family law, that's a huge problem. It's now pretty much controlled in much of its basic areas of legal lawyering by statute. But accounts receivables are huge. And if you want to get someday into the fee arb, that's where the cases that now come to me for assignment, good lord, six-figure, six-figure accounts receivable. It's nobody's fault. It's just simply that along the way there was a breakdown in communications. And I can't think of, because all the years I spent, of an area in which clients get more emotional about it, and they sometimes can't reason. And you can throw up your hands, but you can't do that either. It takes a particular kind of talent and patience, that lawyering ability, to move into that in the first place because now you're getting some armpit lawyering. If you represent a woman, she wants you to get her spouse or former spouse to do what she couldn't get him to do. And if you represent the husband, the reverse is true. And good – and with children involved, the array now of services that are available with guardians ad litem and so many fingers in the pie. Terribly difficult area of law. But a significant growth in that area because of what's happened in the country, and I think properly so, Ed.
Perhaps I'm jumping ahead. Forgive me.
Litigation has changed tremendously. With all the IT, you have a blizzard of discovery. And lawyers who are familiar with it say, "Wait a minute, let's work to settle this." The last time I saw, roughly 95 percent of litigation is now settled, and only five percent get to court.
Q Yeah.
A And we have mediation and alternate dispute resolution. Many of my colleagues continue in that area, mediation, etc. But let me subside for a moment, sir. Go ahead.
Q There came a time when you decided that you weren't gonna practice actively anymore. According to your resume, that came in about 2011. That's only three years ago.
A My silence is an indication of how profound that decision was. It took a while. And it came this way. As the law became more complicated, more specialized, I realized that I couldn't cover the areas competently the way I had years before. And if I had, I'd have had to have a backup. But I did not want any longer to be in the "managing partner business." That sounds harsh, but those who have been there understand. It takes time and emotional capital to sit down with these bright young lawyers and say, "This is your approach." "I don't like that approach." "Well, if you don't like that approach, then I'm sorry, but this client is not for you."
So that was a factor. But I was smart enough with all these concussions from Camp Randall to say, "Tony, you've got to phase out," 'cause I was heavily engaged always in other activities. So I began to find either in the -- Neider Boucher was where I wound up, okay, two very capable fellows, good friends, good lawyers -- I began to move my clients that were bread-and-butter clients either within that shop or to other lawyers in other shops because I knew that they would take good care of those clients. That took 10 or 15 years. And it also raised some eyebrows, and understandably, in those firms that I was with. What are you doing? And they knew what -- they also knew I had tried to find somebody in that particular shop. It didn't work. So the process was 10 or 12 years. But it was like giving away children. And that sounds harsh. But for goodness sake, some clients -- I still have good friends who are former clients that I've
delegated or relegated or whatever, have lunch with them. And we lie a lot, spit on the floor, and we talk about old pal times.
But yes, it was. That was a dramatic situation for me. But I felt it's time because I can't do what I used to be able to do and do it competently. And the clients deserve -- they expect more. And then on the other side, Ed -- and this, of course, with the ravages of time, I had an array that helped put six Brewster girls through college debt-free, of business clients who changed in their management, and they didn't want to go to grandfather Brewster. And I understood that.
So all these were social changes that helped me along the way. But I went to inactive. I refused to resign and surrender my license. I checked ethically, and I can still be and I am chair of the Fee Arb. And I love it because you have to know what the dispute is about. I get the papers from Kris Wenzel, I look at them, and then I look at that panel that I've got and I assign on the basis of the nature of the dispute. You gotta practice for quite a while to be able to do that effectively. It works nicely. It keeps my hand in. It's not the practice.
I have cautioned to clients and colleagues like me, "Wait a minute, don't go on that not-for-profit board because they're gonna think of you as a lawyer, and although you have stepped back, they're gonna treat you that way. Don't be giving them advice." But there's that old temptation that's part of you.
Q Yeah. I went to inactive status while I was at the Law School because family and friends would ask, "Well, you could do this house closing for me." And I thought, "Wait a second. You know, I don't have malpractice insurance. You know, I have no experience in this area. I'm not gonna risk giving you bad advice and ruining both of us."
So 2011 you go to inactive status. You kept involved in fee arbitration, but otherwise, I imagine you probably just retreated to your den and you do a lot of reading and –
A No, sir. No, sir. I -- there are still some agencies and public groups that are willing to be seen in public with me. Tamarack. I went to the penalty box there, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE), who closely runs Tamarack. It's a marvelously run PUD. My old colleague, Pharis Horton, has been the outside counsel for them. He's now, gosh, first turned 80 June 6th, '34. The Biograph Theater, John Dillinger, bang, back in '34.
But -- and then, of course, the Downtown Kiwanis Club, I'm heavily involved there as a senior, outside senior member. And we're looking for a new venue. And we're doing that pretty successfully. But that's a group, the 92nd largest service club in town, an array of university people and so on, a very complex group, sort of like following a big law firm. So Fee Arb and Tamarack and, goodness sakes, the service club have been gracious. Beyond that, I -- Red Wilson and I were president and vice-president respectively of the Class of 1950, and that class -- does the name Grainger ring a bell?
Q Yes, it does.
A Well, my buddy Red, who died two months ago – but that's neither here nor there; what a great guy and a great buddy -- and Red and I were walking down the street in the spring of '49, and two campus politicians came up and said, "Hey, you guys, how would you like to run for office?" We said, "What are you talking about?" And they said, "Senior class president." "Well, what's it involve?" "Well, you don't have to do anything." They lied. "Okay." I drew the short straw, so I became president. And Red, well –
We were at our 25th. Boomer Rennebohm was Wisconsin -- the Foundation. Boomer, my mentor. I got his number when he graduated in '87. It's on my license plate. Anyway, we were needing to raise some money for the University, which never ends. You know that. Law school, etc., etc., etc. An aside. This great university is 83 percent self-funded now. Sorry for another thing. Well, I've been always involved with that.
Back to Red. I said, "Red,” for our 25th – “Boomer, how much do we need?" "The business school wants to build a new building." And I looked at Red and I said, "Red, you remember quiet, solid Davy Grainger?" "Yeah." "Red, did you know how much he admired you as an athlete?" "No, I haven't thought about it." "Red, would you write him a letter asking for him to contribute to the University?"
200 million bucks later! Red, what a guy. He wrote a letter. But that's the kind of thing. In the frustration of working, you could say I was just bored. I told you about the offer, and it's neither here nor there. But I did accept the offer from -- come on -- oh, Harley Munks. He was in the Alumni Association. Harley said, "I want you on the Citizen Board of Visitors." Well, there again, a little diverse. I can't say much about it, except I was a player in the merger of 1970. Warren Knowles said, "Tony" -- Harrington was president, “was threatening to go to Hawaii because the Board of Regents then was not agreeing to what he wanted to do.” Sound familiar?
Q Yes.
A So then we had all kinds of -- Ed Young was out in Maine because he was waitin' to be Chan. Oh, boy. We got Weaver in, and Young and Weaver wouldn't talk to each other, so we had to have separate meetings. You know that too. I don't know if this is relevant. It should be deleted or redacted. But yeah, I played a role in that.
Q Well, okay. We have talked about how the practice has changed from the time you started till you came in. That's one of the important features of this interview is that someday somebody who's choosing to do research on it can look back and get the view of somebody who was involved with it as the change took place. And who knows? Maybe 50 years from now, the practice will have changed again from what it is now. Maybe we won't need lawyers 50 years from now. We'll have a different system of resolving all of our problems. So we've covered that area. Along the way, you mentioned your daughters. And I have to give you the opportunity to explain about your family because I've seen a little bit of it in your resume, and I think your -- the pride you have in them should be on this as well.
A Do you have the rest of the day? Well, if you've had children at all, it's a blessing. You love them all. But at any given point, I like some more than the others. And I love all my girls, really. I used to be seven feet tall and tell them that they wore me down to 6'5". And I learned so much. And I believe what Winston Churchill said, "The hand that rules the world rocks the cradle." My daughters, great, all of them. They're spread across the country. All of them are graduates, four from here, one from Lawrence, one from Montana, and one from Minnesota. And they're all through, fully paid. And they're grateful to daddy. Thank you very much. I said, "That's why they paid me to practice law till I was, what? 70 or 77?" But that's probably the greatest achievement, in my view.
And I don't want to say one -- to single them out doesn't mean to indicate any less love. One was a Big Ten tennis player. Another was a 14-time All American in track, captain of the women's track team, and set all kinds of records. Class of 1981, she was captain in '81. Peter Tegan was her coach. And Smoke, as I called her, set all kinds of records at West High here in town, set state records for girls. And this was early on with women in sports. Peg Miller at West and Peter Tegan at the University had an awful lot to do with building that program around the state. Talk about handling one of -- my girls are strong-willed. I don't know where they get that from. And I owe that to my wives. They're just great ladies, both. Whatever.
But Smoke was running third leg in the four-way relay in high school and did very well. But Peg Miller -- till recently was at West, another great coach -- said, "I was watching Ellen, and Ellen would get so pumped up waiting for that anchor leg. So what I thought I would do is" -- a misstatement. Waiting as anchor. So she moved her back to number three, which is perfect because Ellen then could give the anchor a six- to eight-yard lead. And Peter did the same thing.
All of them college grads. The youngest follows in the family tradition. And understand, one thing I have -- I must tell you, one of the great joys I have is that they docent at the Veterans Museum, and there I have, oh, twice a month, probably, during the school year and with older groups during the summer an opportunity to work with young kids, fourth grade, depending on, all the way through senior high. And I stand and I say, "You're born free. You have no idea what that means." And then I take them through the exhibits and tell them some things that are neither here nor there. But what an opportunity.
You know, I'm appalled by the lack of knowledge of American history that our kids have. And I work on that. But I did mention that's a huge opportunity I have, and I feel honored to be able, this old raggedy Marine, to talk to these young ones and their teachers and parents. An example on that point of how I feel. I had an event at my service club Monday night, the 13th, at Nakoma. I was sitting at a table with a big guy. Have I told you this one?
Q No.
A It's relevant in terms of the importance of education and my attitude towards it because of my background. Okay? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) these words are (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to me, but I was sitting at a table, and a big guy, larger than I, was across. I didn't know him. Did I tell you that?
Q But that was before we were on the tape, so go ahead and retell it.
A Should I? Okay.
Q Please.
A It's indicative of what I've tried to be. Looked across the table, as one jock can look at another and abuse each other. That's part of what we do. That's part of the way of expressing affection. Anyway, so that's your two-a-days in the old days. So I said that. Okay? I said, "Did you play ball anywhere?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "Where?" He said, "I was a down lineman for Wisconsin in '83, '84, '85." I said, "You played for Dave McClain." ‘Yes, I did." "And how about Al Toon?" "Yeah, I played for Al Toon." And then we got chatting. I said, "What do you do for a living?" And this is what got me. He said, "I'm a kindergarten teacher." This guy's huge. I said, "You're what? You're a kindergarten teacher?" I said, "You are a hero.”
“Where?", he said, "Well, I've been in the Madison School District, Joint School District Number 8, since 1992." "And you teach kindergarten? Where do those kids -- they come up to your knee?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Do you have lesson plans?" He said -- his wife said five hours every Sunday he would work on lesson plans.
That's the kind of hero that I really admire. There are lots of ways you can serve the country. I tried to do my best. And as I told you, it was the killing business. I won't talk about that. But you, sir, are serving the country, this big fellow with kindergarten kids serving the country, teachers, parents. That's the opportunity we have because that's a part of -- when I look at these little ones and say, "You're born free, and right now somewhere else in the world there are young people your age who already can speak your language and may well know more about your country than you do," and I've got 'em. I've got 'em, and their parents and teachers. Get a skill that nobody can take away from you. Be a lawyer, a doctor, a farmer, whatever, a carpenter, an electrician. Get a skill. Get a skill. That's how you can serve the country. And that's such an important part of my life. It really is.
Now, you caught me going on here. But those are some of the things I do that I could not have done nearly as well without having the pleasure of being a practicing lawyer. I'll always be one. I'll always be one.
Q Anything else that you want to talk about? Any – we talked a little about memorable people. And any cases that you remember? Any funny stories that you'd like to immortalize?
A You really want to ask me that kind of question? Just one. Dick Orton, Richard Orton, the (78 DISTRICT???) district court down in -- operated out of Lancaster. He himself was a marvelous example. [ ] He worked his way through law school, bailed himself out during World War II, came back. He was elected circuit court judge. Best judge I've ever worked before at that level.
Well, two -- I had a couple cases, many with him, but a number, went down to Lancaster with a very able lawyer, Carroll Metzner. Carroll had been my mentor when I was at Aberg in law school, very able trial lawyer. Not generally liked in the practice, but that's neither here nor there. We don't run popularity contests. You can't. We respected him because he was able. And we were in one particular -- I had been hired by a law firm in Platteville to represent this case. And we got to a point where I was about to call in Henry Suckle as an expert witness on injury. And Dick Orton said, "Counsel, approach the bench." So Carroll and I went up there, and he said, "Listen, you guys. I have an important date tomorrow and I'd like this case to settle today." And I looked at Carroll, and Carroll looked at me, and he said -- we said okay, and we settled it. Rare that a judge would do that.
Jim Doyle, Sr, same deal. Same deal here in the Federal District Court a little later on, a covenant not to compete. And my good friend and classmate, Larry Havend, who was at Quarles, was representing that case. And I was -- I stepped out in order for Gene Gehl to represent my client 'cause I was a witness. And Jim Doyle -- Gene Gehl, another able lawyer, bless his heart, long gone. Larry had me on the stand and was asking me, "Who's your client?" (AGLE 1). And I said, well, here, because the principal in that particular case was also running the company and had sold the company to -- at a substantial profit, and the other shareholder (BROADLY), but was suing him now because he hadn't told him about (55 Federal Act, 34 Act). And I'll shorten this because it sets a story of human nature.
The client, an entrepreneur, was testifying under cross with Larry, very able lawyer. And Larry said, "Well, now why did you have a sole proprietorship and then this corporation?" And the client said, "Well, because I had been advised," not by me, "that there was certain tax advantages in doing it that way." And the jury, which had been very much on the side of my client, being Americans, said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute." And I, as a witness, turned to Judge Doyle and said, "Your Honor, I think we should have a little recess." And Larry was looking at me and smiled. Gene looked at me. We had a conference with the judge in chambers, and Jim Doyle said, "You each have lied to each other quite a bit. You ought to settle the case." And we did.
Those are a couple of examples of two judges who had practiced law and had been through the mill themselves, who understood and recognized, wait a minute, this should not go on.
Those are a couple examples of a great honor to practiced law for me. I learned so much. And I -could go on and on. I'm not sure it's very helpful. But I could not be doing what I'm doing without having that, gosh, 56 years of practice in the corporate setting.
Longer view and for what it's worth, I'm concerned about the course and direction of the practice where we have the same thing in the private sector of the corporations, conglomerates, and we're having the same thing, I've seen it now, with law firms getting bigger
and bigger and bigger, less personal touch, higher specialization, almost automation, and the personal touch is gone. I don't mean to be cynical. I've just observed that. I've seen it. And I think one of the natural results is the respect for the profession has been damaged significantly at a time, of course, where everybody would always look for blame. And that's a part of our culture. But -- and we get as a result, it seems to me, it used to be that lawyers could practice law and also run for office.
Q Yes.
A That's not happening anymore. And those that do couldn't make it now -- this sounds harsh -- in the practice, so they become politicians. And that's okay if they remember first, they're Americans and what a privilege it is to be an American.
Q Yeah.
A Now, I'll cease for the moment.
Q I want to thank you for taking the time on behalf of the Bar, the Dane County Bar, and those who at some point in the future may listen to this or read the transcript. Remarkable stories.
A Well, and I'm always available. If that's -- again, you might note that it is, I'd be happy to talk, mentoring. I do that informally.
Q Great. Thank you, Tony.