Partial transcript as reviewed and edited by Kenneth J. Doran

Interview of Jack DeWitt

November 8, 1993

Q:         The date is November 8, 1993, and I am Ken Doran. Today we 1m am in the offices of Attorney Jack DeWitt at 2 E. Mifflin St in Madison. Attorney DeWitt graduated from law school in 1942 and has practiced since in a wide range of types of practices. While we were setting up we were talking about your history of law practice a little bit.

            I wonder if you could go through that again and tell me the different types of practices you’ve been involved in in your career.

A:         Well, the first case that I had occasion to try was when I was in the service.     I got my degree a semester early because I’d gone to a couple summer schools and they told me--i petitioned the faculty to give me my degree if I entered the service and they said they'd do if I wrote a satisfactory paper. I wrote a paper--I don ^I t know if it was very satisfactory, but they gave me the degree. So when I came home on furlough one time, I was admitted by Justice Fowler to practice.

So I was in the service and was a lawyer, but I’d never been in a law office other than to deliver a telegram. So the first case I had was to defend some fella for going over the hill in the army. I had to cross examine my regimental commander- -which was probably the most courteous cross examination I ever did in my career.

After service, I came back to Madison and I started pounding the pavement. I got out in December of ‘45 and was able to get a job by the first of January. An old friend of mine, Rand Connor, was a lawyer here, he called half the lawyers in town telling them what a fine guy I ^I d be to be in their firm and so forth and so I did get a couple of offers. I had an offer from the firm of Thomas, Orr, Isaackson which I accepted and just after that I was given an offer by Phil LaF011ette and Gordon Sinykin. Of course, I had to tell them that I'd already taken a job. I was with them for a couple of years, The principals there were Herb Thomas who was a man in the early 70’s, an old trial lawyer, and San Orr, a very capable lawyer. William Isaackson, another able guy, I'd say he was in the mid-40's and Joe Werner was at that time an alien property custodian in Washington, but Joe had been with them before the war and he came back shortly, so those were the four fellows I started practice with I learned a lot from each of them. A fine bunch of people.

I was the president of the Dane County Bar while I was there and I think I was helpful to them. I knew my contemporaries which ones of them were looking for committees and so forth I even took advise on that. I was the envy of most of my contemporaries because I was actually being paid $100 a month. Many of them were getting $50, or nothing.

I got married during my tenure there. As a single man I was getting $55 a month from Uncle Sam on the GI bill. I came back from my wedding- -when you were married you got $90 month, so I thought I'd be getting $190. It turned out that I received a letter saying that you 've performed your job objective. You're a lawyer and therefore, you get nothing-you don't get $55. Well, my employers were nice and gave me $100 raise, so I did make ends meet for my new bride and what I’d saved from the service.

I was there for about two years and they had one very interesting case. There was a libel action against Time Magazine and the local distributor of that –1’m sorry, Life Magazine. It was by some America First people, one of those groups that were against getting into the war. Of course, I was--just having come back from service, I was eager to become involved in it, I was able to sit in through it although I did nothing other than some investigation. But it was an interesting case and we prevailed at it.

I was a little resentful, like a lot of fellas coming back from service--fellas that were behind me in school already had two or three years of practice under their belt. But San Orr straightened me out on that - -he said if you'd have been here, you'd be getting cats and dogs anyhow. You gotta get a few gray hairs usually before you are going to get anything of any substance, so you’11 catch up to those fellas in a couple of years and I think I have.

So we were there about two years and then a friend of mine who was a couple years ahead of me in law school. He was working as an assistant to the Dean. Marlin Volz. Marlin asked me if I would be interested in coming out to the law school and teaching there. What he had in mind- -he’d been giving a course on what he called the embryo lawyers club. And he’d have lawyers and judges come in to speak to the students at noon time. They'd have lunch or something. It was quite popular with the students and I think he talked to the Dean and they thought it would be helpful to have a--get a course set up about how to do things. A general practice course.

This appealed to me very much because when I'd come back--I knew if someone had asked me to draft a deed, I'd have to tell them- -well, you present a very interesting problem. If you 11 come back tomorrow, I'11 have it done for you. I can recall when I was a senior in law school, I was given a job to draft a deed and mortgage over Christmas vacation. I told my parents, well this is a difficult job--I'11 have to go into some law office and borrow a form book. My mother said, "Well, why don't you just go and buy a form? They have forms for mortgages." "Mother, they don’t have forms - -they have form books, but I'd never be a form-book lawyer, I'11 devise my own after consulting a form book." “That is very strange as they always had these- -you ask your dad when he comes home." My dad when he got home, he said "My God, what did they teach you. They got a form for a deed and a mortgage.”

We were studying at that time, appellate cases that you were-simply case methods, you know. So no one really told me how to do anything. I remember Leon Isaackson threw me an abstract one day and said, "You know how to examined an abstract?” Well, remembered them saying something about following a chain of title in law school. So he came back in an hour or so. I had started at the back and started working forward. He said “did anyone ever show you how to do this?”

So he came in and taught me something. I felt that it would be very helpful to law students and that would be a way that I could help them, and I was offered more money to go out there, so I went out to law school and worked with Marlin on several different programs.

We were devising a course called legal problems which the students would take if they so desired--to take instead of six months office practice requirement. Because unfortunately a lot of lawyers would get a student and teach them how to examine an abstract that ⁱ s all they do all summer, ya know. Or they'd teach him how to investigate an auto accident. And the idea was to give him a little broader background than that. So we worked on that, and Marlin was in the process of starting to write a book, Wisconsin Practice Methods, he had a couple of other lawyers in town here, Patrick Baldwin and Pick were working with him on it. They got me working on that--of course the time I did with the course that Marlin and I were working on. We’re talking about that course called Legal Technique which was about a two-credit course that we taught during the year. We ran the trial court program out there I supervised legal aid society program for the students and the staff by class dues. So I supervised the argument of cases program and generally assisted the Dean with whatever he wanted to do out there.

I enjoyed it very much. It was an exciting time to be there. When I had been in law school it was kind of a gentlemen's deal. These fellas had been there and many of them that had known in school were really playing for keeps. They had three, four and five years in the service. Many of them had wives and young children. They were really playing for keeps and they were applying themselves, and sharp guys. It was an exciting time to be out there and I made a lot of friends among those people. It was an opportunity to work with a lot of interesting people on the faculty. I probably learned more from the faculty while I was a colleague than I did when I was a student. Of course, old Dean Rudd 1 e?? pointed out to me on one occasion. It is pretty hard to say exactly where you learned something and when you are learning something today, it is probably based on something you learned yesterday. Working with fellas like Jay Boiser? and Marlin Volz? and Dean Ruddle?, and all the rest of the faculty was a really fine opportunity for me that I enjoyed very much.

One of the things that came up during the time I was there was a veterans housing program that was in the legislature. Professor Boiser? got me interested in it and I became the lobbyist for the Veterans of Foreign War. About seven different veteran’s organizations formed a committee--it was a joint committee which I happened to be the chairman of- -to try a push through a veterans' housing program. The court had ruled that the veterans housing program that was set up by the legislature was unconstitutional so it was necessary to get a constitutional amendment. This was an interesting thing for me to work with the legislature, a lot of appearances before committees, met a lot of the interesting people. Warren Knowles was the chairman of one of the committees, as I recall it. Mel Laird, who was later on the Secretary of Defense, was one of the people that I met there. Pat Lucey was in the legislature then, Bill Duffy was later a judge. On our committee we had, in addition to Professor Boiser, Horace Wilkie, who was later Chief Justice. We had Sverre Roang Wayne who was later a judge down in Rock County. We ultimately were successful in getting the constitutional amended adopted. We had two sessions down there of lobbying and of course we had that drive to see that the people adopted it. I had the opportunity to speak around the state quite a bit with the veteran’s organizations especially when I represented the Veterans of Foreign War.

After I was there in the faculty for about four years, the legislature created a Judicial Council. Previously there had been the old Committee on Practice and Procedure and this took over that role of advising the Supreme Court about how to improve practice and procedure. But it had a broader  province that that, it was to study court organization, operation and administration and make not only recommendations to the court, but also to the legislature. This was composed of--pretty much as it is now--with a Supreme Court Justice, a Circuit Judge, a County Judge, and in those days they had a Municipal Judge. They had a representative--a couple people appointed by the Governor. The Reviser of Statutes and the deans of the two law schools and the bar had three representatives. Two appointees of the governor. And this was a wonderful opportunity for me because of the caliber of the people that were on there. Art Koff?, who'd represented my family when I was a young lad-was a judge from when we lived in Platteville, was a chairman and Warren Resch?, Assistant Attorney General, was the attorney general representative on there. John Conway was the Reviser of Statutes. Dean Rundle was on from the University. Dean Sweitlik? from Marquette University. John ? for the County Judges. Wade Boardman and Ralph Hoyt? were a couple of lawyers; over the years they had other fine lawyers and judges on there. So, it was great to sit at the feet of those people while we were studying these things. Conway was there, of course, on a regular basis and I worked with him every day. He was a wonderful person.

We had to collect statistics from all of the courts around the state. We had to come up- -work out - -forms for the clerks and registers in probate to make reports on, which is a pretty involved procedure, and then arrange to collect those.

It entailed my traveling all over the state to talk with judges and clerks and registers of probate, other lawyers, getting their ideas. And every time we went out - -every time a lawyer or judge would talk, we would get some idea we thought would improve the practice. Then we would go back and adopted many of those and have the court or the legislature get them through.

I did some research--nothing original of me- -old Dean Pound? was suggesting a unified court back about 1906. Everything I read and analyzed indicated that he was right about that, to the point of all these problems with jurisdiction. And in Wisconsin in those days most of the county courts annexed the jurisdiction and each one had a separate act. The local guys knew the local rules, but the people in the next county were not likely to know it, so we were anxious to get some uniformity. I was in favor of one unified court. Most of the council were, but not quite. We finally ended up- -we were able to get it so that work before the municipal courts-they were all made county courts. They had the same jurisdiction throughout the state, essentially.

Q:        When you talk about a unified court, that’s because it was-both county courts and circuit courts

 A:       They had municipal courts and superior courts and district court in Milwaukee and so on, yeah, that’s right.

So we worked on that and were somewhat successful. I hung with that, and over the years, it was about 25 years after we started the study, we did get a unified court system. I was very active in working on that. So my two major legislative time experiences, really--I had a lot of others, but- -were with the veterans housing program and with the court reorganization.

I was there on the judicial counsel for about five years and it was real interesting work and I got to meet a lot of interesting people all over the state. Making appearances before the legislature and the court and it was very enjoyable work.

In 1955 we were at a stage where the one problem you had with a state employee--the legislature doesn't want you down their lobbying. It is kind of silly- -you've got a hired man who was hired to look at everything and come up and study it, and then tell him his lips are sealed, you know. Usually you are able to arrange with the chairman of the judiciary committee to call on you, so you weren't theoretically volunteering the information. You really couldn't get out and lobby for it and I thought it was important to be able to do that.

Marshall Erdman had the interest not only of architecture, he wasn't an architect yet, but he was starting to start up his building proposal, he always had the interest in politics and Collins Barris who had been out there working with Marshall-he was leaving there to become Vice President what would now be Valley Bank but was then called Madison Bank and Trust. And Collie and Marshall thought that I should come out there, and Marshall told me that I could have time to go around and speak to bar associations and so forth and try and promote this program as well as working for him and getting paid. So, I took the job and I enjoyed it very much for a while. liked Marshall, he was a good guy and old Henry Pice? there was sort of a partner of Marshall's, initially--was an interesting fellow. I was in charge of working on the contracts. They were primarily, this is when I first got there, they hadn't started in the building- -medical buildings--they were primarily in housing. They had expanded to more than just Madison, they had dealers around the state. They had some interesting dealers that Marshall and Collie had set up. They had Carl Thompson and Bob Sundby's uncle-they were dealers down in Stoughton and Jack Potter and Bill Krauss and Bob Felty were the dealers up in the Stevens Point area. They got Bill Shrinky? who was a state senator, was a dealer in Walworth County, so we had some interesting- -Sverre Roang and Dick Olson's father were dealers in Edgerton, so we got some interesting people to work with.

I worked on those contracts with those people and the individual contractors the homes were building, and was in charge of the advertising program and so forth, and working on sales. I really didn't enjoy the selling of houses and talking to those who wanted to buy- -what kind of tiles it should have--that wasn't really my cup of tea.

About this time, Judge Reese, who had been circuit judge for a long time, suddenly died and Doug Nelson, who was a small claims judge threw his hat in the ring, almost before the body had cooled, and Doug's a fine person, a good honest guy, a hard-working guy. But a lot of people didn't feel that he should be on the circuit bench. So many people ran, among them were myself. There were three, former, well Dick Varden was sitting, he was the District Attorney at the time. Ed Wilkie, his predecessor ran, Norris Maloney, Ed's predecessor ran, Nelson was running, the general counsel for the Department of Revenue was running. Bill Keepler? was running. And my hat was in the ring. There were seven or eight of us that were running. Bardwell and Wilkie, eventually were the finalists, and Bardwell won that time. Wilkie later became a judge. So did Maloney.

About that time, two fellows that had gone to law school while I was teaching out there, Norm Herro and Bob Beaner, were at practice as Herro Beaner and they wondered if I might not be interested in going into practice, since I'd run for judge. At about the same time, Ralph Himmel was looking for someone to go with him. Ralph was a lawyer, he was a retired adjutant (?) general here for many years and was a general during World War 11. He had a number of connections in Washington and he commanded a reserve division and I was on his staff. Ralph didn't know me very well, but at the time I ran for judge, several of the fellows that were mutual friends, told Ralph that I was a good guy, and he should support me, and he did. So Ralph contacted me about going into practice with him. So I put him in contact with Herro and Beaner we formed the firm called him, Himmel, Herro, Beaner and DeWitt. And I stared practicing in October of 1956. And I’ve been practicing with the same firm ever since with a lot of different personnel here, you know.

One of the fellows we had here was the elder Judge Fairchild, Ab Fairchild. When he got off of the Supreme Court, his son, Tom, succeeded him. Tom had been the Attorney General. And the old judge came over and became of counsel to us and was here for several years when he was well up in the 80's at that time, but he showed up every morning, came in at 9:00, and he said, “well, how do you expect to make a living practicing law getting here at 9:00 in the morning.” He usually would fade out early in the afternoon, but he was a wonderful fella to have here. We had Leonard Bestmann, later a bankruptcy judge, at one time, the head of the Public Service Commission, was here. One of the fellas that worked for me part time and then he went full time for a while, when I was with the judicial counsel, Bob Martinson and I knew him at the law school. A very interesting guy. Bob came to law school without a college education. He served as a deputy sheriff, clerk of court, head of the highway commission, God knows what all else up in Vilas County. The guy had a photographic memory. I’ve heard a lot of lawyers say, well look at 221 Wisconsin on page 30, but usually you look and it isn't there. But with Bob, it was. He knew that statute book better than anyone I cand recall, other than E. E. Brossard, who was the revisor, and John Conway, who was the revisor. By the way, Brossard was an interesting character. He was I believe in the 90's, when he was still active as revisor of statutes. He was a good strapping guy that - -about 6 2" and powerfully built--he looked like at about age 90 he could take me out behind the barn and give me a good thrashing. Fine gentleman and very open to new ideas and everything. Martinson practiced with us for several years here.

Original transcript prepared by stenographer

Interview of Jack DeWitt

November 8, 1993

Q:         Attorney DeWitt graduated from law school in 1942 and has practiced since in a wide-range types of practices. While we were setting up we were talking about your history of law practice a little bit. I wonder if you could go through that again and tell me the different types of practices you’ve been involved in in your career.

A:         Well, the first case that I had occasion to try was when I was in the service. I got my degree a semester early because I 'd gone to a couple summer schools and they told me--I petitioned the faculty to give me my degree if I entered the service and they said they’d do if I wrote a satisfactory paper. I wrote a paper --1 don't know if it was very satisfactory, but they gave me the degree. So when I came home on furlough one time, I was admitted by Justice Fowler.

So I was in the service and was a lawyer, but I’d never been in a law office other than to look over a telegram. The first case I had was to defend some fella from going over the hill in the army. I had to cross examine my regimental commander- -it was probably the most courteous cross examination I ever did in my career.

After the service, I came back to Madison and I started peddling paper. I got out in December, 1945 and was able to get a job by the first of January. An old friend of mine, we went to college with some lawyers here, he called half the lawyers in town telling them what a fine guy I’d be to be in their firm and so forth and so I did get a couple of offers. I did get an offer from the firm of Thomas, Orr, Isaackson which I accepted and just after that I was given an offer by Bill LaFo11ette and Gordan Sinykin. Of course, I had to tell them that I'd already taken a job. I was with them for a couple of years. The principals there were Herb Thomas who was a man in the early 70’s--an old trial lawyer, Sam Orr. Green Isaackson, I'd say he was in the mid-40's and Joe Winger was at that time with them- -mainly a property custodian in Washington, but Joe had been with them before the war and he came back shortly after. I learned a lot from them. A fine bunch of people.

I was the president of the Dane County Bar while I was there and I think I was helpful to them. I knew my contemporaries which ones of them were working for committees and so forth. I even took advise on that. I was the envy of most of my contemporaries because I was actually being paid $100 a month. Many of them were getting $50, or nothing.

I got married during my tenure there. As a single man I was getting $55 a month from Uncle Sam on the GI bill. I came back from my wedding--when you were married you got $90 month, so I thought I'd be getting $190. It turned out that I received a letter saying that you’ve performed your job objective. You're a lawyer and therefore, you get nothing-you don't get $55. Well, my employers were nice and gave me $100 raise, so I did make ends meet for my new bride and what I'd saved from the service.

I was there for about two years and they had one very interesting case. There was a liable action against Time Magazine and the local distributor of that - -Life Magazine. So America first people wanna be. One of those groups that were against getting into the war. Of course, I was--just having come back from service, I was eager to become involved in it, I was able to sit in through it although I did nothing other than some investigation. But it was an interesting case and we prevailed on it.

I was a little resentful, like a lot of fellas coming back from service--fellas that were behind me in school already had two or three years of practice under their belt. But Sam Orr straightened me out on that - -he said if you'd have been here, you'd be getting cats and dogs anyhow. You gotta get a few gray hairs usually before you are going to get anything of any substance, so you’11 catch up to those fellas in a couple of years and I think I have.

I was there about two years and then a friend of mine who was a couple years ahead of me in law school. He was working as an assistant to the Dean Marlin Volz. Marlin asked me if I would be interested in coming out to the law school and teaching. What he had in mind—he’d been giving a course on what he called the embryo lawyers club. He had lawyers and judges come in to speak to the students at noon time. They'd have lunch or something. It was quite popular with the students and I think he talked to the Dean and they thought it would be helpful to have a--get a course set up about how to do things. A general practice course.

This appealed to me very much because when I'd come back--I knew if someone had asked me to draft a deed, I'd have to tell them--well, you present a very interesting problem. If you'll come back tomorrow, I'11 have it done for you. I can recall when there was a shaman law school. I was given a job to draft a deed and mortgage over Christmas vacation. 1 told my parents, well this is a difficult job--1'11 have to go into some law office and borrow a form book. My mother said, “Well, why don't you just go and buy a form?” “Mother, they don't have forms--they have forms book, but I’d never bought lawyer, I’ll devise my own after consulting a form book.” “That is very strange as they always had these-you ask your dad when he comes home.” I asked my dad when he got home, he said “My God, what did they teach you. They got a form for a deed and a mortgage.”

We were studying at that time, you got real involved- appellate cases that you were--simply case methods, you know. So no one really told me how to do anything. I remember me and Isaackson were proofing an abstract one day and said- -you know how they examined? Well, I remembered him saying something about from law school so he came back in an hour or so.  I started to pack and started looking forward to- -he said “did anyone ever show you how to use this?” No, so I felt that it would be very helpful to law students and that would be a way that I could help and I was offered more money to go out there, so I went out to law school and worked with Marlin on several different programs.

We were advising a course called legal problems which the students were instead of--if they so desired--to take instead of six months office practice requirement because unfortunately a lot of lawyers or law student you dealing and you’re teaching to examine an abstract that's all they do all summer, ya know. Why don’t they teach him how to invest it in road waxes. And the idea was to give him a little broader background in that. So we worked on that, Marlin and myself. in the process of starting to write a book, Wisconsin Practice Methods, we had a couple of other lawyers in town here, Captain Baldwin and Pink were working with him on it. They got me working on that - -of course the time I did with the course that Marlin and I were working on. We’re talking about that course called Legal Technique which was about a two-credit course that we taught during the year. We ran the trial court program. I supervised legal aid society program for the students and the staff by class fees. So I supervised the cases program and generally assisted the Dean with whatever he wanted to do out there.

I enjoyed it very much. It was an exciting time to be there. When I had been in law school it was kind of a gentlemen's deal. These fellas had been there and many of them that had known in school were really playing for keeps. They had three, four and five years in the service. Many of them had wives and young children. They were really playing for keeps and they were applying themselves. It was an exciting time to be out there and I made a lot of friends among those people. It was an opportunity to work with a lot of interesting people on the faculty. I probably learned more from the faculty while I was at the college than when I was a student. Of course, old Dean Ruddle pointed out to me on one occasion. It is pretty hard to say exactly where you learned something and when you are learning something today, it is probably based on something you learned yesterday. Working with fellas like Jay Boiser and Marlin Volz and Dean Ruddle, and all the rest of the faculty was a really fine opportunity for me that I enjoyed very much.

One of the things that came up during the time I was there was a veterans housing program that was in the legislature. Professor Boiser got me interested in it and I became the lobbyist for the veterans of foreign war. About seven different veterans organizations. I formed a committee--it was a joint committee which I happened to be the chairman of- -to try a push through a veterans housing program. The court had ruled that the veterans housing program that set up the legislature was unconstitutional so it was necessary to get a constitutional amendment. This was an interesting thing for me to work with the legislature, a lot of appearances before committees, met a lot of the interesting people. One was the chairman of one of the committees. As I recall it Neal Laird, who was my later on the Secretary of Defense, was one of the people that I met there. Pat Lucy was in the legislature then, Bill Duffy was later a judge. Our committee we had, in addition to Professor Boiser, Horace Wilkey, who was later Chief Justice. We had Wayne who was later a judge down in Rock County. We were successful in getting the constitutional amended adopted. We had two sessions down there of lobbying and of course we had that drive to see that the people adopted it. I had the opportunity to speak around the state quite a bit.

After I was there in the faculty for about four years, the legislature created a judicial counsel the old committee on practice and procedure and took over that role of advising the Supreme Court about how to improve practice and procedure. What had happened blown their profits and that, it was disturbing court organization, operation and administration and make not only recommendations to the court, but also to the legislature. This was composed of-pretty much as it is now- -with the Supreme Court Justice, Circuit Judge, a County Judge, and the head of the Municipal Judge. They had representative--a couple people appointed by the Governor. The Register of the Reviser of Statutes and the dues between law school and the bar had three representatives. Two appointees of the governor, and this was a wonderful opportunity for me because of the caliber of the people that belonged there- -Art Koff, who'd represented my family when I was a young lad- -was a judge from when we lived in Platteville, wag a chairman and Warren Resh, Assistant Attorney General - -representative on there. John Conway was the adviser of staff. Dean was on from the University. John Crost was of the County Judges.

Boardman and Ralph White were a couple of lawyers that over the years-fine lawyers and judges on there. So, it was great to sit at the feet of those people while we were studying these things. Conway was there, of course, on a regular basis and I worked with him every day. He was a wonderful person.

We had to collect statistics from all of the courts around the state. We had to come up- -work out - -forms for the clerks and registers in probate to make reports on, which is a pretty involved procedure, and then arrange to collect those.

It entailed traveling all over the state to talk with judges and clerks and registers of probate, other lawyers. Getting better ideas every time we went out - -every time a lawyer or judge would talk, we would get some idea we thought would improve the practice. Then we would go back and adopted many of those and have the court or the legislature get them through.

I did some research--nothing original of me- -old Dean Crown was suggesting a unified court back about 1906. Everything I read and analyzed indicated that he was right about that, to the point of all these problems with jurisdiction. And in Wisconsin in those days most of the county courts annexed the jurisdiction and each one had a separate act. The local guys knew the local rules, but the people in the next county were not likely to know it, so we were anxious to get some uniformity. I was in favor of one unified court. Most of the counsel were, but not quite. We finally ended up- -we were able to get it so that work before the municipal courts--they were all made county courts. They had the same jurisdiction throughout the state, essentially.

Q:       When you talk about a unified court, that' s because it was-both county courts and circuit courts. . . .

A:       They had municipal courts and superior courts and district court in Milwaukee and so on, yeah, that's right.

So we worked on that and were somewhat successful. Over the years, it was about 25 years after we started the study, we had a unified court system. I was very active in working toward that. So my two major life time experiences, really-I had a lot of others, but - -were with the veterans housing program and with the court reorganization.

I was there on the judicial counsel for about five years and it was real interesting work and I got to meet a lot of interesting people all over the state. Making appearances before the legislature and the court and it was very enjoyable work.

In 1955 we were at a stage where the one problem you had with a state employee--the legislature didn't want you down their lobbying. It is kind of silly- -you 've got a hired man who was hired to look at everything and come up and study it. Usually you are able to arrange with the chairman of the judiciary committee to call on you, so you weren't volunteering the information. You really couldn't get out and lobby for it and I thought it was important for people to do that.

At Marshall Erdman- -had the interest - -primarily of architectory- -it wasn't an architect firm yet but it was starting to building. Wasn't interested in the politics and Collis Barris--a developer working with Marshall - -this meeting there to become Vice President what would now be Valley Bank but was Madison Bank and Trust. And Collie and Marshall- -Marshall told me that I could have time to go around and speak to bar associates and so forth and try to promote this program as well as working for him and getting paid. So, I took the job and I enjoyed it very much for a while. I liked Marshall, he was a good guy and old Henry Price there was one of the partners of Marshall’s, initially- -was an interesting fellow. I was in charge of working on the contracts ahead. They were primarily- -this is my first they haven't started any of the building- -medical buildings--they were primarily in housing.

             They had expanded to more around the state.

They had some interesting dealers that a Marshall and Colling's set up. And Carl Thompson and Bob Sunby's uncle-he was down in Stoughton and ah, Jack Potter and Bill Krause and Bob Felty were the dealers up in the Stevens Point area. They got Dale Shrinky who was a state senator, was a dealer in Walworth County, so we had some interesting- -Spiro Lange and Dick Olson’s father were dealers in Edgerton, so we got some interesting people to work with.

I worked on those contracts with those people and the individual contractors the homes were building, and was in charge of the advertising program and so forth, and working on sales. I really didn’t enjoy the selling of houses and talking to those who wanted to buy- -what kind of pile it should have--that wasn’t really my cup of tea.

About this time, Judge Reese, who had been circuit judge for a long time, suddenly died and Doug Nelson, who was a small claims judge who was happened to name, almost before the body cooled, and Doug's a fine person, a good honest guy, a hard-working guy. A lot of people didn't feel he should be on the circuit bench. So many people ran. Among them were myself. There were three, four minute, well Dick Varden was sitting, he was the District Attorney at the time. Ed Wilkey, his predecessor ran, Norris Mooney, Ed's predecessor ran, Nelson was running, the in-house counsel for the Department of Revenue was running. Bill Keepler was running. There were seven or eight of us that were running. Bardwell and Wilkey, eventually were the finalists, and Bardwell won that time. Wilkey later became a judge.

About that time, two fellows that had gone to law school while I was teaching out there, Norm Harol and Bob Binder were at practice with Darrell Beaner and they wondered if I might not be interested in going to practice, since I’d run for judge. At about the same time, Ralph Kimmel was looking for someone to go with him he was a lawyer, he was a retired general here for many years and was a general during World War Il. He had a number of connections in Washington and he commanded a reserve division and I was on his staff. Ralph didn't know me very well, but at the time I ran for judge, several of the fellows that were mutual friends, told Ralph that I was a good guy. So Ralph contacted me about going into practice with him. So I put him in contact with Harol and Beaner before the firm called him, Himmel, Harol, Beaner and DeWitt. and I stared practicing in October of 1956. And I’ve been practicing with the same firm ever since with a lot of different personnel here, you know.

One of the fellows we had here was the elder Judge Fairchild when he got off of the Supreme Court. His son, Tom, succeeded him. Tom had been the Attorney General. And the old judge came over and became of counsel to us and was here for several years when he was well up in the 80's at that time. He showed up every morning, came in at 9:00, and he said, “well, how do you expect to make a living practicing law getting here at 9:00 in the morning.” He usually would fade out early in the afternoon, but he was a wonderful fella to have here. Leonard Best, he was a bankruptcy judge. At one time, the head of the public service commission was here. One of the fellas that worked for me part time and then he went full time for a while, when I was with the judicial counsel, Bob Martinson and I filled in at the law school. A very interesting guy. Bob came to law school without a college education. He served as a deputy sheriff, clerk of court, the highway commission, God knows what all else up in Vilas County. The guy had a photographic memory. I’ve heard a lot of lawyers say, well look at 221 Wisconsin on page 30, but usually you look and it isn't there. But Bob, he could actually, and he knew that statute book better than anyone I could recall.

By the way, Prosser was a character. He was I believe in the 90's, but he was still acting as an advisor of statutes. He was a good strapping guy that-about 6’ 2” and powerfully built - -he looked like at about age 90 he could take me out behind the barn and beat me with a good thrashing. Fine gentleman and very open to new ideas and everything. Martinson practiced with us for several years here and after the four of us had practiced for a while we got a number of - -various people employed here, but Bob decided to join us. After a while he became a partner. Some years later we merged with a couple firms. Phil Porter ^I s son, John was a classmate of mine and he died rather young so Phil was by himself and we talked to Phil about joining us. Also, Al McAndrews and were in the firm so we merged those three firms--I don't know how long ago that was.

About this time, we took a man from each firm and called it Harold, along with McAndrews and called it DeWitt, Porter and subsequently the name has been changed from time to time. That is essentially what I’ve done in my career. I had a number of interesting cases. I've done lobbying, I've done trial work, probate work and shortly after I went back to the practice, having been a writer of that--one of the fore writers of Wisconsin Practice, most lawyers have in the office of Wisconsin, I contracted with West Publishing and their suggestion to write interpretive commentaries for the practice sections of Wisconsin Statutes Annotated. I hired a couple of guys to work with me on that. One was Jack Penelsack, a lawyer in Milwaukee. Another young man getting out of law school then. Peter Heltick’s son, so I did get that done after I got back to practice.

Some interesting cases, one case that I recall in the late 50's was the Wetherby case. It wasn't a court trial at all.

This fellow was the chief of police here. Involved a motor vehicle accident - -he’d been having some drinks before that, he was in the hospital. As I recall it, one of the city committees had a hearing and he didn't appear there- -wasn't represented or anything--they really worked him over and he was going to have. So the hearing before the police and fire commission and this thing was broadcast on the radio and it lasted--it was an extensive hearing. It’s a strange relationship because the police and fire commission sits there. The complainant was the mayor of the district and a good friend of mine- -better friend than the chief and I was representing the chief. So, he’s my client and the advisor to the police and fire commission was Harold Hanson, the City Attorney, so you gotta feel like you are not exactly warm and completely unbiased. It was a drag out deal and they ultimately found that he had been making too much and he should get out as chief of police. I took it to Circuit Court but wasn’t able to get a no return. Then, left, he had a job with what was then North Central Airlines and I think he maybe got on booze or dope or something. He moved to Texas later on and his wife shot him. It was really a tragic kind of a deal to see this guy. He came to Madison as an outsider and at that time and he had to watch his back from the day he got here because he wasn't a local guy, he’d come here from Texas. He made a payday--he made a metropolitan police force out of it. I had sub-contracted with him before. I forgot to mention that while I was at the law school the Korean War broke out and Dick Barnwell was in the National Guard out there and they were called up. Dick forced a democrat and new republican governor, he didn't want to resign and looked as though with the number of children he had it was quite likely that the Air Force would discharge him. And he could go back to the job. There was a special provision from Portland of a acting District Attorney and Judge Reese and Judge Sachtjen appointed me the acting attorney and I held that job and currently my job at the law school. I was pretty fortunate having the people I have working with me. At the law school I had hired Bob Felty out there as my assistant. A terrific guy. And the Deputy District Attorney was Rolan Day. So there I had some contact with whether Ray and I--I saw him get vilified in the papers for mistakes and for subordinate and I expect that could happen. That was an interesting case.

I represented Neil Woody which was a interesting criminal case here. He and his colleague, Bob Kelly, opened room for

students up at the law school. Woody was the number one man

in the class and was the number two man. They were charged with filing false financial statement.

They had to appear before one their classmates with a bind over. Judge Rice from Sparta got involved. They had a trial before Judge Hanson in Fond du lac. Best time I thought there was something that Neil was involved in. I got the case there. I represented Kelly. They ultimately found them both guilty and Woody couldn't get time, so it was a tragic deal for both of those guys who had fine careers up until that trial.

Q:         Any other particularly memorable cases?

A:         I had one interesting--a couple of interesting ones that-one case--I was representing a woman that was hit from an old beetle here on the square. Wally York was the other lawyer and Dick Vargo was the judge. And this young man that hit the woman was in the service and the woman died- not as a result of the accident, but she died before the trial. So we had a case where neither of the parties to the accident were there. We had their depositions. An interesting thing came up in drawing the jury. There was a lady named Lewis and when we asked if she knew anyone, she told the judge that—"I don't think he remembers, but um, I was then with Mr. DeWitt’s mother and father when he was a high school boy.” Judge Martin asked her, would that keep you from rendering a fair decision. “No, I don't think so.” And, we tried the case. I won the case and didn't get as much money as I'd like to have. After the trial was over, Dick Vargo was talking to Wally York. I said, “Wally, how come you had Mrs. Lewis stay on the jury after she indicated that she knew you and knew his family?” Wally says, “I play golf with her husband every Monday.” So, questions that you might ask and some that you might not think to ask, you know, that are involved.

Another rather interesting one that I had was a case where i represented the individual who’d been    run over by another car and that person was represented by Bill Jackman, who was later a judge. There were two cars behind my client. Both were--the one right behind him hit him and the one behind that one hit the other one. The two cars that followed my man's car were both insured by the same company and Willie Stafford represented both of them. Well, clearly the principal negligence was on the part of the man coming the other way that hit my man head on. And Jackman was willing to throw in most of his coverage. Stafford was pretty sure that he could get the other two off. The problem was that the Jackman people didn't have enough coverage to really do what I felt was a fair amount for my man to take and Stafford was unwilling to pay anything. We tried the case and it turned out that my man was zero negligent and each of the following cars was 5%. This was just at the time of the Bilkey case which was the case that I knew was in the Supreme Court at the time. So the jury had come in with the findings, but we waited. The judge wanted to wait until that case had come down to find out the ruling on it. Well the case indicated that all of them are jointly liable and if there wasn't enough money from the fella that came from the other- -the two cars that came and hit from behind weren't in the picture. Well, so that was kind of interesting that we had to wait until this case came down to finally finalize the judgment.

I had another interesting case--it was the Shure case where a young lady who was a Queen at University was hit by a bus. This is a case that was very difficult to try to settle because she is suing the City which--from the way they set the street arrangement up there and the signing and so forth, and suing the bus company. The situation where-of course the bus couldn't get as long as a drawn-out line after as soon as the accident, ya know. It all had been-and all the witnesses say well, she walked right into the bus and so forth and so. . . It was a little tough to try and handle. The company, I found out to my dismay, instead of having a $25,000--1 think they only had $25,000 coverage. You can imagine what would happen if a bus turns over you, full of people. So, the City had limited liability because the statute and this bus company, they didn't have--their insurer had very little to throw in. We had to try the case. They found the girl 50% negligence and the other two were, of course, less than that. I didn't take the case up on appeal, but on appeal, that’s where they decided to make it if you are 50% negligent, you still recover. Before, if you were 50% negligent you couldn't recover.

I've told you about the most interesting cases. I told you some that I lost.

Q:         How would you say the practice of law has changed in the years you’ve been doing that has made it either easier or more difficult?

A:         I think in terms of the secretarial work. When I started out, they weren't using quill pens then, but the old typewriters--if you had a lengthy document and you needed more than about five or six copies, you had to have two runs on the--the girl had to type it twice. One of the ways--and if you decided you needed to insert a paragraph in a document after you reviewed it, they'd have to do the whole thing over. There was no copy machines or anything like that around. Things are much easier in that respect.

In those days, for the most part, you dictated to the secretary. In other words, she couldn't be working on anything else while you are dictating. And if you are dictating and the telephone rings, she doesn't know whether you are simply - -your wife asking for dinner on time or whether you are going to be on there for fifteen minutes. So she is sitting there with her pencil and pad. And you waiver her away if it is going to be long and so forth. It was fairly unusual to have dictating machines There was obviously no computers, there's no fax machines or anything like that. That part of it is a lot easier. I think that the lawyers that come out of law school I think are abler.

They are more selective as to who can go to law school. When I went, anyone that would have had a degree from another school or this school in Madison, would have been admitted into law school. And if the grades were good enough to get in your third year, Wisconsin a lot of money back then.

So there's a lot of friction there. Typically, about two out of three guys that started would get out - -that doesn’t mean that they all flunked out, they decided they didn’t like the law or this, that and the other thing, ya know. I think that it was your sense of community in a smaller-there were less lawyers. You knew nearly all of them from the practice of lawyers and the judges knew nearly all of the practicing lawyers. After a few bad apples. They go, and you know I've been with that son-of-a-bitch- -you better get it in writing, ya know. For the most part a guy's word was his bond. It is with most people, but you don't know these people because you knew of them, ya know. And as a consequence, I think the practice becomes more formalized.

I think the judges, not knowing whether they can trust this particular lawyer, are gonna make you cross the t’s and dot the i’s. They want to be sure that, let's say in a divorce case, that you’ve got -- that it’s really an honest deal that they've made--that the lawyer hasn't sold out a client so that nothing bad came out. So, I think--it's easy to dislike someone you don’t know. If you know someone, then you get some understanding about that person. Nearly everyone wants to get along and do the right thing. You dealt with the individuals and you cared something about them and so forth, even if you were having a hell of a fight with them in the lawsuit, the guy was still your friend, ya know.

There weren't very many women lawyers in those days. My colleague in writing that book, Katherine Baldwin, and Avery Dodge hung out their shingle. Just before I came back from the service. They were both bright gals and the lawyers liked them and tried to send something over to them. I think they had in mind that women would go to them, but it was too early in the game for that. They had a tough time in getting significant clientele. It didn't last. It wasn't a question of being plenty able. They were good people.

There was a--Anna Mae Davis was practicing here in town--is one woman lawyer I can think of. Not too many others. There were a lot of colorful characters. Lucious Squires would be walking around town- -someone said he's the only man that they new could strut sitting down. Darrell Mackentire was a character to deal with. He would go in before the courts there and brow beat witnesses. District Attorney when he ^l d either have to be yelling right back at him or else. He'd want to brow beat the witness, so the judges had a tough time with Darrell from time to time. Darrell, I suspect had some runners down, somehow word got around the jail that Darrell should gotten this person and ah, the media was always writing him up.

Q:         Can you tell me a little bit about your family background and your years growing up before you went to law school.

A:         I went to high school down in Lancaster. My father had a law degree from Northwestern- -went down to Oklahoma as a young man and married my mother who had been a registered probate down there and legal secretary. My dad- -he got into banking and oil down there. Made a lot of money. Went broke and moved back to Wisconsin. I was the oldest of three children. A younger sister and a younger brother. My mother, who hadn't had a chance to go to college, was very adamant that I go to college. I came up here in '36. I had a little help from my folks the first year, but they told me they couldn't help me anymore. Do it on my own. I managed to get jobs. I worked summers down at the oil fields. After my freshman year here. And after my Sophomore year I worked down in the oil fields. I was lucky enough to get a job at Oscar Mayers on a full-time basis.     I had a--I worked 40 hours or more every week, plus I would come home from school, change clothes, take a bus or cab to Oscar's. Cabs, by the way were 10-15 cents in those days and the bus was a nickel. Then I had to change clothes at Oscars. I worked as a cleanup man in the trimming out there and then I worked as a janitor on the kiln and I was out there for four years. At the end of my-last year or so, I worked in shipping. Jim Herick worked there in the last two years as a shipping clerk. Quite a few guys worked and went to school at Oscars in those days.

Jim McDona1ds out at the law school, just retiring this. That was pretty much my background.

I was active on the student congress. I was the president of my social fraternity--president of my law school fraternity represented the law school association. I was active--reasonably active at schools, despite working.

Q:         What motivated you to go to law school?

A:         My parents thought that I might like to be a lawyer because of their background--connection to the law. I didn't have any particular desire to. I went to law school the idea-well this was the days when the writing up J. Edgar Hoover and Herb's the chapter of John Dillinger. Those guys were big heroes--here was a way--that was the best money that I could get. Being a lawyer or an accountant. I think a police officer’s background I could be a P.I. That was my aim in going to law school. I had an interview with them set up. The guy was coming down here to meet me on a Sunday. I recall it was the 7th December, 1941. I did—I took the exam--the written exam. I think I did pretty well on it. I was in there for an oral interview and the guy says “how are your eyes?” I said “one is 20/75 and one is 20/100. I could hit a rabbit.” The problem is you get your glasses knocked off, you are going to hit the wrong rabbit. It didn't keep me from being here. I petitioned the faculty to give me my degree if I got in the service. They wouldn't do it if I wouldn't have done that. They wouldn’t do that anyhow, join the service. Well so, I checked out all the services to see who would take me because of my eye.

Q:         What did you do in the service?

A:         The interesting part was that--I understand it now because I retired a Brigadier General in the reserves and I know- -they’re looking for certain people that can qualify. If you qualify for that and you are looking for that, you may be qualified for something else better - -then I’m going to worry about that. They asked me what I had done.     I told my working in the packing company. Blood doesn't bother me and stuff. “Can you drive a truck?” “Sure I can drive a truck.” Sometimes I’d be there at Oscars and they'd say, “hey, there was a package we didn't get on the train. Can you take this truck and drive downtown and get it on the train?” At night sometimes on the shipping dock there would be a semi there-just like the army people--they have those big trucks. about five or ten minutes I can do what a good driver could do. So yes, I could drive a truck. So that gets you with the medics. I was in this armored medical battalion. I was hanging out with the squad leader and my job was to go pick up people and haul them on these litters. The first sergeant - -reading a newspaper and looking for people to go-yes I'd like to go--then strong back carrying the litter there. Went up and practiced stole the doctor division headquarters and I told him that joint I’m not interested in a mechanical thing. Well, you are in the armory division so you are doing the So I went. But no I served as a painter shortly thereafter he shipped me down to an army infantry outfit. And I was a life overseas Later I moved up and a captain of a rival company. Fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right at the right time.     Just like you are at the bottom of the pile in the army, you get out you are at the bottom of the piles of lawyers- -you just gotta try and make your way the best you can.

Q:         What advice do you have for new attorneys?

A:         Well, I think that the advice that old Daniel Webster gave is pretty good, still. He says, “work hard, live well.” I think I'd say this when you are a lawyer--there are so many people, other lawyers, judges, that want to be helpful to you. All you have to do is ask. There are a hell of a lot of good people out there and too many people--too many young people think they'll look foolish asking a question.

One of the things that really impressed me when I look for potential here are these guys who are ideals to me, you know, Wade Boardman, Ralph Voyt, Bill House, guys like that, how quick they would say I don’t know to some questions. They were quick to say I don’t know because the answers aren't always there, you gotta go look them up. I think it’s a question of showing they’re that you have confidence in yourself when you are able to say I don’t know. One of the things I enjoyed about teaching- -taught courses several times, I taught torts, I taught mass stipulation. When you are teaching students, you’re always raising questions that lawyers assume we know the answers to. No one has challenged it. Especially, the first time. They are raising questions, it is a major I don't know the answer to that. I’ll try to look it up and call you back. If you have already made certain assumptions, but in making those assumptions, we don't for it.

Q:         Well, thank you very much, Mr. DeWitt for taking your time and sharing your recollections. I really enjoyed the hour and I hope you have too. So this is the end of our interview.