Henry Field Interview

March 1, 2013

BY ED REISNER:

Q           Okay. It's March 1, 2013. I'm Ed Reisner. I'm here with Henry Field on behalf of the Dane County Bar Association History Committee, and we're going to do an oral history. Henry, good morning.

A            Hi.

Q           Good to see you again. Let's do some background.

A            All right. Fine, Ed.

Q           Where were you born?

A            In Wisconsin Dells.

Q           The Wisconsin Dells.

A            Yeah.

Q           Grow up there? High school?

A            Yep. High school there.

Q           Okay. And what happened after high school?

A            High school. I went to, first of all to Western Michigan in Kalamazoo for my freshman year, then transferred to Marquette, graduated undergraduate from Marquette, and then here to law school in Madison.

Q           Okay. And that was 1952?

A            Correct. I got my law degree in 1952, right. Yep.

Q           What did you do -- what was your first job?

A            First job was with a firm called Riley & Pierce, which was -- Miles Riley was the, what they call the bankruptcy referee then, a judge now as we know; but he was the bankruptcy referee. And his son and another man had a firm called Riley & Pierce. I was -- well, John was -- John Riley was my brother-in-law; so -- so I was with them for about a year and then went with the U.S. Attorney's Office for about a year before I came here.

Q           And that's where you got your -- your first experience in doing a lot of trial work?

A            Yes, yes. Really, I -- I tried a couple of cases when I was with Riley, one in probate court. I know there was a disputed claim, and I tried that one. That was the first trial I had. That was to the county judge at that time then, probate judge. And then I did -- I did get some trial experience in the U.S. Attorney's Office. I don't think -- my first jury trial was when I came here, though, with this firm.

Q           Who was the U.S. Attorney when you --

A            George Ramp. But Jim McDermott, who you may remember, was the assistant and he really was very helpful to me. He worked with me, and he was a good lawyer, a good guy.

Did -- did we have one federal judge in Madison at that time?

A            Yes, we had one, Jim Doyle.

Q           It was Jim Doyle.

A            Yeah.

Q           Oh, I didn't realize he went back that far.

A            Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. That's -- that's incorrect. Actually, it goes way back to Patrick Stone. Pat Stone was still on the bench when I was over there. I was getting mixed up with when I was here. But Pat Stone was still on the bench. He was appointed by FDR.

Q           Huh. Yeah.

A            And he was still on the bench when I started, and then, let's see. I can't --

Q           Is there a brief period with Rabinovitz?

A            Rabinovitz was in for -- that's correct. That's right. Yep. Rabinovitz was in for less than a year, maybe. He was never approved. And then -- then Jim Doyle.

Q           Then Jim Doyle.

A            Yep, yep.

Q           So let's see. That would take you about to 1955 or '56?

A            Yeah, in '57 actually. Well, I didn't mention three years in the service.

Q           Oh.

A            I was -- I was in the Army for three years in the Counter Intelligence Corps after I got out of law school. I didn't get a chance to use any of my legal training, but it was better than getting shot at. It was the Korean War --

Q           That was the Korean War, yeah.

A            -- going on at that time, yeah. And after three years in the service, I came back, and that's actually when I started practicing. I hadn't really practiced law at all until I got out of the service.

Q           Yep.

A            So we went from one year -- about '57 now we're up to, and that's when I came here.

Q           Okay. And at that time Wade Boardman was the senior partner?

A            Actually Glenn Roberts --

Q           Glenn Roberts, okay.

A            -- was the senior partner. It was Roberts, Boardman, Surh, Bjork & Curry was the name of the firm at that time.

Q           Oh, yeah. Yep.

A            And, actually, Jack Roe it had been -- it would have been Robert Boardman when Jack Roe died, and Glenn Roberts was not too active, but he -- he was still practicing. And then when he retired, when Glenn Roberts retired, I became a partner. That was about three years later, three or four -- three years later.  And we changed the firm name then to Boardman, Surh, Curry, & Field.

Q           And -- and there were about six law lawyers maybe at that time?

A            Five.

Q           Five.

A            Boardman, Suhr, Curry, Field -- yeah, I was the only associate.

Q           Uh-huh.

A            There were four partners.

Q           Jumping way ahead, how big is the firm now?

A            I think about 65.

Q           65, with offices in several locations.

A            Yes. Yes, we have offices in several -- we had an office in Baraboo, and for a time before we merged -- we had an office in Baraboo and for a time in Prairie du Sac. That one was closed, but now I don't know if -- I don't even know if I could name all the cities. There are least five or six, pretty much small cities. We don't have any -- we're not Milwaukee, for instance, or --

Q           Yeah. Let's go back to maybe high school, maybe even earlier, or maybe later. When -- when did you decide to become a lawyer?

A            Early. It was early. I would say early high school. By the time I was a freshman or sophomore -- first or second year of high school -- I already was thinking that's what I'd like to do. I was interested in the social sciences and interested in history and law, and it just seemed to be an intriguing -- an intriguing profession.

Q           Did you know lawyers at that time? Lawyers in the family or lawyers in the Dells?

A            Not then I didn't. There -- not really. I -- later, when I was in undergraduate school, I had two brothers-in-law who were lawyers: John Riley, who I mentioned earlier, and Francis Balon, who practiced in Wisconsin Dells.

Q           Yep.

A            And so that -- although I had already decided I wanted to be a lawyer before I -- before they were involved, but we do have a lot of lawyers in the family.

Q           Yep. Yep. Okay. So you -- you -- eventually you wound up here at now Boardman & Clark. And were you a trial lawyer from the beginning here?

A            Yes, however, much more of a generalist at first. I'd say for the first three or four years I did a little of everything, mostly trial work. I've been -- it was pretty much the same thing when I was with the Riley & Pierce firm. I did all kinds of work. But then about the time I got to be a partner was getting to be pretty much exclusively trial work.

Q           And you're still trying cases now?

A            Well, yeah, I still got a few, very few. But, yeah, I haven't tried one for, you know, they're settled now; but it's probably been two years since I tried one, but I've got a trial scheduled in May. I don't try to take on the -- the same cases I would have taken on ten years ago. I usually try to keep it if it's a short -- fairly short trial and a fairly routine case; otherwise, I don't think I'd -it would be appropriate for me to be doing it.

Q           Yeah. Do you remember what you were paid in your first job?

A            Yeah, I think it was $300 or $350 a month.

Q           Wow.

A            And then I got $5000. I got a raise for $5- -- $5000 a year at the U.S. Attorney.

Q           Mm-hmm.

A            And I came here and I went to $4,800 -- $400 a month; so --that was 1957, $4800. 1957, $4,800 bucks, yep.  Yeah, when I graduated from law school in 1972, the top pay around here was around $10,000 a year; so in 15 years it doubled.

Q           Yeah. And it's been going up faster or had been going up faster at the time.

A            Yeah. The senior partners here, as I remember, were -- the very top earners when I came here were around the $12,000 mark, I think, which was pretty good back in those days.

Q           What actually brought you to this firm in '57?

A            As I say, I was with the U.S. Attorney. Bob Curry had been in law school with me.

Q           Oh, yeah.

A            He called me up and we had lunch, and he said, "Would you like to come over here?" And of course this was a fine firm, and so I said, "Sure, I would like to come over."

Q           I know it's a fine firm because early in my legal career when I worked for the state bar, the bar got sued because of something I wrote; and John Knight and Claude Covelli, I think, represented the bar.

A            Yeah.

Q           And it went to the supreme court before it got tossed out; so --

A            It did. It was the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Q           Wisconsin Supreme Court, yeah.

A            Oh, yeah. A woman from Racine who had -- she was in the news a lot because she had gone through six lawyers in a probate case.

Q           And this was at the time when informal probate was being popularized, and so -- and I went down to Racine and interviewed a bunch of people and wrote a facts sheet that went to law school bar presidents.

A            Oh.

Q           And she sued; so -- and you guys won it for me; so --

A            Those are two good lawyers, and they're both still here, both still practicing.

Q           Let's see. All right. So 1957 you started here as an associate, and you began to do trial work. Were you mentored by somebody?

A            Yes, a couple of people. One was Walter Bjork, who was a fine trial lawyer. He left the next few years, well, with an insurance company, became head of an insurance company; and then Bob Curry did quite a bit of trial work too.

Q           Oh, I didn't know that.

A            And they were the two that really were -- were -- I would say were my mentors although John Riley was a good trial lawyer, and he worked with me a little when I was with him; so --

Q           So there was somewhat of an emphasis on trial law in the firm.

A            Well, actually -- actually there was -- it was departmentalized. Wade Boardman, for instance, did a lot of probate work and a lot of business law. Walter Bjork was pretty much a trial lawyer, who State Farm was one of our clients then and still is.

Q           Huh.

A            And so we had, well, there were only five of us. It did break down into various types of law. Fred Suhr, for instance, was pretty much real estate law. So it wasn't really -- it -- although Wade had been a trial lawyer when he was younger -- but his health didn't hold up to that job. He had ulcers and decided he didn't want to be a trial lawyer.

Q           He was -- he was part of Phil LaFollette's --

A            He was.

Q           -- group?

A            He was his -- his pardon counsel.

Q           Pardon counsel.

A            Right.

 Q          Yep, yep.

A            And actually Glenn Roberts was -- worked with the LaFollettes too; so they were pretty close to the Progressive Party.

Q           Well, you mentioned that, you know, now most trials seem to settle. Was it different at the beginning?

A            Yes, it was. There -- I -- just giving very rough estimates, I'd say, clearly, over 90 percent now settle. Back then most of them settled, but it was more like 75 or 80 percent that settled; and there were a lot of trials. We tried a lot of cases. Of course, they were much simpler and quicker than they've become, especially that discovery is the big element that's changed how you try your cases. But they were -- for instance, there were times when I would try a couple of cases a month, two- or three-day cases, and we worked different parts of the state; so I -- this whole southwest part I was practicing in. And there were a lot of trials -- a lot of trials back then.

Now, as I said, it's been at least two years since I tried a case, and even our guys who are very active at it, they get one or two trials a year. That's about what they can -- that's about the most they get. It's harder for the younger people to get -- get going at it, as you'd understand.

Q           And you said that part of the reason is discovery. Both sides know each other's facts in law a lot earlier, and that's why they tend to settle?

A            Yeah. I think that -- it probably is true that we know a lot more about the case than we used to when we start -- when we start the trial. We know a great deal about the other side and what they've got, and I think that's right. That does tend to lead to settle. In fact, I haven't thought of that, but I think that you are absolutely right about that.

What happens is, of course, you see these monumental files we've got now-a-days. We used to have a little folder --

Q           Yep.

A            -- go to try the case. But I think there is a factor there that people know everything about everyone's case.

Q           I thought about that with regard to Abraham Lincoln and riding the circuit, and he would often not meet the client until the day of the trial.

A            Right.

Q           But trials were shorter too; so yeah.

A            Yeah.

Q           Do you remember any of your earlier cases? Were you involved in any big cases? Any controversial cases?

A            The first -- first two cases were actually plaintiff's cases because Wally Bjork had it in, and he's -- well, he's -- he didn't really want to try 'em. He didn't like trying plaintiff's cases; so I tried two plaintiff's cases. And Walter -- Walter had told me, he said, "If you" -- well, I won the first one -- and he said, "Now, if you want to bat 100 percent, stop now"; but I didn't stop, and I lost the second one. But those two were fairly, well, I don't know. It was a death case. One was killed in an explosion up in the Dells, and the other one was a bar fight.

But as far as -- after that, yeah, well, one of the things really was the case. One of the things that was probably more work than I did on many things was -- involved Chris Sara from fed -- state court judge in Milwaukee, and the judicial commission asked me to prosecute it.

Q           Oh.

A            And that was a big job, of course, especially from here going out of Milwaukee, and he was a criminal -he tried criminal cases; so it wasn't the area I was really familiar with, and I had to work closely with some of the Milwaukee lawyers. But that was a big job, and that went to the supreme court. And it was a three-judge panel as you probably know. Three -- and then court of appeal judges heard the case; then it went to supreme court. The panel recommended he'd be suspended. The Court -- short -- they said he should not only be suspended but permanently barred.

Q           Hmm.

A            The supreme court said three years; so he was gone for three years, he came back, and was elected again.

Q           Yeah. Well, he overlapped into my earlier career too, and --

A            Oh did he? Yeah.

Q           And while I was at the law school, his son came through the law school, yeah. Yeah.

A            Really? I didn't even know that was -- oh.

Q           And last I knew, many years ago, he was practicing law in Milwaukee; so, yep.

A            Oh. Actually Chris, you know, hail fellow well met. He had some bad habits.

Q           Yes. Yeah.

A            That was his problem.

Q           Yeah. He used to come to state bar conventions, the mid-winter, particularly, because it was in Milwaukee; so -- and he -- you're right. Hail fellow well met, very much a description for it.  Well, that's one of the famous, infamous people that you crossed with.

A            Yeah.

Q           Anybody -- any other lawyers or judges that you remember either fondly or not fondly?

A            Well, there was one here in Madison -- and generally this bar in Dane County is excellent as far as relationship collegiality, nice people, and easy to work with. There's always a few exceptions, as you know well, but the one I remember, of course mentioned, is [    }, who was very difficult. He did a lot of plaintiff's work; so I used to run in to him a lot; and he was extremely difficult to deal with. And the insurance companies, in fact -- it was probably good for our business because they wouldn't work with him; and as soon as he was on a case, they would hire a lawyer so he wouldn't bother them anymore.

And finally, I had a case where there was a will contest; and it went to the court of appeals, went to the supreme court, in fact. And not only did I win it, I got -- I got attorney's fees, which was a little unusual back then. But he was -- he was tough, and he was not pleasant although he, once again, in a social situation, he was always friendly.

Q           Mm-hmm.

A            But he was a difficult guy. There were very few of those. You got people who are difficult, but they're difficult in different ways other than that; also, he had some bad habits.

Q           Yes.

A            He was -- I don't know if you remember, but he was suspended for his activity with women; so --

Q           Yep, yep. Well, you know, we -- we started, or you started with Boardman when there were five, six lawyers, or something like that; and it's many more than that now. And, certainly, one of the reasons that has happened is that there are very few generalists in law firms anymore. What -- what caused that? What drove the change?

A            I think the complexity of law among other things, plus the clients. When they found there was someone who worked in that area, they would tend to go to them. But I think the law itself became more complex and difficult. And, of course, the attorneys have to be concerned that they're able to do adequate -- adequate job in what they're doing.

I would never dream of it now, trying to be a generalist, really, except the trial work I do. That's what I'll do and nothing else. I feel comfortable doing that, but I wouldn't dream of doing anything else. If people give me a call, I refer them to someone else. It's probably, well, I don't know. Some of -- our city has grown a lot, and there's a lot more legal issues around, I guess.

Q           When you started practicing, the statute book was, I think, a book.

A            Yeah, it was.

Q           And did I read recently that it's gone to seven

volumes?

A            Well, we just got our new one. I haven't seen it yet. I've got five of the old ones, maybe six now.

Q           Yeah.

A            It could go to six. I haven't seen it. We just got in the last edition, but it's at least five and maybe

six.

Q           Yeah.

A            And that sort of catches, doesn't it, as to what's going on?

Q           Yeah. Well, you also mentioned that over the course of your career, Dane County Bar has been a collegial bar. And has there been much of a shift at all from early to now?

A            I don't really think so. It's -- obviously, we're so much bigger. It isn't -Q Hard to know everyone.

A            That's right. But certainly the people that I work with and meet are very impressive and nice people. And there were some counties this wasn't so true of, but Dane County was always a pleasant place to practice law and I don't think that's changed with our size, not dramatically, in any event. Everyone's more busy it seems and less time for social activities, but other than that I don't think it's a big change.

Q           Now, another thing that's changed is the marketing of legal services.

A            Yeah.

Q           Until 1972 or '73, maybe '74, lawyers couldn't advertise and that has changed and now your firm I see, you know, with some soft advertising, sponsoring events and public service kinds of things; and, I mean, some firms are very aggressive in advertising.

A            Yep. I didn't remember the year, but certainly that was a big difference, of course. Initially it was a little bit a joke with some -- Ken Hur, for instance, if you remember Ken.

Q           Yes. That's who I'm thinking of.

A            Ken did this wonderful ad where he would, he -- it was a takeoff on a jewelry ad -- come out of the water with things on himself, and then everyone kind of laughed at him. Well, that turned out to be the beginning of some very serious efforts to advertise. And, of course, the Habush firm did it with a degree of class.

Q           Yes. Yep.

A            I mean, I have to say, they've done it a lot, but they've kept it a little higher plane. I, of course, naturally, having practiced so many years without it, I don't like it very much. I still don't, but it's certainly being accepted. That's what's going on now. And the kind of marketing we do -- and I'm not up in the forefront or not as knowledgeable as I would have been a few years ago, but, basically, well, it's a soft approach at least, and we hold seminars, hold specific invitations to people who might be interested to come in, and so on.

Q           So you -- now you're part of a firm that's 70 lawyers, multiple locations, and support staff must be different than it was too.

A            Yes, we -- all right. So, this "state journal book of business" thing that came out, we have 118.

Q           Total employees?

A            Total employees.

Q           Wow.

A            And we've got -- the increase of the number hasn't been as great as the increase of the lawyers because they can do more with the -- with the -- equipment now. So now we have one secretary to two or three lawyers.

When I started, we each had our own secretary, and they only tried to do one; but now they can take care of multiple lawyers. We've had very good success with our secretaries and with our staff. We kept them -- we just had one retire with us who was with us for 47 years. They're good people and I think our staff -- well, now, of course, the use of paralegals -- which really didn't exist as such when I started -is now very important. In fact, I have a paralegal who is tremendously helpful. I -- in fact, I couldn't practice if she wasn't around.

Q           So when you came here, you already had some experience at that one of your classmates invited you to join the firm.

A            Correct. Yeah.

Q           I know that part of the growth of this firm has been a merger with other -- another firm -- another Madison firm, but you're bringing people in with no experience now too, aren't you?

A            Oh, yeah. Yes, we do. Yeah, we -- very good success with our law school. We've been successful getting some very good young people, you know, with good grades and good ability as lawyers. So yeah, we – we -- emotionally we've grown that way.

You know, I think there have only been two instances of actual mergers: One was a fairly small one a few years ago, and then this one with -- with Lathrop & Clark, which -- I think they were 15 to 20 lawyers or something like that, but I -- I wasn't involved in the negotiating of this current one; so I don't know as much about it.

Q           When you bring in a new graduate from the law school, often I expect they spent a summer with you before maybe -- maybe even two; but is there -- what kind of training do -- do they get in the firm? Are they mentored by people?

A            Yes, they are. Typically they've been with us a few years before they come in here. You're right. Occasionally that doesn't happen. Occasionally we hire someone who's had some experience. We're looking for somebody like that too.

Q           Sure.

A            But when we hire someone out of law school, they have mentors while they're still in law school; and then there's a specific partner assigned to them --

Q           Ah.

A            -- as a mentor to work with as they -- as they get their experience. Yeah, yep. And we're better at that than we were when I started here. You came in -although people are willing to help you any time. There was no particular one person assigned to say, "Now here's what you should be doing"; so --

Q           And lawyers now are required to have continuing legal education. That's a change from the early years too. Do you do in-house?

A            We do have in-house. Well, we have in-house on the ethics requirements. Other than that, we pay for people to go to the sessions, and, of course, that's why you don't have to get it anymore; but that has changed although there was a lot of -- much less formal when I started, a lot of meetings and seminars where you hear talks or give talks and pretty much like what it is now, except now it's more formal.

Q           Well, we've gone through your early stages and why you came. What -- what are your general observations about the legal profession and the practice of law now?

A            Well, it's -- it's certainly changed dramatically, not necessarily for the better although I -- I -sometimes I'm a little too cynical. It's pretty glim to say it's become more of a business and a little less of a profession, which is kind of a cliche; but I think there's more than a modicum of truth. Part of the trouble is it's very expensive to -- to practice law. If you're going to, you know, cover all the bases and so you got to -- you got to try to get out and get some business, however you do it. This is what you got to do.

Q           You -- you mentioned that you were interested in the social sciences and history and that kind of -- that led you to law. It was similar in my case, but I didn't know any lawyers either, and I -- I went through my first two years of law school thinking that I would practice law. Then I took the general practice course the summer before I graduated, and the first week was creditor/debtor rights; and I still remember the lawyer, Dan Howard from Milwaukee, who, his first hour or so talking was how he had to sometimes sue clients to collect his fees. And it was the first time I had really thought about law as a business --

A            Yeah.

Q           -- and it shook me. And I wound up not practicing.

A            Really?

Q           Using my legal education, otherwise.

A            That's interesting.

Q           And I certainly seen that -- you know, you read in the -- the legal periodicals about what's happened to incomes, and particularly starting salaries, and --

A            Yeah.

Q           -- now the glut of new lawyers. It's -- it's very different.

A            Yeah. Yeah it has changed dramatically, no doubt about that. I -- all though I still think it's a very fine profession, an honorable profession, a little less proud than I was years ago about being a lawyer.

Q           If you had a grandchild who was thinking about becoming a lawyer, would you -- how would advise him?

A            I think I would encourage him but be careful, taking a good look at what it is and be sure you wanted to do it. I wouldn't tell him not to do it. I think they would have to understand -- I still think it's true that it is a tough sled through the school. I mean it's a lot of hard work to do it, but if they appeared interested in wanting to doing it, I wouldn't discourage them.

Q           Yeah. The galloping increase in law school debt, I think is –

A            Yeah, it's terrible.

Q           You know, people who want to be lawyers and who are finding it tough to find jobs and turning very sour on things, it's too bad.

A            And there's a lot of good people it's happening to, I'm afraid. Yeah, I think that's right. Yep. It's hard, of course, things were a little cheaper when I went to --

Q           Yeah.

A            I can't even remember, but it wasn't very much.

Q           Well, 1969, when I started law school, the tuition for a resident was $325 a year; and I think for a resident now, it's close to $20,000 a year, over $30- for a nonresident.

A            $325. You know what I think? I think that it was only like $50 or $100 when I went to law school.

Q           Yep.

A            Marquette, of course, was somewhat more expensive but still nothing like what happens now.

Q           And in '52 you would have been at the tail end of the World War II lawyers as well.

A            Right. It was.

Q           When the law school was busting at the seams.

A            It was, Yep. Yeah. Yeah. We had a lot of veterans, of course, in World War II in our class.

Q           So it was -- I'm sure it was tough for many people to find work at that point too when you graduated.

Oh, yeah. I know when I came out of the service, I interviewed a couple places and ended up with -- with my brother-in-law, really; but yeah, it was -- it wasn't easy to get a job right away.

Q           Yep. Is there anything else that I haven't asked you about that you have comments on?

A            No, I don't think so. It seems to me as though you pretty well covered this outline, Ed. I don't think I have anything more particular to say.

Q           Well, I certainly appreciate taking your time.

A            Well, I'm sorry it took us so long to get together; and I'm especially sorry what happened to you more recently. That's too bad.

Q           I'm going to stop this now.

A            Go ahead.