Celebrating 125 Years
Advancing the Mission of The Atlanta Bar Association
By Lisa Liang
Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Inc.
[email protected]
T
his year we commemorate and celebrate the 125th
anniversary of the founding of the Atlanta Bar
Association on April 28, 1888. This is the second of
three articles tracing the strong and storied legacy of the
Atlanta Bar and focuses on the fifty-year period from 1938
to 1988. Material is borrowed from Lea Agnew & Jo Ann
Haden-Miller, Atlanta And Its Lawyers: A Century of Vision:
1888-1988 (1988).
The first fifty years of the Atlanta Bar Association from 1888
to 1938 tracked with the times – just as Atlanta was busy
building herself and cementing her foundation, so too was the
Atlanta Bar Association. Similarly, during the next fifty year
period of 1938 to 1988, the Atlanta Bar and its lawyers earned
themselves a prominent place in history by wielding political
power, advancing civil rights, keeping Atlanta’s businesses
on the move, making Atlanta a cultural center, and expanding
access to justice.
The late 1930s and early 1940s continued the Bar’s mission
of maintaining the honor and dignity of the law – Atlanta
Bar President Bond Almand named a special committee to
investigate alleged irregularities in Fulton County grand jury
appointments; the Bar began to confidentially poll its members
to rate the qualifications of judicial candidates in order to
publish the results for the benefit of the voting public; and
Atlanta Bar Presidents Philip H. Alston, Sr. and Francis M.
(Buster) Bird rallied hard against unscrupulous and usurious
lenders.
The Bar continued to adapt to Atlanta’s needs. By the late
1930s, in response to the emerging trend of specialization
in practice areas, the Criminal Law Section, led by Hal
Lindsey, and the Real Estate Section, led by Granger
Hansell, were in full swing. A few years later in 1944, the Bar
became involvedwith CLE, with programs on federal rules
of procedure and tax law. Also, while World War II brought
tremendous disruption to Atlanta law offices, it also produced
some economic relief as the ranks of practicing attorneys
thinned out and again, the Bar kept pace and formed a
committee to assist military men stationed at Fort McPherson
and other nearby barracks.
The Bar was not all work and no play, and banquets continued
to be an annual highlight. The banquet of 1941 was especially
memorable as the Bar secured the eminent Lord and Lady
Halifax as guests of honor. To have Lord and Lady Halifax
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THE ATLANTA LAWYER
December 2013
leave Washington to speak in Atlanta at such a time put Atlanta
squarely in the spotlight.
Atlanta lawyering changed in the post-World War II economic
boom: firms grew from just a few lawyers to dozens,
generalists began yielding to specialists, and fees started
changing to rigid quotas of billable hours. Again, the Atlanta
Bar led, supported and responded to those changes by
establishing the Lawyer Referral Service, using media to make
legal matters more understandable to the public, publishing
The Atlanta Lawyer regularly, making group medical insurance
available to members and gathering official data to report on
business issues related to the practice of law.
The economic boom of the fifties also called on the Atlanta
Bar to wield political power. The General Assembly called
on the Atlanta Bar Association to help mesh the Atlanta and
Fulton County court systems. In 1958, Atlanta Bar Association
president Randolph W. Thrower convened a committee of
Hamilton Douglas, Jr., Robert L. Foreman, Jr., Clifford Oxford,
Alex W. Smith III, and A. Paul Cadenhead to spearhead
an investigation and later prosecution of state government
corruption during the administration of Governor Marvin
Griffin. A. Paul Cadenhead became Atlanta Bar President
in 1971.
The sixties saw even more changes to Atlanta’s legal and
social landscape, which called on the Atlanta Bar Association
to advance civil rights. Following the United District Court’s
order ending compulsory segregation of the races in Atlanta
Public Schools, the Bar's executive committee issued a
statement in May 1961 calling upon all Atlantans to “conduct
themselves as good citizens, to obey the order of the District
Court.” African-American lawyers, having been excluded from
the Atlanta Bar Association, had previously founded the Gate
City Bar Association in 1948. Gate City Bar Association cofounder Austin Thomas (A.T.) Walden inquired about joining
the Atlanta Bar Association again in July 1963, 30 years
after being turned away. A year later, A.T. Walden and three
other African-American lawyers – J.C. Daugherty, Pruden
Herndon and Leroy Johnson – became the Bar’s first AfricanAmerican members. As racial tensions ran high between the
city and the police force, the Bar aimed to improve relations
by first forming the biracial Committee on Police Community
Relations, formed in conjunction with the Lawyers Committee
for Civil Rights Under Law.
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association