The Atlanta Lawyer January/February 2014 | Page 19

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Celebrating 125 Years

Do You Remember When...

The Bar won the American Bar
Association Harrison Tweed Award

The Courts Were Not Open for Trials
During the Summer

My best memory is the collaboration between Legal Aid
and the Atlanta Bar in representing the Mariel Cubans. In
a story that I have told many times (and which is on our
documentary), I got a call one day from Frank Strickland,
Atlanta Bar President in 1984. He wanted to meet with
me but would not tell me what it was about, except finally
he said “Cubans”. We had been representing the Mariel
Cubans for a number of years and I was nervous that some
people, including Frank who I did not know well, might not
be happy about that. So I was concerned. The next day I
met with Frank, and he told me that Judge Marvin Shoob
asked him to get volunteers from the Bar to represent the
Cubans in individual cases. Frank asked for our help and
money. I literally started laughing, and said “Frank, those
folks in Washington want conservative Bar presidents like
you to rein in radical legal aid directors like me, and you
are asking me for help in representing the Cubans?” We of
course did give help and support, and 400 Atlanta lawyers
ended up representing about 1200 Cubans. The Bar won the
prestigious American Bar Association Harrison Tweed Award
for promoting access to justice for indigents.

During 1978, as a very young lawyer, I was appointed Law
Day Chairman for the Atlanta Bar. We began our planning
at about the same time the Fulton County Superior Court
decided to have a program of its own, and named then Judge
Charles Weltner Chairman. Because our Bar committee
decided to put on an open house at the Courthouse, we
discovered that Judge Weltner had planned activities at the
Courthouse as well, and through the leadership of President
Neal Batson we merged the programs and it became a most
successful endeavor, being recognized by the State Bar and
the ABA as the best Law Day program in our category. Years
later, then Justice (later Chief) Weltner called me to discuss
how much impact that Law Day event had on both of our
careers, but the most interesting aspect of our conversation
was his complaint about what is now a universally accepted
and necessary convenience of our everyday lives—air
conditioning. He went on to describe his early years of
being a lawyer, when everyone had to get by with cooling
off by blocks of ice driven by fans or perhaps a jump in the
lake at Piedmont Park. The courts were not open for trials
and hearings during the summer months, and life for trial
lawyers back then consisted of reading the law, catching up
on appellate decisions, and perhaps writing for publications
during those hot and humid periods. Air conditioning made
the courthouses cool and bearable in the summertime, and
consequently they could remain open for the business of
trials and related litigation, now of course a requirement. As
Judge Luther Alverson used to say, the lights are on (and
presumably the a/c) so I am ready to try your case. Ah, for
the quietness of a (cool) summer day without the hustle and
bustle of court appearances, just so I can keep up with my
Daily Reports that remain piled high on my desk!

Steve Gotlieb
Atlanta Legal Aid Society

Jimmy Carter Spoke at the Atlanta
Bar Annual Meeting

In May 1992, at the Atlanta Bar Annual Meeting, we were
privileged to have Past President (and Atlanta Bar Social
Member) Jimmy Carter as the main speaker. I served on a
commission he appointed when he was Governor. As you
know, the Annual Meeting is always well-attended and this
was especially so. We were, as always, on a tight schedule
and so with more than a little heartburn, Diane O'Steen and
I arrived at Hotel Penta in advance of the noon starting time
only to find the doors to the ballroom locked! It seemed the
Secret Service had underestimated the amount of time it
would take for its agents to "sweep" the room. Diane and I
made small talk with t