The Atlanta Lawyer - Official Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association Nov | Page 6

Celebrating 125 Years The First 50 Years 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 Saturday, April 28, 1888. This is the first of three articles tracing the strong and storied legacy of the Atlanta Bar and focuses on the first fifty years. Material is borrowed from Lea Agnew & Jo Ann Haden-Miller, Atlanta And Its Lawyers: A Century of Vision: 1888-1988 (1988). On Saturday, April 28, 1888, at 3:00 p.m. some 100 Atlanta lawyers gathered at the Fulton County courthouse to create the Atlanta Bar Association. In response to rebukes and complaints in the newspapers about disreputable lawyer practices, the Bar ’s constitution proclaimed it would “maintain the honor and dignity of the profession of law.” To that end, the Association’s first order of business was setting a minimum fee schedule: $5 for drawing a lease or a mortgage; $10 for a foreclosure on personal property; $15 for a foreclosure on real estate or drafting a will; $20 for deeds of trust, written opinions and preparation of appeals to the Georgia Supreme Court; $25 for divorces, and $50 for drawing bills in equity. from primarily servicing banks to railroads, insurance companies, utilities, local transit businesses to the booming entrepreneurial companies like The Coca-Cola Company. Law offices moved beyond Alabama, Whitehall and Pryor Streets with the installation of street cars. Law school attendance was on the rise at the University of Georgia and Mercer University and the Atlanta Law School opened in 1890; however “reading law” remained the norm for legal education – no standard admission tests or requirements existed. Judge John L. Hopkins, still Bar president in 1906 applied for a permanent charter for the Atlanta Bar Association with legal legend petitioners Robert and Philip Alston; Reuben Arnold; Leonard Hass; Jack Spalding; Harold Hirsch; E. Marvin Underwood; Walter Colquitt; Walter McElreath; Alex C. King; John Slaton; Edgar Neely; and Hamilton Douglas, Sr. Judge John Pendleton granted the charter that year ushering in more changes: membership totaled 177; new by-laws mandated annual meetings and regular officer rotations; committees ruled and handled business, heard grievances and granted relief to members falling on hard times, and annual banquets (“entertainments”) were ordered at least annually. Of the 175 attorneys in Atlanta in 1888, the founding members of the Atlanta Bar Association were practiced attorneys comfortable with responsibility and influencing change... Of the 175 attorneys in Atlanta in 1888, the founding members of the Atlanta Bar Association were practiced attorneys comfortable with responsibility and influencing change as well as ambitious young men eager for leadership opportunities. These leaders’ influence continues to shape our legal landscape: John L. Hopkins, former judge and the Association’s first president; Hoke Smith, future governor and U.S. Senator; John B. Goodwin, former and future mayor, and Thomas P. Westmoreland, future superior court judge. The first two decades of the Atlanta Bar saw many changes in the legal community: legal work and practices expanded 6 THE ATLANTA LAWYER November 2013 Throughout the pre-war and World War I years, the Association diligently kept up its work and stayed at the forefront of the legal arena: Luther Rosser, Sr. and Reuben Arnold, best known for their defense of Leo Frank, were both Bar presidents during this time, as well as J.D. Kilpatrick, Edgar Watkins, Shepard Bryan and Arthur Powell. In 1917 as America officially went to war, the Atlanta Bar Association admitted two female members, oversaw a revision of the rules of procedure of Atlanta’s Municipal Court and participated in The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association