Following in the footsteps of a successful parent has
always been an honorable and flattering goal, especially in
the law. That tradition takes on a new dimension as the
second or third generation of a family becomes president of
a bar association.
Those lawyers inspired by their parents, and in
some cases their grandparents, include President Joan
Loring Wing of the Vermont Bar Association; President
Peter Bomberger of the Indiana State Bar Association; and
President Robert Crowell and President-elect Robert
Dickerson, both of the State Bar of Nevada.
Each admires his or her parents and witnessed their
loyalty to the profession and dedication to family and
tradition. Parents and children share a unique and priceless
bond.
The Wings in Vermont
While commanding an Army infantry platoon,
Leonard Wing Jr. was captured by the Germans on
Thanksgiving Day 1944. As the German soldiers marched
1,400 prisoners near the German border, the group rested
overnight at a farm in Poland and Wing snuck into a barn to
hide. The next morning, Wing and three other POWs
emerged with the same intention to escape. One of the
POWs, a Polish lieutenant, guided them to Warsaw and,
From there, Wing eventually returned to the United States.
The flight to freedom was fateful. Wing Jr. became
an active community leader, National Guard reservist,
lawyer and president of the Vermont Bar Association
(1984-85). He followed in the footsteps of his father, Maj.
Gen. Leonard Wing Sr., also a decorated World War II
hero. Wing Sr. was halfway through his bar presidency in
1945 when he died at age 52 of a heart attack.
At 73, Wing Jr. now watches his daughter, Joan
Loring Wing of Rutland, serve as Vermont bar president.
"I'm just delighted. She's very smart and a good
lawyer. We're very close," Wing Jr. says.
The Wings are more than close, and Rutland is at
the heart of their lives. They were born, raised, married, had
children, carved out careers and volunteered for community
projects, all in the small New England town.
Leonard Wing Sr. helped start the firm, Fenton,
Wing and Morse, in the 1920s. The partners died in the
1940s, and the firm was eventually renamed Ryan Smith &
Carbine Ltd., where Joan works and Leonard Jr. is semi-retired. "There's always been a Wing in this office. There's
a lot of tradition here," says Joan, 48.
Joan began her career while in her 30s, a single
mother of two children. After her first marriage ended in
divorce, she worked as a tennis club manager. She was also
on her way toward a psychology degree at Castleton
College when she decided to become a lawyer. To
accomplish this, she studied under the sponsorship of two
lawyers, R. Joseph O'Rourke and Harold Berger at Ryan
Smith & Carbine, before passing the bar exam. (In lieu of
law school in Vermont, an option exists for in-office law
study under the sponsorship of a lawyer. After four years
are successfully completed and periodic reports are
approved by the Vermont Board of Bar Examiners, the
candidate is eligible to take the bar exam.)
Explaining this mid-stream career shift, Joan says
she was inspired by her father's dedication to the
profession, as well as two uncles who were lawyers. Her
mother, Mary Costello Wing, who raised nine children and
is former chair of the state Republican Party, provided
additional inspiration.
Joan also followed her father's leadership at the
Association for Retarded Citizens, which he organized in
the mid-1950s when one son was diagnosed a having a
disability. She served on the association's board.
In 1979, she married her second husband, Alvin
Figiel, and focused on her family and law practice, which
specializes in insurance defense, domestic relations and real
estate law.
Joan is now focusing on her bar presidency, which
began last September. She hopes to upgrade continuing
legal education, establish a client protection fund, and study
and lobby for funding for Vermont's 6-year-old family
court system.
"It takes a serious commitment to become a lawyer.
It's a fair amount of responsibility you don't have as a
student. Plus your circle of "dependents," such as your
clients, grows too," she says.
The Bombergers in Indiana
Peter Bomberger is a fifth generation lawyer and the
third generation to serve as president of the Indiana State
Bar Association. He follows his father, Charles, who was
president in 1969-70, and his grandfather, Louden, who
served in 1937-38.
In fact, prior generations of the family also served
the people of Indiana. Peter's great-grandfather, Charles
Griffin, was Indiana's secretary of state in 1886-1900; and
his father, Elihu Griffin, was a lawyer in Crown Point from
1856 to 1881.
"My father made the practice known to me. It was
no secret. I knew what I was getting into," recalls Peter,
now 57.
Peter Bomberger was born and raised with three
sisters in Hammond. As a child, he remembers visiting his
father's office and being awestruck by walls filled with
shelves of law books.
"I had always been quite a reader, but I couldn't
figure out how they used them all," he says. "And now
instead of books, we have CD-ROMs."
He earned a bachelor's degree in history at Cornell
University in New York and a law degree at the University
of Michigan's School of Law in 1965.
While a first-year law student, Peter married
Cathryn Van Buren, a registered dietitian, and the couple
raised four children. After passing the bar, he focused on
medical malpractice and insurance defense, both rare fields
in the 1960s. During those years, Peter looked to his father
as a mentor until his death of a heart attack in 1980 at age
72.
"He was undoubtedly the most ethical man I ever
knew. He would never take advantage of anyone in
litigation and always kept his word. No one ever had
trouble litigating a case with him," he says.
In one case, his father's client had changed his
statement of fact before a federal court judge, prompting
the judge to scold the client. "The judge said he couldn't
believe that Charles Bomberger would ever misrepresent
anyone in his entire career. The case finally settled. But my
father had kept his word and remained on the case," he
recalls.
The most notable aspect of Charles Bomberger's
bar presidency was his effort to establish judicial merit
selection in Indiana in 1970, a plan that remains today.
During his own presidency, which began last
October, Peter is balancing his practice at Blackmun,
Bomberger & Moran in Highland, while tackling public
education for children, which reflects his involvement with
children's organizations in the community.
"Now it's my turn," he says.
The Crowells in Nevada
Robert Crowell always wanted to be a lawyer, just
like his father, William Crowell. Now Robert is president
of the State Bar of Nevada, just like his father was in 1957.
Robert was born and raised in Tonopah, Nev., near
a nuclear test site where he watched the experiments in the
mid-1950s. "Whenever they were going to do a test, the
whole town would go out on the highway to watch. As a
kid, it was something to see. First (there was) a big boom, a
mushroom cloud and then a big windstorm," he recalls.
In 1954, the family moved to Carson City where
Crowell Sr., then Nye County district attorney, ran for state
attorney general, but lost to a neighbor. Today, Robert lives
right next to the home where he grew up.
After Robert graduated from Stanford University
with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1967, his plan to
become a lawyer was delayed when he was drafted. At 21,
he served on the Navy's USS Waddell, providing gunfire
support around north and south Vietnam.
Now a lieutenant, he was offered a plum role as an
admiral's aide in Washington, D.C. Should he continue on
a fast track with a Navy career or return home, become a
lawyer and practice with his father and brother?
"I called my father from the Philippines to ask him
what to do. And he just told me to do what's right for me,"
he recalls.
Two strong factors influenced his decision. He
loved the law. He also fell in love with Susan Asbury,
whom he met on a blind date on New Year's Eve in San
Francisco en route to his overseas assignment. He returned
to the U.S., married Susan and settled in Carson City,
where they eventually raised four children. He maintains
his ties to the Navy as a captain in the reserves.
By 1973, Robert had earned his law degree at
Hastings College of Law at the University of California at
San Francisco, where his father graduated. After he passed
the bar, he joined the law practice of Crowell, Crowell &
Crowell. "Any time there was an ethical decision, he was
always right there," he says of his father.
When his father reached his retirement years,
Robert and his brother, William Jr., bought out their
father's practice. Today, the firm Crowell, Susich, Owen &
Tackes has a general practice with an emphasis on
government relations and business law.
William Sr. died while undergoing open heart
surgery in 1988, but his sons carry on his tradition. In fact,
Robert will incorporate many of his family's ideals into his
bar presidency. Since taking office last June, he has been
focusing on improving the image of lawyers and
strengthening their professional responsibility.
"The advice my father always gave us was to
promptly return phone calls and to live with yourself (and)
don't cut a fine edge on ethics," he adds.
The Dickersons of Nevada
Robert "Bob" Dickerson was about 10 years old
when he accompanied his father, George, on a case
involving an alleged kidnaping. His father's client was a
man charged with robbing a Los Angeles bar and taking its
female bartender with him across state lines to Las Vegas,
Nev. Young Bob tagged along as his dad scoured the bars
around Las Vegas, showing pictures of his client as he
searched for witnesses. Due to this old-fashioned legwork,
his client was acquitted.
"My dad's the true lawyer's lawyer. He's the most
ethical lawyer in the state," says Bob, 45, who is president-elect of the State Bar of Nevada. His father was bar
president in 1973-74.
Since the age of 5, Bob has been enthralled
watching his father in the courtroom. Becoming a lawyer
was a foregone conclusion, he says.
Bob earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from
the University of Southern California, and his law degree at
the University of Utah College of Law in 1976. After he
passed the bar, he clerked for a federal judge before joining
the public defender's office. He worked as an associate at
his father's firm for four years and then the U.S. Attorney's
Office in Las Vegas for another five years. He married
Mary Hanigan in 1983, and they have three children.
In 1986, he opted for private practice by joining
another former U.S. attorney. When Bob called his father
for advice on setting up the office, George asked, "Do you
have room for an old guy like me?"
"So we hired him as our law clerk," says Bob,
jokingly. The firm, called Dickerson, Dickerson, Consul &
Pocker, focuses on civil litigation with some criminal work.
While Bob was inspired by his father, George was
inspired by his brother, Harvey, who also served as Nevada
bar president (1951-52). Harvey died of a heart attack in
1975.
George served as Clark County District Attorney
before going into private practice. Another major case of
his involved a 19-year-old man charged with killing a 6-year-old girl and stuffing her body in his attic. George
defended the man in 1959, saving him from the death
penalty, and continued to represent him on various appeals
for the next 21 years.
"I felt obligated to help him and felt it was my
duty," George says.
That same sense of dedication and professionalism
runs in the family. Now that George, 73, and his wife,
Doree, are parents of three and grandparents of nine, he
enjoys watching his son take the reigns as bar president.
"He's perfectly capable of mapping out his own
objectives," George says of Bob's impending presidency in
June. "I said I'll never intrude. But I am available upon
request."
The author is the reporter for Bar Leader.
