82 Lawyers Who Raised the Bar for Their Peers

Benjamin Hayes rode into the pueblo on a mule Feb. 2, 1850, carrying a shotgun and a Bowie knife for protection. Later that year, he became the first county attorney.

In two years, he was elected district judge, traveling by horseback and carriage throughout Southern California to administer justice, according to historian W.W. Robinson in his 1959 book “Lawyers of Los Angeles.�

Hayes was a Southern sympathizer, but his notable cases include a decision preventing a man from taking slaves he brought into California to Texas. Hayes ruled that the slaves were “entitled to their freedom and are free forever.�

Hayes is among 82 lawyers and judges memorialized in a Wall of Fame at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center downtown. The wall, on the Temple Street side of the courthouse, will be dedicated April 3.

Another honoree’s name once was used as a baseball taunt. At the turn of the 20th century, rowdy crowds would shout: “Kill the umpire -- we’ll get Earl Rogers to defend you.�

Rogers served as defense counsel in 77 murder trials, losing only three. At least some of his clients, as even Rogers admitted, were probably guilty. In 1932, a decade after Rogers died, attorney and author Erle Stanley Gardner reincarnated him as the fictional attorney Perry Mason.

The Wall of Fame was born seven years ago when U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon suggested to the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. that the legal profession should do more to honor colleagues. That sparked a discussion of the public’s low opinion of attorneys. Alarcon and others started making a list of role models in the legal world.

Clara Shortridge Foltz, the first woman to practice law in California, was at the top of the list. Her professional credo summed up her accomplishments and attitude: “I am a woman and I am a lawyer -- and what of it?�

“She’s the hero of the public defenders’ office and, I’m ashamed to admit, I knew nothing about her,� Alarcon said in an interview.

Foltz was a divorced mother of five who, in 1879, became the first woman admitted to the state’s first law school -- a year after she had passed the bar exam. She was the first woman deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County and a founder of the nation’s public defender system, helping to create the Los Angeles office in 1914.

Alarcon, now 80, came up with the idea of renaming what was then the Criminal Courts Building in honor of Foltz. The courthouse, which stands on the site of the 1891 red sandstone courthouse where she practiced, was rededicated in 2002.

“But it still took me five years to get the L.A. bar to warm up to� the Wall of Fame, Alarcon said.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to cover the $25,000 cost. “We were reluctant to ask for money from the private sector,� Alarcon said. “[We] wanted to keep [the selection] clean.�

A committee of judges and lawyers, including Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Warren Ettinger, chose the 82 names, considering only those who were deceased.

Judges Ygnacio Sepulveda, John F. Aiso and Kathleen Parker made the cut, as did trial attorneys Joseph Scott, Jerry Giesler and Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., former state Atty. Gen. Evelle J. Younger and former U.S. Sen. Stephen White.

“My personal favorite was Edward J.C. Kewen,� said Alarcon, who, with the help of law clerks and his secretary, compiled biographies of each honoree. The biographies are posted on the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.’s website: lacba.org.

Kewen was a hot-tempered Southern attorney described in historical accounts as a “fire-eating, name-calling orator, violent in speech and temper.� He became California’s first attorney general in 1849 and, in 1850, one of the first three attorneys to argue before the inaugural session of the California Supreme Court.

Kewen moved to Los Angeles before the Civil War, serving as district attorney from 1859 to 1861. Then he teamed up with Col. James Howard to practice criminal law.

They were so successful at defense that a vigilante committee passed a resolution to hang them both. Howard confronted the lynch mob’s leader, whom he had known for years, according to historian Robinson.

“We are old friends,� Howard reportedly said. “Be generous, let’s compromise. Hang Kewen; he’s the head of the firm.�

Howard survived; so did Kewen, who lived a long life on his San Marino estate, the old gristmill of Mission San Gabriel.

Other honorees include:

* Georgia Bullock, who was a widow with two children when she graduated from USC law school in 1914. A decade later, she was appointed a judge on the Woman’s Court, now the Municipal Court.

Her new job made her a target of anonymous death threats. Mysterious prowlers stalked her home at night and strange cars followed hers during the day. But she persevered and, in 1932, at age 54, became the first woman appointed a Superior Court judge in California.

* Al Matthews represented L. Ewing Scott, accused of killing his wife, who had vanished in 1955. Scott became the first person convicted of murder even though the victim’s body was never found.

Matthews also defended Caryl Chessman, the “red-light bandit� who faced the death penalty despite having killed no one. Chessman would pull up behind couples in lovers’ lanes and flash a red light, making his victims think he was a police officer. He was executed in 1960 for a series of small robberies, kidnappings and sexual assaults.

* Albert Wirin joined the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1930s after he was severely beaten for defending Mexican American agricultural workers trying to unionize. During World War II, Wirin fought the internment of Japanese Americans and defended their rights to own property in California.

Because most of Wirin’s work for the ACLU was pro bono, he supported his family by taking cases with unsympathetic but prosperous defendants, including reputed gangsters Frank Carbo and Mickey Cohen.

* Jack W. Hardy was appointed to defend Barbara Graham, who with two accomplices was convicted of strangling and beating to death a wealthy Burbank widow. Graham’s execution, in 1955, was graphically and sympathetically depicted in the 1958 Oscar-winning film “I Want to Live,� starring Susan Hayward.

Hardy’s pro bono defense of Graham helped change state law. According to his thumbnail biography compiled for the wall: “His financial ruin for accepting an appointment to represent an indigent induced the California Legislature to enact laws that provide compensation for court-appointed lawyers.�

* Earl C. Broady Sr. started out as a janitor in 1917, at age 13. “I not only was born across the tracks. I was born on the wrong side of that place across the tracks,� Broady once said. He also worked as a mail carrier and played piano with a band at night. In 1927, he joined the LAPD and studied law in his spare time. He began practicing law in 1944 and became a Superior Court judge in 1965. He was the only black judge on the McCone Commission, convened to study the causes of the 1965 Watts riots.

* Gladys Towles Root wowed juries with outfits and hats like those of Cruella De Vil. Averaging 75 court appearances a month in her 52-year career, she often said, “I’m going to die in the courthouse.� In 1982, she was in a Pomona courtroom when she had a heart attack and died at age 77.

* Joseph A. Ball tried more than 500 cases in his 73-year career, building a client list that included Watergate figure John D. Ehrlichman, auto maker John DeLorean and Saudi Arabian financier Adnan Khashoggi. Ball was on the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President Kennedy.

“The highly ethical Joseph Ball once refused to defend a wealthy man by saying, ‘I value my reputation as a lawyer more than you as a client,’ which epitomizes the names on the wall,� Alarcon said. “Their litigation skills also taught all of us to be better lawyers.�