Where the Lawyers Were BY FRANK S. SPIES
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ust fifty years ago the largest number of Grand Rapids law firms were located in what was then the seventy-year-old, eleven-story Michigan Trust Building at the southeast corner of Pearl Street and Ottawa Avenue in downtown Grand Rapids. What are today the three largest area firms: Warner Norcross & Judd, Varnum and Miller Johnson were all located on single floors of that building. On the ground floor was an office supply store and a necessary travel agency (remember, there was no internet and no airline toll free numbers). The top floor held the Grand Rapids Bar Association library, where the firm’s associates hid out, and the University Club, where the firm’s partners had long, lubricated, lunches. Across Ottawa Avenue in the Ledyard building, was the Ottawa Grill where everyone who was not in the University Club had lunch. The second floor of the Trust Building held Old Kent Bank’s trust department (with its four lawyers) and a branch bank with a few tellers across from the elevators. Warner Norcross & Judd was on the third floor. Varnum Riddering Wierengo and Christenson shared the tenth floor. Miller Johnson Snell and Cummiskey shared the ninth floor. They were joined by Law, Fallon, Weathers and Richardson on the fifth floor and Uhl, Bryant, Wheeler and Upham on the seventh floor. McCobb & Heaney was on the ninth floor and Schmidt, Smith, Howlett and Halliday was on the fourth. Those two firms later merged, and then merged into Varnum Riddering Schmidt and Howlett. 18 The Grand Rapids Lawyer
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Smaller firms found spots in the Trust Building including: Kingston, Porter and Day; McShane Bowie and Anderson; Deeb, Elferdink and Deeb; Strawhecker and McCarger; White, Smitter and Zimmerman; Wiarda and Starr; Williams and Damon; Hayes and Davis, Bahna and Bahna; along with County Prosecutor James Miller and his chief deputy Joseph White. The other larger firms in the early 1960’s were spread out around downtown: The People’s Builidng at Monroe Mall & Ionia housed Cholette, Perkins & Buchanan; the McKay Tower was home to Mitts, Smith and Haughey; the Waters Building held Rhoades, Garlington, McKee and Boer and Dutchess, Mika Miles Meyers and Snow. The Federal Square Building at Pearl and Ionia held Luyendyk, Hanier, Hillman, Karr and Dutcher. The big firms began to migrate out of the Trust Building when they started to outgrow their quarters and succumbed to the appeal of new “modern” buildings. Schmidt, Smith, Howlett and Halliday had to plan a move when a second lawyer in their firm was shuffled to an office in the library. The firms began moving to the new Old Kent Bank Building in the urban renewal area and more moved when the Union Bank Building across Ottawa Ave was completed. Today, it is hard to imagine the 220 lawyer Warner firm on one floor of the Trust Building, the 150 lawyer Varnum firm sharing a floor, and the 90 attorneys of Miller Johnson sharing space on another floor of just one building. All this in less than fifty years – a single lawyer’s career.