Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: The Legal Profession Past Present & Future Radio Interview From Three Generations of Lawyers
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rom virtually no debt after law school to $80,000 in debt, more than the price of the education has changed for lawyers coming out of law school over the past 45 years. The one thing that remains the same, however, is the lawyers’ pledge to advance the administration of justice. “What kind of society did our older lawyers serve, and how have young lawyers in the middle and young generations adjusted to this brave new world as it’s called?” asked Phil Mariage, producer and host of the radio program Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Since this issue of The Arkansas Lawyer has a historical component including the first case decided by the Arkansas Supreme Court and the history of The Arkansas Lawyer magazine, it seems fitting to include excerpts from the transcript from the radio program Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow1 that featured the viewpoints of three Arkansas lawyers on the legal profession. Topics discussed included the cost of legal education, specialization, civility, advertising and the business of law. Mariage interviewed Judge John Stroud,2 Richard Ramsay3 and Gwendolyn Rucker.4 Stroud graduated law school in 1959, Ramsay graduated in 1977 and Rucker graduated in 2002. The host’s questions are in bold italic.
Thinking about when you took the bar in 1959, as a young person, what was the nature of being a lawyer when you came into the bar? Stroud: It was something I’d always wanted to do and I think it was considered a very noble and honorable profession. By far, the majority of legislators in Arkansas were attorneys and I think the majority of the members of Congress were attorneys. In most fields, the leaders and the statesmen were attorneys and it was a general feeling and a general acceptance of most people that it was a profession that was sought. When people walked into your office when you first started, what kind of cases were you working on? What were people needing done in the way of law work then? Stroud: It was a great variety. Certainly there was no “specialization.” You welcomed anyone that came and you did various types of cases, mainly civil. At first certainly not representing insurance companies. They would go to the older attorneys, so it was a varied practice. And that was true generally among the lawyers in the late 50s and 60s except for the firms. The firms would have sufficient numbers to begin specializations. Do you remember what your education cost by comparison? I know we’ll hear it from the others. Was it expensive then? Stroud: I had the GI bill, and I don’t remember what the tuition was, but it was not enormous. Not like what we’ll hear in a few minutes. Stroud: No, we had no debt when we got out and I understand debt is typical nowdays. Well, let’s move up to Rick Ramsay in the middle generation. What was the start of your career like in 1977 by comparison to John’s? 14
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Ramsay: It was an interesting period in our history. The primary focus probably would have been the conclusion of the Vietnam War. That had happened just a few years earlier when I was starting law school. You were starting to see more social issues that were coming about that affected the practice of law. You had a generation of folks who had been exposed to a turbulent time in the 60s and you had the expansion of the ACLU. You had other causes like Green Peace and socially conscious ideas that kind of opened up a whole new area of law for a lot of people. Maybe because of the Vietnam War you also saw an explosion of the numbers of people who were applying to law school, and so the numbers of lawyers who were coming out of school in my generation in the late 70s was much larger than it was in John’s day. What was your education in terms of cost? Was it expensive in your time? Ramsay: Terribly expensive. It was $200 a semester for tuition. Oh, that’s terrible. Ramsay: Having children in college now, I can tell you that it’s $200 per credit hour, so inflation has definitely hit us. Well, let’s move up to Gwendolyn Rucker and the younger generation. Now Gwendolyn, you just came out in 2002, a very interesting year. Of course, we just passed 9/11 which has changed society. We’ve got the run up to the war going on and everything that has happened and just really in our immediate consciousness. What were your expectations as you came out of school? How has law changed or what did you expect? Rucker: It was interesting. I think for me, my whole thing was getting into government law. I always knew that I wanted to do public service-type work. I had no expectations. I wasn’t thinking of going to a firm or anything like that. I always knew I wanted to be an attorney.