Following in the Family Footsteps

• Multiple Generations Of Lawyers Carry On The Family Tradition

By Karen Bankston

Science has yet to identify an attorney gene, but a genetic predisposition for the law seems to run through several Wisconsin families.

The hereditary link to the law is so strong that some families have not one, but two or three attorneys in each generation. Some of these third, fourth, even fifth generation attorneys have lawyer genes on several branches of their family tree.

For example, the maternal grandfather of attorney siblings Virginia R. and Daniel Finn was a Philadelphia lawyer, and their paternal grandmother had three attorney brothers. Their father and mother, J. Jerome and C. Virginia Finn, are both alumnae of Marquette University Law School, their father "in the '50s (class of 1958)" and their mother "in her 50s (class of 1989)," reports Virginia, an attorney with Michael, Best & Friedrich LLP.

"If our family has any expectation of the law, it is that it will keep your mind active. Our family values include the Irish love of a good argument for argument's sake," she adds. "Perhaps we had to be attorneys for that reason alone."

Thus, the flip side in the nature versus nurture debate wields some influence. A nearly universal childhood experience among the sons and daughters of attorneys was spending Saturday mornings at the law office, though few report that those hours gave them clear insight into the practice of law.

"I really didn't have any concept of what he did at work," admits Joseph Tierney IV. "I guess I would have said, 'My father reads books.'"

These families' professional heritage left vastly different impressions on younger generations. Rebecca Wickhem Wegner's high school teachers collected lawyer jokes she could take home to her father. John O'Melia Jr. remembers attorneys from around the state descending on the family deer camp each November. Whenever Thomas Drought's family traveled across the state, they stopped for meals only at restaurants belonging to the association his father represented. All in all, these must be good memories because the proud tradition continues in these and other families across the state.

Legacy of Law: The Smolers

Harriet Stern Smoler may not have practiced law for long, but her love for the profession is reflected in the career choices of her son and three of her 10 grandchildren.

The newest lawyer in the family, Tedia Smoler, stopped often on her way to and from the U.W. Law Library to find her grandmother (Class of '29) and father (Class of '75) in their class pictures. Harriet Smoler's law school diploma hangs in Tedia's office at the Waukesha County Public Defender's Office.

After Harriet Stern graduated from law school, she had her own practice for a short time and worked with the Kenosha Social Services Department early in the Depression, says her son Bill Smoler. After she married Fred Smoler, Harriet switched careers to help operate the family retail business.

Bill believes his mother's passion for the law was manifest in the tradition of gathering to watch "Meet the Press" and then adjourning for a Sunday brunch that often stretched over one or two hours as the family debated political issues of the day. "My mother led those discussions in a way that was not dissimilar to what I experienced years later in law school," he recalls.

Harriet appeared before the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1975 to move her son's admission to the Bar. "I believe that was one of her proudest moments," says Bill, an attorney with Murphy & Desmond, Madison. Harriet died in May 1997, a year before Bill's daughter graduated from their alma mater. Harriet is one of Wisconsin's first 150 women lawyers who will be honored by the State Bar at a reception in Madison in October. (Please see the "President's Perspective" at page 5 for more information.)

Ask Tedia why she chose a law career, and she may say it comes down to the difference between her scores on entrance exams for law school and the psychology graduate school program.

"But my mother says she always knew I'd be a lawyer," Tedia says ruefully. "She also always said that I like to argue, which I used to think was a criticism."

Tied to History: The Droughts

The lawyers of the Drought family are linked with the history of Wisconsin's highways, restaurants, and lumberyards.

James Drought was the executive director, secretary, and attorney for the Milwaukee Automobile Club and played a major role in the development of the state's automobile industry. In 1926 he joined his son, Ralph, just out of the U.W. Law School, to form Drought & Drought. Father and son practiced together until James retired in 1943. Ralph had a general practice, and his two principal lobbying clients were the Wisconsin Restaurant Association and Wisconsin Retail Lumbermen Association.

"I remember that whenever my family traveled around the state, we could only eat in restaurants that were part of the restaurant association, and we were always stopping to visit lumberyards," says Ralph's son, Thomas.

Unlike his grandfather and father, Thomas never had an opportunity to practice with his father, who died in 1957 while Thomas was still in law school. Thomas practices with Cook & Franke, which started out as Drought & Drought.

He sees many contrasts between the family law practice of his childhood where photocopies hung from clothespins to dry and typewriters clacked away in outer offices. "My grandfather and father had a true general practice," he notes. "Back then there was no such thing as environmental law, telecommunications law, employment law. People didn't 'specialize' in aircraft litigation or sports law."

Two of Thomas's children represent the fourth generation of Drought lawyers. Kay Drought is director of the Legal Aid Society in Portsmouth, N.H. Her sister Ellen was honored this spring as one of two fourth-generation graduates from the U.W. Law School.

Ellen taught English in Japan, studied journalism, and considered pursuing a Ph.D. in history before applying for law school. "Although I enjoyed studying history, I wasn't passionate enough to pursue it," says Ellen, who will join the securities team at Godfrey & Kahn, Milwaukee. "A law degree is more versatile. In this day and age, lawyers do lots of different things."

Triple Tradition: The Affeldts

The Affeldt Law Offices S.C., West Allis, includes three brothers, David, Steven, and John, whose father, maternal uncle, and grandfathers on both sides of the family were attorneys. It seems a foregone conclusion that this third generation would take to the law. On the other hand, the three partners are the youngest of seven children; their older siblings chose other career paths.

"I don't think any of us felt as if we were pushed into law," John says, although the brothers agree that once they decided to become attorneys, none of them considered any other path than joining the family firm begun by their grandfather, George A. Affeldt, in 1909.

The Affeldt brothers have a general civil practice in the tradition of their grandfather and father, George R. Their maternal grandfather, Louis J. Fellenz, served as district attorney and circuit court judge in Fond du Lac County and as a state senator. His son, Louis J. Fellenz Jr., also was a state senator and later worked for the Federal Housing Authority.

Growing up in a big family was good preparation for practicing law together, Steven says. "We learned early to get along and share because we had to."

They remember childhood trips to their father's law office and orders to be quiet whenever clients stopped by to consult George Affeldt in his study at home. "We may not have understood totally what dad did as a lawyer, but we always knew the amount of time, effort, and education required to do the job well," Steven says.

Just as law has become a tradition in their family, engaging the services of the Affeldt Law Offices is an institution for many families in their hometown. "We have multiple generations of clients to go with our multiple generations of lawyers," Steven notes. "We still work with some clients who remember my grandfather coming to their house, and he's been dead for 45 years."

Following Moses: The Hoopers

Moses Hooper attended Yale University Law School and then came to Wisconsin in 1857. He settled first in Neenah and later in Oshkosh where his private practice flourished. Moses was Kimberly-Clark's first corporate counsel, a post he held until he retired in 1930 after 74 years in the law. At one time, he was the oldest practicing lawyer in the United States and the oldest attorney to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court (at age 93). He died in 1932 at age 97.

Moses was joined in his practice by sons Ben and Edward M., who succeeded his father as Kimberly-Clark's corporate lawyer. William S. Hooper, Edward's son and Moses' grandson, represents the third generation of Hooper attorneys. The Hooper family didn't have a lawyer in the fourth generation until Edward F. Hooper took an early retirement from his work as a senior systems engineer with IBM to go to law school.

"I had to fill in for the fourth generation at the last moment. It finally caught up with me," says the Appleton attorney who concentrates in estate planning. "In fact, the fifth generation in our family was admitted to the bar before the fourth."

Kellett Koch, the fifth-generation Hooper family attorney, recalls that his great-great-grandfather's career was "a source of great pride in our family." But it was his grandfather, a chemical engineer who chaired the Kellett Commission to reorganize state government, who influenced Koch to become an attorney. Koch practices with Koch & McCann in Milwaukee.

Trial's End: The Wickhems

On the eve of her law school finals, Rebecca Wegner recalls that her proud father sent her a package filled with memorials full of accolades for the first three generations of lawyers in her family.

"It terrified me," she confesses with a laugh. "I called him up and said, 'What are you trying to do to me with all these tributes for what my family has accomplished?'"

James G. Wickhem, the son of Irish immigrants, began his law practice in Beloit in 1882, and his son, John D. Wickhem, was a U.W. law professor who became a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. The third generation was represented by John C. Wickhem, a trial lawyer for almost 40 years, who served as president of the State Bar. His wife, Mary, took a year of law school and served on the Board of Bar Examiners and several State Bar committees. Mary's father, John Boyle, was U.S. attorney for Wisconsin's western district, and her brother, John J. Boyle, was a Janesville attorney who served as a Rock County circuit judge.

James D. Wickhem practiced with his father as an associate, partner, and finally as cocounsel until John's death in 1987. "My dad and I were partners, and he used to kid that his legal education had been repealed and recreated at least twice in his career," recalls James, a partner with Meier, Wickhem, Southworth & Lyons, Janesville.

The fifth generation includes James Scot Wickhem, a patent law specialist with Michael, Best & Friedrich LLP, Milwaukee, and Rebecca, who recently began her law career at Foley & Lardner in Milwaukee.

Unlike Rebecca, who decided to pursue law early on (she cowrote a paper on joint and several liability with her father in high school), Scot earned a degree in chemistry and was considering his career options when his advisor suggested patent law as a way to combine two interests.

Scot recalls that family vacations were planned around the court schedules of his father and grandfather. His grandfather's succession of boats the family used at their Canadian island getaway were all appropriately named "Trial's End."

Is there a sixth generation of attorneys in the wings for the Wickhems? Of his own children, Scot says wryly, "I'll try to steer them into medicine, but who knows whether I'll succeed?"

Sharing a Dream: The Pittses

For Christina Pitts and her daughter, Trinette, becoming a lawyer was a shared dream realized together.

Christina wanted to pursue a law career when she graduated from high school at age 16, but her sister was already in college, and her family could afford tuition for only one at a time. So she went to Milwaukee to wait her turn and work in her sister's business. She met and married Clifford Pitts instead.

Trinette traces her own interest in the law to hours she spent after school watching her mother at work in the Milwaukee County circuit court as a deputy clerk. "What I didn't know was that she had always aspired to be a lawyer, too," Trinette says.

They received their undergraduate degrees on the same day in the spring of 1979, Trinette in a morning ceremony at Marquette University, and Christina that afternoon from U.W.-Milwaukee. Trinette headed for U.W. Law School that fall, and her mother followed a year later. For two years they roomed together and shared the limelight. Christina acknowledges that Trinette was more comfortable with the attention surrounding their unique status than she was.

"I remember once being up studying at 3 a.m., wondering, 'What am I doing? I left a good job for this?'" Christina recalls. "But then I realized there was no quitting even if I wanted to. I thought, 'If I flunk out of here, everyone will know.'"

They share a close relationship - Trinette's only concern about their shared practice is that their offices at opposite ends of the suite are too far apart - and complementary personalities. Christina remembers an advisor telling them as they prepared for their moot court competition in law school, "You'll make a great team. Trinette goes for the jugular, and you come behind and soothe the ruffled feathers."

Trinette spent a couple years working for another Milwaukee law firm before she opened the family practice in 1984. Christina, who had returned to Milwaukee County first as an assistant corporate counsel processing paternity cases and later as an assistant district attorney, worked after hours with her daughter and joined Pitts & Pitts, which bills itself as "the women who care about you," full time in 1986.

Their practice is truly a family business, with son/brother Robert working as the office manager. Even husband/father Clifford Pitts Sr., now a full-time pastor, has caught the law bug, sprinkling his sermons with legal terms.

"He'll come to us and say, 'Tell me about codicils,'" Trinette says. "Many people in his congregation know we're lawyers, and they just love it."

Talking Law: The Tierneys

As Martin Tierney launches his legal career this summer, joining Ernst & Young in Chicago to practice in tax and employee benefits law, he'll have a ready pick of advisors to kick around a quick question. Martin's grandfather, father, and brother, all named Joe, practice corporate, tax, and real estate law in Milwaukee.

The first Joe Tierney to practice law came from Menominee, Mich., to study at Marquette University. He graduated in 1913 and went on to become the first assistant DA in the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office. "He also trained a lot of lawyers," says his son Joseph Tierney Jr., a partner with Cook & Franke, who met many colleagues over the years who spoke fondly of his father's tutelage.

Joe Jr. joined the FBI straight out of law school in 1941 and worked with an espionage group in New York during World War II. After the war he worked in the Waukegan FBI office before he returned to civilian life as a CPA with Arthur Anderson. By the time he returned to Milwaukee to practice law, his son, Joseph III, had already launched his own practice.

Joe III, a partner with Meissner Tierney Fischer & Nichols, recalls no expectations that he take up the law, but adds, "I can't imagine doing anything else that would be as interesting. I created my own expectations, and I tried to do the same for my own sons."

Martin notes that "a lot of my friends in grade school and high school expected me to become a lawyer, but I never felt any pressure from the family. In fact, my parents did a wonderful job of getting behind me when I considered studying quantum mechanics."

Martin's brother, Joe IV, has been redirecting phone calls and email messages intended for his father and grandfather since he began practicing in Milwaukee. "It's always a treat picking up the phone and hearing, 'Joe, I haven't talked to you in 20 years,'" he says. "That would have made me about six."

But Joe IV, an associate with Domnitz, Mawicke, Goisman & Rosenberg, wouldn't trade places with a Tom or Sam.

"A lot of people view having the same name and pursuing the same career as a burden, but I've never felt that way," he contends. "Because people know my father and grandfather and like them, that opens doors for me. I don't mean economically, but just in getting to know people. I feel like I have a sense of history."

Seeking Justice: The Lamelas Family

When Francisco José Lamelas joined his sister and father in the family law practice in Cuba, he became the youngest member of the Havana Law Association. He practiced law in his homeland for 20 years, actively seeking legal reforms, and was busy with a full trial schedule. Then Fidel Castro came to power, and "things started getting bad little by little," he recalls. "Being a lawyer became very controversial."

It was time to get the family out of Cuba. Daughters Elsa and Blanche left first in what were called "Peter Pan" airlifts transporting children to U.S. orphanages. Next came his wife and young son.

"I was the last one, and I wasn't sure I would be allowed to leave," Francisco says. The day before he left, a justice at a Supreme Court hearing attempted to provoke him into a confrontation that might have landed him in prison. "I handled that very well, but nobody could be safe from the government."

After they were reunited, the Lamelases settled in Chicago where Francisco started law classes, but he discovered he could not finish law school in the requisite five years while working full time to support his family. Instead, he found a job as a law clerk and later taught Spanish language and literature at Dominican College in Racine. His final career move was to become a juvenile probation officer for 18 years with Milwaukee County.

"I am a lawyer by nature," Francisco acknowledges. He enjoyed interacting with his juvenile clients and the legal system. And he is proud that a third generation of the Lamelas family has taken up law.

Elsa Lamelas crisscrossed the country as an attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice before settling down in Milwaukee, where she worked with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, the district attorney's office, and finally the U.S. attorney's office before her appointment to the Milwaukee County circuit court bench.

As Elsa discusses her career choices, she recalls "the dramatic events I witnessed in Cuba that I will never forget" and the years her family lived in poverty after first arriving in the United States. "I really thought the law was an instrument to change the world, and I very much wanted to do that," she says simply.

Hometown and Beyond: The O'Melias

In Rhinelander in the first half of the century, no one was surprised when the doctor's child became a doctor or the dentist's son took up dentistry, recalls Richard O'Melia. The fact that three of Albert J. (A.J.) O'Melia's sons took up the law was a bit more remarkable.

A.J. O'Melia opened his practice in 1911 after graduating with the first class out of Marquette University Law School. Two sons, Donald and John, joined him in the Rhinelander office, while Richard opened the Milwaukee office of O'Melia and Kaye after completing law school following service as a Marine fighter pilot in World War II.

Richard went to Washington with family friend Joe McCarthy after helping with McCarthy's 1952 Senate campaign. "I said I'd go for one year, and it's been 50," says Richard, who served as general counsel with the U.S. Senate Operations Committee, which McCarthy chaired. He later worked on staff with the Civil Aeronautics Board before being appointed to CAB in 1974. More recently, he became one of the founders of U.S. African Airways.

Back home, the third generation of O'Melias entered the profession. In 1979 John Jr. joined his father and uncle in the family firm, now O'Melia, Schiek and McEldowney. His brother, Patrick, also joined the practice for several years before becoming Oneida County District Attorney in 1989.

Their uncle Donald's son, Michael, is a circuit judge in Phoenix, and his daughter, Amy O'Melia-Endres, recently became a fourth generation O'Melia lawyer after graduating from Arizona State University Law School. John Jr. didn't decide to become a lawyer until his second year in college, though he recalls attending his father's trials while in high school and once was invited behind the scenes to watch as jury instructions were drawn up in chambers. Once he decided on the law, "I always assumed I would come back to Rhinelander and practice with my father and uncle."

Conclusion

As diverse as these lawyerly families may be, they share an abiding passion for their work. "This is a wonderful profession that encourages pro bono work," says Joe Tierney Jr. "It gives us the opportunity to help people who need help, and we enjoy doing it."

That frame of reference is itself a strong legacy. Notes grandson Martin, "Because of my father and grandfather, I had a great deal of respect for the law and still do."

Tedia's mother, Sherry Ackerman, is a Spanish teacher, and Tedia thinks it fitting that the public defender's office hired her as much for her knowledge of Spanish as for her law degree. "I get to use my mother's skill in my father's profession," she says.

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