Veteran attorneys detail changing practice of law

When it comes to changes in the practice of law, three veteran Springfield attorneys have stories to tell.

Ivella McWhorter Elsey began her legal career in 1949 as Springfield's first practicing female attorney. In 1952, she became Greene County's first female prosecutor.

Asked if her gender was a handicap in those days, Elsey said finding business wasn't a problem because several attorneys she knew sent her clients. "Then I became involved in politics and met all kinds of people," she said. "I never ran into prejudice, and I never classified myself as a woman attorney, just as an attorney."

Law schooling itself was very different in the 1940s, Elsey said. "Back then, you could apply to the Supreme Court of Missouri, which would permit you to do office study with attorneys if you passed certain tests." After working some time with the attorneys, the aspiring lawyer could take the bar exam, she said. "I tried that, but decided it was inadequate and chose to go to school instead, to the University of Missouri in Columbia."

Ransom A. Ellis Jr. too has practiced law in Springfield for more than a half-century. "Law has become tremendously complicated," he said. "We are a very changed culture, and most people will sue you at the drop of a hat, with or without merit ...."

Lawyers themselves have changed over time, according to Ellis and Elsey. "When I first started practicing law, every lawyer's word was his bond and 99 percent of lawyers observed that tenaciously," said Ellis, who earned his law degree at what was then Kansas City University.

"Today that is not the case," Ellis said. "Honor, integrity and pride in the profession at the time predominated, and today they don't. Today it's strictly yellow pages and TV ads full of exaggerated claims. ... Our motto was and mine still is my reputation as a lawyer doing a good job for my client was my best advertisement."

Elsey concurred. "When we first started, a handshake and phone call were sufficient," she said. "You wrote on your file and met at the courthouse. Now there's endless paperwork and meetings. Frankly, it's a chore, but it didn't used to be that way. I'd like law to go back to being a profession instead of a business. It's now about the dollar amount, rather than getting justice for people."

Attorney William Joyner, who began his law practice in 1963 after graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia, said that while law evolves slowly, one major change has been the development of extensive family law practice. "Divorces are so complicated anymore, with custody, visitation and support issues, that that area of law has had to grow by leaps and bounds, unfortunately," he said.

Elsey believes that family law is the one area that has had the most influence on society. "On divorces, we used to be able to file and after 30 days go down to the courthouse on a Friday morning and get the divorce," she said. "We used to have to prove three faults to get a divorce .... Now no-fault has made one of the worst messes, because it generates all kinds of difficulties trying to get around the no-fault and still bring in the case. Clients need parenting plans, lists of assets. Support and custody hearings drag out the time. It can take up to a year or two to get the divorce work finished."

Joyner, who concentrates on business and personal litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants, believes that other legal changes have affected our society, as well. Employee law, he said, has come a long way in protecting employee rights. He also cites "good changes" in disability laws.

"Product liability law has gone a long way in protecting the American consumer," Joyner said. "Any product can be defective in design or can break through defect, and the laws have made manufacturers more sensitive to safety issues. Many manufacturers have done a great job trying to make products safer" rather than risk future litigation.

Joyner said that mediation and arbitration also have grown substantially in the past few years, and that he considers them very helpful tools because "a good mediator or arbitrator can cause a party to see the other side's position and try to work out a compromise that everyone is happy with. The process takes a lot of stress off the courts, and it's a lot more economical. I think it will grow it's applicable to any conflict even domestic."

All three attorneys note that computers have radically changed the way law offices work, especially for legal secretaries, who no longer have to concern themselves with reams of individually typed documents and endless sheets of carbon paper.

"Computers have made it much easier in some ways, but the paper trail gets so strong because there's so much of it. Still, we couldn't do the practice anymore without them," said Elsey, who concentrates on estate planning, real estate, probate and business law.

Ellis added, "We practice electronically instead of face-to-face. We can do all our court filings by electronic transmission rather than physically plunking down a stack of papers. It makes it totally impersonal. I feel like today I practice in a vacuum before I had close personal relationships with other lawyers. But because of computers, our research methods are much better."

Paralegals

Joyner cited the use of paralegals as another change with a huge impact on the practice of law, as they do interrogatories, discovery and pleadings, saving clients money and freeing attorneys to do other work.

"I think young attorneys have it better now than we did," Joyner said. "Research tools are superior, and experienced paralegals so many of them specialize can share their knowledge with new attorneys. It's still hard work, though."

Ellis recalled that as a young attorney he "started out as a grunt, working as an associate for another partner in a large law firm here in Springfield, carrying his briefcase and doing his legwork." He laughed and added, "Law offices were different then. We had two lawyers who smoked cigars, and the office stank to high heaven. Now, of course, we have a no-smoking rule. You know, we had no Xerox machines, not even electric typewriters, but we had stenos who took shorthand. Even the phone was primitive."

Elsey said there were fewer law offices in town in those days, with only three office areas downtown the Woodruff, McDaniel and Landers buildings and two or three law firms on Commercial Street. "I couldn't find an office," she said, "so I called on Fred Miles who had a real estate building on St. Louis and Glenstone, which was in the country those days. He sublet me his Woodruff Building office, except from noon to 1:30 every day, when he would meet his own clients there." In 1966 she established an office at National and Sunshine "the hinterlands," she said and several attorneys asked her if she should really be "that far away from town."

Ellis, who primarily practices employment law and defends corporations, remembered when judges appointed attorneys to represent indigent clients. He was appointed early in his career "when I still didn't know beans about court procedure" to represent a man who rented a car, had a wild weekend with his girlfriend, left the car wrecked on a Kansas City street, and was arrested for "embezzling" the auto.

"I committed every blunder a young lawyer could commit, especially asking leading questions," Ellis said. "The prosecutor kept jumping up to object, until finally the judge got annoyed, told me he'd send me to jail if I kept it up. I had to tell him, Your Honor, you appointed me to this and I've never done it before in my life!' The jury felt more sorry for me than for my client, I guess, and they went ahead and turned him loose."

Asked why she wanted to become an attorney at a time when the profession was an unusual choice for a woman, Elsey said, "I liked what I experienced going to courtrooms when I was at school in Bolivar. Later I got involved in a federal situation you couldn't go through the courtroom gate at Federal Court in Springfield unless you were an attorney. I hadn't been denied much in my life, and I decided I needed to become an attorney so I go could through that gate."