Washington Lawyer - July 2017 - 24

"It is important to note that when the D.C. Court
of Appeals decided to have a mandatory bar, it was
happening at the same time that young lawyers
and law students were clamoring for more public
interest and pro bono work all across the country.
There was a group formed called the Washington
Council of Lawyers [that] wanted the profession to
devote more time to pro bono and public interest
efforts. This group organized an effort to turn out
lawyers to vote for the Nominating Committee, to
nominate the officers of the new mandatory bar,"
says Tucker, who later served as the Bar's first female
president in 1984-85.
"I was a member of this group. We telephoned
every lawyer we knew to get them to show up at
the initial meeting of the new bar. Our hope was to
elect at least one member of the Nominating
Committee who represented the more progressive
views of our group. Turns out that we had so many
young lawyers turn up for the meeting that we
elected the entire slate of the Nominating
Committee with our members! The older members
of the Bar did not see that coming!"

PRETTYMAN: A BRIDGE
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
The Nominating Committee was careful to
nominate well-respected members of the Bar who
were sympathetic to the public service obligation
of the profession, Tucker notes. They asked E. Barrett
Prettyman Jr. to serve as the first Bar president.
Choosing Prettyman as the first president of the Bar
was a "wise selection," says Stephen J. Pollak, who
served on the first Board, then as Bar secretary in
1974, and finally as president from 1980-81. Pollak
first met Prettyman in 1963 when they both worked
for Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

"His father was a federal judge, and Barrett was a
well-recognized local lawyer," Pollak says. "He was a
good bridge between the old voluntary bar and
the new bar. He was a great leader."
It might be difficult to imagine today, but everything was a first for the new D.C. Bar - pro bono,
sections, continuing legal education - these were
all "learning experiences," Pollak says. And creating
these functions required research. "Barrett traveled
around the country studying other mandatory bars"
to see how they did things, recalls Pollak.
Prettyman (who passed away in 2016) described his
Board of Governors that first year in a remembrance
for the 25th anniversary of the Bar:
My board was an eclectic one, with strongwilled personalities of various and diverse
viewpoints, not shy at expressing themselves
on any subject. In fact, my biggest task during
this first year was to bring a sense of calm and
reason to our meetings. I found that if Board
members thought I was fair, and they had
every chance to propound their views, we
could all work together as a unit.
Florence Roisman, William F. Harvey Professor of
Law at Indiana University and renown for her civil
rights work combatting housing discrimination and
segregation, was one of the "strong-willed personalities" who served on the first Board. She described
being "very surprised" and elated to have been
elected. "Pat Wald [from the Nominating
Committee] called me and said, 'We need some
progressive women, will you be a candidate?' I
didn't think about it for a minute. I agreed."
Roisman recalled the Board as "a very odd combination of very establishment lawyers like Charlie

1977

President Carter signs bill creating the
EPA, 1979.
24 WASHINGTON LAWYER

Horsky at Covington & Burling" and progressive
lawyers "like Charlie Duncan, president-elect; Amy
Scupi; Monroe Freedman; and Ralph Temple. Barrett
was a bridge between both worlds."

BREAKING BARRIERS,
NEW VOICES EMERGE
Roisman says she enjoyed the Board meetings. "We
were quite different from one another. I was very
pleasantly surprised at how open the establishment
bar Board was to unconventional ideas," she says.
"One thing I remember is that we decided to keep
some of the dues money in a neighborhood credit
union. It didn't get as high an interest rate, but Charlie
Horsky supported that proposal. We had a fiduciary
obligation to the Bar, but he accepted proposed
values other than making as much money as

Board was
" My
an eclectic one,

The D.C. Bar Board of Governors is
expanded to include nonlawyers as
nonvoting members.
The Supreme Court holds that the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
has authority to establish industrywide standards to control discharge
of pollutants into U.S. waterways.

Photos of Kessler, Roisman, Duncan (below),
and Scupi (opposite page) from the D.C. Bar's
first election ballot.

1978
The D.C. Bar Lawyer Referral and
Information Service begins operations.

The U.S. Department of Energy is
created.

The deadline for Equal Rights
Amendment ratification is extended
to June 30, 1982.

Federal regulations are adopted
banning discrimination against the
disabled by employers, schools, and
institutions receiving federal funds.

Congress passes the Pregnancy
Discrimination Act, an amendment to
the sex-discrimination section of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.

* JULY 2017 *

with strong-willed
personalities of
various and diverse
viewpoints, not
shy at expressing
themselves on
any subject.

E. BARRETT PRETTYMAN JR.
First Bar President, 1972-73

http://www.dcbar.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Lawyer - July 2017