Page 83 - ACTL Journal Win24

THE COLLEGE TYPICALLY HOLDS A LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP EVERY YEAR SHORTLY AFTER THE ANNUAL MEETING, THE MAIN PURPOSE OF WHICH IS TO PROVIDE THE NEWLY MINTED COMMITTEE CHAIRS AND REGENTS AN ORIENTATION TO HELP THEM PERFORM THEIR DUTIES. BUT BOSH. THE REAL PURPOSE IS THAT IT IS FUN. MY FIRST YEAR AS A COMMITTEE CHAIR, AND MY FIRST LEAD- ERSHIP WORKSHOP, WAS IN 2001. BY THE TIME I BECAME A REGENT, THERE WERE TWO WORK- SHOPS (EAST AND WEST COAST) EACH YEAR. AND SHORTLY AFTER I TIMED OUT OF BEING AN OFFI- CER, I WAS MADE (NO ONE ELSE WOULD DO IT) ED- ITOR OF THE JOURNAL, WHICH IS CONSIDERED A COMMITTEE CHAIR. SO I RECKON THAT THE 2023 LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP HELD AT THE CONRAD HOTEL IN WASHINGTON, D.C. IN OCTOBER 2023 WAS MY THIRTIETH (OR MAYBE TWENTY-NINTH, BUT WHO’S COUNTING?).
Jane and I always look forward to these work- shops because they are smaller gatherings than the National Meetings and they are always comfortable occasions to see old friends and make new ones.
But this year brought a new, unexpected treat – our Keynote Speaker, Judicial Fellow Paul J. Friedman. He didn’t offer food for thought –
he served up a feast.
Judge Friedman was appointed United States District Judge for the District of Columbia in August 1994. He graduated from Cornell Uni- versity in 1965 and received a J.D. from the School of Law of the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1968. Following law school, Judge Friedman clerked for Judge Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and for Judge Rog- er Robb of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Dis- trict of Columbia from 1970 to 1974, and as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States from 1974 to 1976. Judge Fried- man practiced law as an associate and partner with White & Case from 1976 until 1994. He served as President of the District of Columbia Bar from 1986 to 1987, and as Associate Inde-
pendent Counsel for the Iran-Contra Investigation from 1987 to 1988. He served for nine years as the Secretary of the American Law Institute and as a member of its Council.
Judge Friedman was inducted as a Fellow of the College in 1984. In the early 90’s, then President Bob Fiske asked then Mr. Friedman to serve on the Regents Nominating Committee. Judge Friedman recalls:
When Judge Friedman addressed the Workshop, he focused on “two totally unrelated but hugely important topics to which the American College of Trial Lawyers is already devoting substantial attention and resources” – the vanishing jury trial, and the increasingly vitriolic and personal attacks on judges, on the courts, on judicial independence, and on the rule of law.
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I quickly learned of the four prominent trial lawyers in the District of Columbia who might be interested in being elected as Regent. Suddenly, I began to receive lots of phone calls and letters and pres- sure and lobbying on behalf of three of the four. But the fourth candidate did not call. Nor did he ask anyone to call on his behalf.
When the Committee met, someone asked me about the fourth D.C. lawyer: What about Earl Silbert? I said no one had lobbied me on Earl’s behalf, even though I knew him better than all the others. I had worked for him in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and with him on Watergate. He and Pat had been at our wedding. And then I realized that the reason no one had lobbied me on Earl’s behalf was because of Earl himself: his humility and lack of self-promotion were part and parcel of how he operated. Earl never even called me! Needless to say, Earl Silbert was elected as the Regent, and the rest is history. [Earl was our President in 2000-01.]