My career as a lawyer began at the Fox movie theater in downtown Spokane on a Sunday while the theater was closed for movies. The law school graduates proceeded into the theater as diplomas were presented by Gonzaga Law School. The diplomas were written on large parchment paper in Latin with a huge ribbon & seal. Except, that is, the fellow sitting next to me. When he unrolled the paper, he found it was a blank page with a note inside advising that until he paid a bill he owed to the school, he would not get his certificate. It’s hard to believe that over half a century has gone by since that day.

All of us had attended night law school at Gonzaga from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm Monday through Friday for the past four years. Most of us had jobs during the day while going to school and were employed during the summer recess. While I was going to school, I found a job parking cars at the Ridpath Hotel and later found work with a Spokane defense lawyer, Clare Turner, researching motions and briefs for him. In the summers, I would leave for Alaska on commercial purse seine boats. We would fish for Sabbath from the Aleutian Islands back to Puget Sound, ending the season in the fall when I would return to law school in Spokane. I continued this after I was married and had two children while in law school.

There were only  3600 lawyers in the whole state in 1959, compared to the 40,000 we have today. Alice Ralls was the executive secretary of the Bar  Association. She had graduated from the University of Washington law school and single-handedly ran the bar association.

After looking for work in my hometown of Anacortes and being told there were enough lawyers there already, I was offered a job as a part-time deputy prosecutor for Skagit County by the Prosecuting Attorney Walter J. Deierlein, Jr., best known as Jack, a lifelong resident of Skagit County who died on the 22nd day of October, 2010, at age 92. He had been brought up in Skagit County and elected as prosecuting attorney. There were two deputy Prosecuting Attorneys, Stanley Bruhn and Harry Follman. Stanley had left to form a partnership with Bill Banister, and I was hired to fill his job on a part-time basis. The arrangement allowed me to be a deputy prosecuting attorney and, at the same time, have a private law practice. There was one secretary for the entire office, Mrs Cook, who had been there a very long time. Since under the law we all were all part-time prosecutors, we all had a private practice. She had been a legal secretary for years and was fully informed about prosecution work as well as civil practice. In fact, no matter what I dictated, she would type what she believed was the correct dictation and would totally ignore what I had dictated. I quickly learned to accept the fact that she knew a lot more than I did about the practice of law.

Judges Charles Stafford and Art Ward were the two Superior Court judges in Skagit County. Both played a significant role in my continuing education as a trial lawyer. Judge Stafford was a student of the law. He was the first judge to ever serve on all three court levels of the Superior court, Appellate court, and Supreme court. Judge Ward was a very bright lawyer who had been a plaintiff’s trial lawyer for many years in Sedro Woolley. Both judges considered it part of their responsibility as judges to educate young lawyers like me who appeared before them. Judge Stafford required legal briefs on every conceivable issue in the case and was a stickler about rules of evidence. Judge Ward had little patience for poor trial tactics and unprepared lawyers. Neither were reluctant to point out during the trial their dissatisfaction with the work or the conduct of lawyers who appeared before them. In addition, as part of their educational process, if you asked, and sometimes even if you didn’t ask, they would call you into chambers after trials to advise inexperienced lawyers about proper trial procedure or trial tactics. Lawyers would often wait for the jury verdict with the judge in his chambers in the old courthouse building. When you heard the sounds of toilets in the next-door jury room, through the wall, continuously start flushing, you knew the jury had a verdict.

When I started the practice of law, lawyers in the county were always ready to help young lawyers. For example, Ruben Youngquist had the largest probate practice in the county. When I had a question about probate, I went to Reuben, who would open one of his metal filing cabinets, search around, and pull out a file which he would hand to me and say, “Here, follow this file and copy the forms.” Then he would carefully explain what I needed to do. George McIntosh was an outstanding lawyer and a great defense attorney with his low-key, down-to-earth approach. He had a great skill in simplifying and organizing. He taught me the benefits of a three-ring notebook with dividers and notebook paper long before lawyers were advised to use a trial notebook. Clyde Fowler was a local lawyer who was once my ghost writer in a successful negotiation. I had a plaintiff’s case and didn’t know how to try to settle it. The Seattle defense lawyer never found out who was the real brains behind the skillful negotiation.

I don’t think I ever missed an opportunity to spend some time watching jury trials in Mount Vernon whenever an out-of-town lawyer was involved. I watched some of the leading lawyers from around the state try cases in the Mount Vernon courthouse. Many of them were willing to discuss a trial with a young lawyer during the noon recess or after court. The trial judge was always willing to advise court as well. Robin Welts was one of the finest trial lawyers I observed in a trial. He did both plaintiff and defense work as well as maintaining a general practice. Most lawyers had a very general practice in our county. Robin was an exceptional trial lawyer who was always willing to give advice and help. Both he and McBee were elected president of the Washington State Bar Association.

We had no public defender in Skagit County, but we did have John Brisky. John had been the county clerk. In his middle age decided to take advantage of a law that allowed supervised clerking under a licensed lawyer to earn a law degree without going to law school. He passed the bar and began practicing law in  Mount Vernon. His practice was almost exclusively criminal defense in the municipal and district courts as well as the Superior Court. Most of his clients had limited assets to pay his fee so John took a small down payment and a signed I.O.U for the balance. He defended so many people that when the judges in the lower court would call out the name of the next case in a crowded courtroom of people and lawyers waiting to be heard,  I’d watch John finger go through a stack of IOU’s and if he found one with that name, he would respond he was the attorney for the defendant. I am confident the great number of these promissory notes were never fully paid.

After three years in the prosecutor’s office, Stanley Bruhn & Bill Bannister asked me to be a partner in a firm to be named Bannister, Bruhn & Luvera in Mt Vernon. We had a general law practice for several years until I decided to open my own office in Mount Vernon. I was a sole practitioner, but I had a number of paralegals and eventually hired Bob Davis as a full-time investigator. Ultimately, the office expanded with the hiring of Ralph Brindly and Joel Cunningham. As the volume of cases grew we opened an office in Seattle as well.