by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
Jim Ade considered why he and Rutledge Liles were chosen to be the speakers at today’s Founder’s Day Luncheon, honoring the past presidents of the Jacksonville Bar Association.
“I don’t have the wildest idea except we’re such nice guys,” he chuckled. “In my case, they might have gone alphabetically.”
The luncheon begins at 12:15 p.m. at the Omni.
Ade, the 1968-69 president of the JBA, said his talk will hit some of the highlights of the past, scan the present and offer some advice for the future.
Liles said he, too, was taking “a trip down memory lane,” culling items from old monthly bar association newsletters.
“I’m looking at things people will have fun with,” he said. “I’ll tell you one thing. Unless we just hide it better, we had more characters in the bar in the 1960s and 1970s. They were colorful.”
Liles served as president of the JBA in 1976-77.
The JBA indeed included some colorful characters among the 38 who founded the association. Only 14 were present for that inaugural meeting on Feb. 12, 1897, held in the circuit courtroom. Duncan U. Fletcher, who became known as “Florida’s grand old man,” was chosen by his peers to be the first president.
Duncan was a “Straightout,” a reformer who also sympathized with those aiding Cuban revolutionaries. Twice elected mayor of Jacksonville, he would become one of the longest-sitting members of the U.S. Senate.
Another member was John Murdock Barrs, who counted among his clients the “Three Friends,” an ocean-going tugboat used to smuggle arms and men against the Spanish in Cuba. On at least one occasion, Barrs was on the boat, dodging bullets, as the Spanish took exception to outside interference.
The first of what would become annual JBA banquets was held that Feb. 26 at the Windsor Hotel. The featured entertainment was provided by a Hungarian gypsy band.
By 1926, Jacksonville’s telephone directory listed the phone numbers for 134 lawyers.
When Jim Ade became JBA president, there were 685 lawyers in the city. During the term of incoming president Reginald Luster, membership in the JBA is expected to top 2,000 — almost 85 percent of all area lawyers.
“The year I was elected president, I had a past president come up to me and say, ‘Don’t try to make this organization something it is not,’” Ade recalled. “That was a very clear message to me: ‘We enjoy socializing and fellowship with each other. Don’t ask us to do anything.’
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration. We did pro bono work, had a legal referral service and had Law Week programs — though not as good as they have now.
“Now, they’re really an active organization. They reach out to the community, to children and the elderly. There’s more emphasis on professionalism, ethics and civility.”
The JBA’s annual budget was $18,665 in 1966. This year’s “is north of $400,000,” Liles said. “They’re spending approximately $16,000 on Law Week alone — almost the entire 1966 budget.”
Perusing the monthly newsletters, he also read that the annual steak dinner, held at the country club in 1966, was free. Greens fees were $6.
“That’s the sort of thing I’m looking at,” said Liles. “Trivia, fun things. Speakers, the new members, what the budget was.”
He recalled one judge, now retired, who told him that Main Street used to be known as “kind of the DMZ between two groups of lawyers. Those on the east referred to those on the west as the Silk Stocking Lawyers.
“Those on the west called those on the east the Bay Street Lawyers.
“That’s no longer true, of course.”
Though he isn’t going to neglect the past in his talk, Ade feels strongly about the portion that will be primarily directed at young lawyers.
“I’m going to remind them to be sure to get their priorities right for their own lives,” he said. “Don’t wake up and find out you haven’t run your life like you wish you had.
“Think through your priorities, whether it’s your family, friends, your children. Whatever it happens to be.”
He’ll also pass on a pertinent piece of advice from Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler:
“He was reported as saying, ‘I’m now in the twilight years of my life, and I still haven’t figured out what life is all about. This I do know. Fame and riches are for the birds.’
“Now, he’s about as successful as anyone running around here in Jacksonville. What he was saying was don’t devote your life to fame and riches.”