2 former @AZStateBar Presidents die, leaving powerful legacy

Dick Segal when a student at North Phoenix High School

This past month saw the passing of two terrific Arizona lawyers—both of whom had served as President of the State Bar of Arizona.

John Favour died on March 16. Richard Segal died on April 18. John served as President in 1964-1965, Dick in 1973-1974.

You should read the well-written obituaries of John (here) and Dick (here).

John Favour

Dick Segal

 

In addition, reporter Connie Cone Sexton wrote a great piece on Dick Segal for this week’s Arizona Republic.

As Connie said, Dick enjoyed words and writing. In that vein, I thought you’d enjoy reading his insights as a former Bar President. Back in 2003, I asked past Bar leaders to identify an important element from their presidency. Here is an excerpt of what Dick wrote for us in the September 2003 issue of Arizona Attorney Magazine:

“Certain Board of Governors members wanted to increase our public relations program and hire a PR consultant to improve our image. I had little faith in these efforts. After all, what kind of image did PR consultants have?”

“My approach was to encourage lawyers to do good work and return clients’ calls. I declined the formation of a PR committee and it died on the vine. If it was ever revived, I did not hear of it.”

“Progress must be made in small steps. My contribution was to kill the Public Relations Committee. (I was also out to get the Long-Range Planning Committee, but it was more than I could overcome.)”

“As strange as it may seem now, another major concern of Bar leadership in 1973–74 was the “explosion” in the number of practicing attorneys in Arizona. We recognized that law schools do not teach how to practice law and that a de facto apprenticeship was essential to the development of competent practitioners. The concern was that there were not enough old lawyers to break in the new ones.”

“One of my themes was to encourage established lawyers to help the newer ones—even if they were not associates and even if they were adversaries. How was that for a quaint idea?”

You can read his (and others’) complete remarks here (and part of it in the image below).

An excerpt from Arizona Attorney Magazine, Sept. 2003.

Rest in peace, gentlemen.

Follow @azatty