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Welcome To The Journal .......................................................... W. Gibson Harris 4 Sowing Seeds of Understanding .................................................... Earl B. Hadlow 5 Simplifying the Marital Deduction Will .................................... I. Rodney Johnson 12 Trial Lawyer~: A View From the Bench ........................ Judge Charles S. Russell 16 21 22 24 29 rgini.a Bar.flssociatioq Nour al Volume I JANUARY 1975 Number 1 EDITORIAL BOARD Appointed Members E. Waller Dudley Alexandria Vernon M. Geddy, Jr. Williamsburg Edward S. Graves Lynchburg David W. Parrish, Jr. Charlottesville Ex-Officio Members W. Gibson Harris President Richmond Thomas V. Monahan President-Elect Winchester Peter C. Manson Secretary-Treasurer Charlottesville Editorial Staff Charles E. Friend Editor The Virginia Bar Association Journal is published quarterly by The Virginia Bar Association as a service to the profession. Contributions are welcome, but Susan E. Waterman the right is reserved to select material to be published. Publication of any Editorial Assistant article or statement is not to be deemed an endorsement of the views expressed therein by The Association. One copy of each issue is furnished free of charge to each member of The Association. Subscription price to others, $6:00 per year; single copies, $2.00. Second-class postage paid at Richmond, Virginia. Communications to The Virginia.Bar Association Journal should be sent to: Charles E. Friend, T. C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond, Virginia 23173. WELCOME TO THE JOURNAL HIS first issue of our new publication greets you These deficiencies were considered by a spedal com- T warmly. We hope it will bring you pleasure in the mittee headed by Judge Robert J. Rogers of the years to come. Roanoke bench to study the publications of the Asso- For some time the Executive Committee has been ciation. This committee concluded that the current concerned about communication between the Associ- media do not provide the most effective communica- ation and its membership. The principal media have tion with the membership and accordingly recom- been the annual Reports contained in bound volumes mended that the Reports and Docket be consolidated and the unbound paper, the Docket, produced by the into an attractive periodical with content more current Young Lawyers Section. The former carries a tran- and useful. The recommendation was accepted bv the script of the Association meetings, committee reporrts Executive Committee and the Journal was born. and memorials to deceased members. Aside from the The Journal hopes to accomplish several objectives: memorials section which has special value to families to provide the membership with a readable and and friends of the deceased, the Reports do not offer enjoyable magazine; to preserve proceedings of the broad appeal to the general membership of the Asso- Association in permanent form; and to act, when ap- ciation. By the time the Reports are printed and bound, propriate, as the journalistic voice of the Association. the principal content is outdated, and when finally de- The Journal will be published quarterly and will con- livered, the volume is read by only a small fraction of sist of two principal areas. One of these will provide the membership. articles and features of current interest to Association The Docket, while more timely, likewise has its members, and will include a Young Lawyers Section. limitations. The Young Lawyers Section has done an The other area will carry proceedings of the Associ- outstanding job in publishing this paper, but with a ation, such as programs and committee reports, and limited budget and no paid staff, the Section cannot will continue the memorials section now found in the produce a publication of quality and quantity signifi- cant to the entire membership. (Continued on page 23) WILLIAM GIBSON HARRIS received his A.B. from Princeton Uni- versity in 1939 and was graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1942. He was the Editor of the University of Virginia Law Review, a member of the Order of the Coil and the Raven Society. Mr. Harris is currently a partner in the firm of McGuire, Woods and Battle of Richmond and Charlottesville, Virginia. He was formerly a partner of the firm of Caplin, Battle and Harris, Washington, D.C., and an Associate Attorney with the firm of Covington and Burling, Washington, Mr. Harris has also been a long-time member of the The Virginia Bar Association, serving as President from 1973-1974. He was five times Chair- man of the Taxation Committee; a member of the Committee on Corpor- ate Reorganization, Section of Taxation of the American Bar Association; Chairman of the Committee on Finance and Taxation, Virginia Code Commission in 1970; and served as a member of the Governor’s Ad- visory Committee on Taxation in 1965. EARL B. HADLOW* Sowing Seeds of Understanding HE legal profession is besieged with such a variety T of major problems today that solutions, and good solutions, have to be found and found promptly to avoid a group of very bad alternatives. If we don’t reform and make very aggressive our grievance procedures, for example, then we can an- ticipate that pressure will be put on the state legisla- ture to have the state regulate us as it does other professions. If we don’t deal with the many problems under the general heading of "delivery of legal services," then we will soon see the spectacle of group legal supermarkets; of practice by clinic; of direct legal services rendered by unsupervised paralegals and closed panel practice of all sorts. If we don’t concern ourselves with abuse in the fee area, then we will face efforts to regulate fees by statute. And, if we don’t move toward specialization, we are going to find ourselves priced out of the market in many areas, as aggressive groups of lay practi- tioners come forward and, in effect, beat us in the market place. But perhaps the most difficult problem which we face today is the sad state of the legal profession’s "X’EDITOR’S NOTE: In January, 1974, Earl B. Hadlow ad- public image. If we don’t pay closer attention to our dressed The Virginia Bar Association’s annual meeting, on the image, to the simple basic requirements of public subject of "How The Florida Bal" Took Action to Bridge the Gap Between Lawyers and Laymen." This article is based relations, then our stature, our proud heritage as upon Mr. Hadlow’s remarks to that distinguished gathering. members of the number one profession in the nation, will continue to erode until we are simply not main- taining any significant public confidence in the legal profession. That simply cannot be permitted to occur. Earl B. Hadlow was admitted to The Florida To avoid that kind of calamitous slide of professional Bar in 1950 and joined Fleming, Jones, Scott stature requires positive action, and the organized & Botts in 1955. He is currently a partner in Bar is the only body which can take such action ef- the successor firm, Mahoney, Hadlow, Cham- fectively. We simply cannot tolerate for any len~h bers & Adams. Mr. Hadlow was graduated from Clemson of time public mistrust of lawyers or disgust with College and he earned his LL.B. with highest them. When one reads in poll after poll that lawyers honors from Duke University, where he was are right down there with used car salesmen in public a member of Phi Eta Sigma and Order of repute, it’s disgusting. We can’t allow that to continue. the Coil. He was a member of the Board of Governors of The Florida Bar from 1967 to A Lack Of Communication 1972, and served as President of The Florida Bar in 1973-1974. Much of the public abuse that we get is based on lack of understanding of a complex and very divergent 5 profession. Ours is not a simple business. But, if the But the entire program was carried out under strict public doesn’t know the facts, then it is largely our confidentiality, as is true in most states. We conducted fault. We are the ones that can--and should--tell all of our disciplinary procedures without a word them. being revealed to the public. When you get a case But lawyers are not public relations oriented. We with a little pre-trial notoriety and take that case ddn’t like to tell people what we do, simply because "underground" for two or three years, and the public we don’t think we have done anything that makes it hears nothing further about it, and you get blistering necessary. Unfortunately, it is today very, very neces- newspaper editorials along the way saying, "What sary that we make it clear to the public just what the hell is happening? Why isn’t the Bar taking any our profession is all about. If people have a false im- action to get that guy, whom we know to be guilty pression of us, then we have to correct it. If these false of theft or something equally horrible," then you impressions are due to biased or inaccurate media acquire a really terrible public image. That was what reporting, as they frequently are, then we must move the press was doing to us regularly in Florida--and promptly to straighten out the record. understandably so. In addition, our Supreme Court has been less than Image And The News Media hawkish on certain types of disciplinary matters, such The news media are vitally important to the legal as income tax cases and the like. The Bar tried first profession, as they are to any group, political or other- for disbarment on a criminal fraud income tax case; wise. Therefore, it is critically important to establish lost that and went for a suspension; lost that and went ~ood relations with the Press.

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