Learning to Fly

I think that I first became interested in airplanes during the late 1940s. Every afternoon a huge B-36 bomber would fly overhead in an easterly direction. It flew very high, and I could hear it coming probably ten minutes before I could see it. It was extremely large for the time, with four jet engines and six propeller engines. Then, one Saturday night during the summer of 1949, a jet fighter crashed in East Nassau, and the newspapers were filled with articles about airplanes. After that, I took a great interest in airplanes, reading in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics about every new advance in aviation, with predictions that within a decade personal aircraft would be almost as common as automobiles. I could hardly wait for the day when I would fly. My first airplane ride was during my senior year of high school, when a classmate, Bob Stewart, and I went to the old East Greenbush airport and bought a five-dollar ride in a Piper Cub.

My father was very negative about flying. He told me that as a young man, probably in his late 20s or early 30s, he became friendly with a Mr. Servant, who owned an airplane and small airport in West Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, the current home of the Lebanon Valley Speedway, a stock car racing track and drag strip. Mr. Servant one day invited my father to come to his airport and go flying with him. On the way to the airport, my father’s car got a flat tire. When my father didn’t arrive at the airport on schedule, Mr. Servant took off without him. He crashed into the Kinderhook Creek and was killed. My father took that as an omen that he was not meant to fly, and he never did fly until he was well into his seventies and could no longer drive to California to visit my sister, Lelia, and her family.

During the spring, 1966, the attorney with whom I was associated with in Troy, started taking flying lessons. A new airport had recently opened in Poestenkill for small airplanes, and the owner, Dave Fairbanks, had a contract to train senior Air Force ROTC students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to fly. He had purchased several new low-winged Piper Cherokee aircraft, and the airport became very active. I drove out to the airport one day and Dave gave me a short introductory ride and let me handle the controls for a brief time. I was hooked and signed up for both the ground school and flying lessons.

The Poestenkill Airport was a 2,400-foot north-south gravel runway, about 50 feet wide, with a steel building that served as an office, classroom, and hanger. There were power lines and trees on the north side of the airfield, and a hill, power lines, and trees on the south side as well. The runway was mostly unpaved.

Poestenkill Airpark, years later, following the runway extension and paving.

Dave Fairbanks told me that he had studied engineering at RPI, where his father was a professor of aeronautical engineering. After college, Dave became a pilot and was flying as a co-pilot for Trans World Airlines. During the early 1960s, civil wars broke out in Africa, and Dave seized the opportunity to enter the lucrative gun-running trade. He told me that he and another pilot obtained an old transport airplane and started bringing guns and other weapons from Europe to Africa, sometimes repainting the airplane to appear friendly to the flight’s customers. Dave said that he made enough money in this venture to quit his job at TWA and buy the Poestenkill Airport. Dave personally taught the ground school classes and was the primary flight instructor. He had some part-time instructors as well.

During the spring of 1966, I took one or two flight lessons each week. Sometimes I would schedule an early morning flight before going to work, but I also took lessons in the late afternoon before the start of ground school.

Dave’s airplanes were all new Piper Cherokees, a 4 place, low wing single-engine aircraft. The Cherokees had fixed, tricycle gear, which means that they had a wheel third wheel in front, beneath the engine, unlike the older “tail-dragger” Pipe Cubs. The airplanes were reasonably equipped, with two-way radios and other electronic navigation equipment.

A typical Piper Cherokee

According to Dave, Piper recommended that the Cherokees be landed “flat”, that is landing it almost level with the ground, first touching down on the two main wheels under the wings, and then letting the front gently down on the nose wheel as the speed dropped. The Cherokee would come to rest in a level position In contrast, the tail draggers would settle on the tail wheel as the speed decreased, raising the front of the aircraft higher. The tail draggers stopped with the propeller high in the air, and the tail low.

The most difficult, and dangerous, part of flying is the takeoff and landing. Much of the instruction consists of “touch-and-go” exercises. The student repeatedly takes off, circles the airport, touches down on the runway, and immediately takes off without coming to a full stop. This maximizes the practice of these vital maneuvers. Dave really didn’t like to have his students practice touch and go too much at Poestenkill Airport because the gravel runway had a multitude of tiny stones that could fly up and nick the propeller or the leading edge of the wing. He preferred to incorporate the touch-and-go practice at the Albany Airport or at another airport that had a paved runway. As a result, his students did not spend as much time learning this maneuver as they should have.

Landing at a large airport, such as Albany International, was quite easy because the approaches were long, free of obstacles, and the runways long and wide. In contrast, the Poestenkill Airport had trees and power lines at both ends of the single runway, and hills on the west and south sides. I have talked with experienced private pilots who would only attempt a landing in Poestenkill with great trepidation. It was said that if you learned to fly at the Poestenkill Airport, you could fly anywhere.

My lessons went well. I understood the physics of flight, the mechanics of the aircraft, and the FAA regulations. My military map reading courses provided a good background for learning the essentials of flight navigation.

On June 6, 1966, I had a flight lesson scheduled with Dave for the hour before the start of ground school that evening. It was a nice clear day, and we took off and practiced some routine maneuvers. After we landed, Dave said it was time for me to take the airplane around the field by myself - my first solo. I was thrilled but surprised since I had only logged less than eight hours of dual flight instruction. As usual for a ground school night, there were quite a few students at the airport, as well as several pilots who would hang around. Some had their own airplanes hangered there.

I taxied the blue and white Cherokee to the southerly end of the runway, and prepared for takeoff, running through the checklist - flaps down, carburetor heat on, trim tabs neutral. The usual procedure would also have included a brief announcement of the takeoff over the two-way radio to notify aircraft in the area to be alert. It would be something like “Poestenkill, this is Cherokee N_ _ _ _ _ preparing to take off to the north.” I couldn’t give that warning, however, since the radio had been removed from that airplane for repair.

After a quick look to be sure that no one was trying to land on the runway, I shoved the throttle fully forward and started the takeoff. It was perfect. I felt like John Wayne taking off in the movie, “Flying Tigers". I leveled off at the usual pattern altitude, executed a left turn flying downwind (parallel) of the runway, made another left turn, and started to descend for the final approach and landing. As usual, a landing at Poestenkill always made me apprehensive, both because of my lack of experience and the tricky approach.

I prepared for the landing, applying carburetor heat once again, adjusting the flaps, switching the fuel tanks to draw from both the right and left tanks together, and adjusting the trim tabs. I lined the airplane up with the runway and eased back on the throttle, maintaining the recommended airspeed and rate of descent. As I crossed over the power lines, I cut the throttle back and pulled back on the yoke to raise the airplane’s nose slightly, trying to position the airplane for a flat landing. As I approached the ground, the nose wasn’t up as high as it should have been. The airplane touched down with a larger than usual thump.

Dave taught his students to keep their right hand on the throttle when landing, and if the approach or the landing didn’t feel just right, to give the airplane full throttle and go around again for another try. In effect, to convert an attempted landing into a touch and go.

Instinctively, I pushed the throttle all the way forward and started picking up speed as I once again headed to the north end of the field. As I reached the approximate halfway mark, I realized that the airplane was not gaining as much airspeed or altitude as usual and that the airplane was vibrating. By then it was too late to abort the take-off; there was not enough runway left to roll out. The vibrating increased, and I had to reduce the throttle somewhat to try to reduce the vibration. I barely cleared the power lines and trees at the northerly end of the field.

I was panicked by the situation. It was getting late, there was a little ground fog, and I had no radio, so I couldn’t call for advice. The airplane continued to vibrate, and I flew farther and farther away from the airport to get up to pattern altitude. At one point I considered an emergency landing in a field but finally decided to try for the airport.

As I flew downwind, I could see a crowd of people standing in front of the hanger watching me. (I later learned that two attorneys who I knew who were there went into the hanger so that they would not be witness to a crash, which was considered likely by many of the pilots who were there.) I knew that I would only have one opportunity to land, as the airplane could not possibly stay together for another go around. I strapped my seat and shoulder belts as tight as I could and turned into the final approach.

To my surprise, I made a decent landing. I taxied to the run-up apron and stopped. Dave and the crowd came running over. One blade of the propeller was bent. On my first landing, the nose was too low, and it struck the ground, bending it. All were amazed that the airplane was able to fly at all, or that the engine hadn’t vibrated off its mounts by the damage. When I went home that evening I didn’t tell Nedda how desperate the situation had been; probably because if I had done so it would have been the end of my flying. I never told my parents anything about the incident. They were very upset that I was learning to fly.

The following week an RPI student who had been at the airport when I soloed made his first flight. His landing was bad also, but being determined not to take off again as I had done, tried to keep the airplane on the ground. The airplane began to “porpoise”, bouncing up and down, and finally went off the runway and broke apart. He was not injured, but the airplane was severely damaged.

The following week I had another hour of dual instruction with Dave, and then once again soloed, this time without incident. I continued flying all summer and fall, sometimes taking dual flight instruction from Dave or another instructor. During the summer I went to Camp Drum in Watertown for two weeks with my Army Reserve unit as the ration breakdown officer for the post. I arranged a trade of steaks and other extra foods that an Army National Guard aviation unit wanted for a barbeque for some flight instruction in a small L-19 airplane.

As a prerequisite to obtaining a private pilot’s license, the student was required to make three solo cross-country flights. I do not recall the exact distance requirements, but Dave sent me on my first flight on a beautiful fall Sunday to Burlington, Vermont. That flight went well, although some Vermont Air National Guard fighter jets playfully buzzed around me as I approached the airport.

My second cross-country flight was to the Broome County Airport in Binghamton, New York. The weather was really marginal, but Dave said it would probably not be too bad, and I took off. The weather grew windier as I approached the airport, and after I landed I was told that the only other airplanes that had landed that day were Mohawk Airlines passenger planes.

I telephoned my law school classmate, Don Butler, who lived in Vestal, a suburb of Binghamton. Don suggested that I meet him at the Tri-Cities Airport, a small airport close to his home, and not too distant from the Broome County Airport.

The approach to that airport is just over the Susquehanna River. On my first final approach, I encountered a strong wind as I descended over the river; it was so strong that it blew me off my path to the runway. I aborted the landing approach and went around for another try. This time I approached the runway some thirty to forty miles per hour faster than the normal landing speed, and I was able to hold the course for the landing.

During my trip back to Poestenkill I encountered showers and one of the navigation stations went off the air. Without being able to triangulate my position, I wasn’t quite certain of my position for much of the way back. However, I just flew northeast until I came upon the Hudson River, and then flew north above it until I reached the familiar Albany - Troy area and could return to the airport by recognizing visual landmarks.

My third cross-country flight was to be to Lake Placid. I left Poestenkill on a windy, partly cloudy fall day. I had to fly higher than usual to go over the Adirondack mountains. It became cloudier, and suddenly I realized that I was above the cloud cover, and I was not instrument rated nor trained to fly except by visual flight rules. I found one break in the clouds and spiraled down through it, coming out less than 1,000 feet above the ground. I flew to the small Saranac Lake airport but was told not to land because of the windy conditions. I flew back to Poestenkill, and Dave gave me credit for the cross-country flight even though I had not made a required landing at the distant airport.

By December I had the minimum required 40 hours necessary to be tested for a license. Dave arranged for a flight test with an FAA inspector at the Warren County Airport near Glens Falls. It was a sunny, cold date when I left Poestenkill, but the weather started to deteriorate as I traveled north. The inspector gave me an abbreviated flight test because of the weather, issued my license, and told me to get back to Poestenkill. I headed south, but after about five minutes I ran into a snow squall. The Warren County tower suggested that I return, but then a pilot flying a twin-engine airplane that was en route from Montreal to Albany offered to guide me back, and I followed him for a short distance until the weather cleared. It was still sunny in Poestenkill when I returned.

I didn’t fly too often that winter after getting my license. Although airplanes perform better in cold weather than in warm weather, the days are short and the weather is frequently not conducive to flying. Renting an airplane was not terribly expensive - about $14.00 per hour including fuel. I took some friends on short flights the following spring, mostly to show off to them that I had a pilot’s license and really could fly.

Then I started rethinking my flying. My close call on my first solo always bothered me. Then a client of the law office crashed and died while taking off from Poestenkill on his initial solo flight. I realized that flying was foolhardy, too much of a risk because I couldn’t afford either the money or the time to fly with enough frequency to maintain necessary proficiency.

My decision to cease flying as a pilot was made absolute when Dave crashed and died while trying to land a brand new twin-engine Piper Navaho one foggy night.

Interesting footnote: During April 2007, approximately 40 years after my last solo flight, I went to the FAA site and found that I was still listed as a licensed private pilot, although the address shown was several homes out of date. I corrected the address, and for $2.00 I received a new license. Apparently, a pilot's license is forever!

Why I Went to Law School

I didn’t really think that I would be a lawyer. In high school, I was very good at mathematics and science and aspired to be an engineer. My father discouraged that plan because he felt that it was too difficult for Jews to rise in what he thought was an occupation that was a closed club. He instead encouraged me to study business administration, suggesting that I should learn to be a stockbroker. Dutifully, I enrolled in the School of Business Administration at Syracuse University. Accounting, a mandatory freshman course, soured me on the program, and by the second semester, I switched to the College of Liberal Arts, eventually majoring in history for no particular reason. Very few courses stimulated me, and I was a mediocre student. I graduated in May 1959, just meeting the 120 credit hours minimum requirement, of which 20 hours was ROTC. I was happy to leave college and start my 6 months of active duty in the army in July.

While at Syracuse University, like practically all-male liberal arts undergraduates, I considered going to law school. When asked about my future plans, saying that I was thinking of going to law school sounded better than saying I was just hoping to get a good job. Actually, going to law school was probably my “Plan C”. Plan A was to get into a management training program with a prestigious corporation, and Plan B was to get some decent job that didn’t involve retail sales or weekend and evening hours. In my senior year a friend, Dave Newman, who was planning to go to law school immediately after graduation, talked me into taking the Law School Aptitude Test (LSAT) with him. I wasn't particularly motivated, and had no plans to apply for law school, but I scored better than Dave, who went to the University of Florida law school that fall.

I finished my active duty in the Army in January 1960, and returned home to Nassau and started my job search. It was very discouraging. The job market was very soft. The placement office at Syracuse University had very few leads and my hope of landing a lucrative $100 a week job faded. I collected unemployment insurance, checked the Times Union help wanted ads, and helped my father in his tavern and gas station. I had taken the New York State Professional Careers Test given to college seniors to make me eligible for an Administrative Trainee civil service position. I had scored quite high and was getting inquiries from several state agencies, but I resisted going for interviews as I really didn’t want to be a government bureaucrat any more than I wanted to be a history teacher.

One morning in late March I was driving to Albany for my weekly unemployment insurance sign up. Heading west on Route 20 I followed a slow-moving automobile for several miles of a no-passing zone. Finally, I came to a straight stretch of highway which I knew had a broken line permitting passing in either direction for a few hundred feet, although the markings were obscured by some snow and slush. As I started to pass the slowpoke, I noticed a state police car coming in the opposite direction but didn’t give it much thought because I was not speeding and I knew that I could legally pass. However, as I pulled back into the driving lane, the trooper put on his red lights and turned around. He pulled me over and after checking my license and registration said that he was going to give me a ticket for passing in a no-passing zone. I told him that there was a broken line covered by the snow, and if he would come back with me I would show him. He refused and issued a ticket returnable that evening before George Irish, a Town of Schodack justice of the peace who lived nearby.

In the early 1960s, justices of the peace were usually laypersons without any legal training, and they handled routine matters in their homes rather than at the town hall. Judge Irish was a farmer, about my father’s age and a friend of his and my uncle Harry since they were young men. They were also members of the Masonic Lodge in Nassau. I went to Judge Irish’s home that evening to respond to the ticket. I explained what had happened and pleaded not guilty. Judge Irish telephoned the state police barracks in East Greenbush and asked that the trooper come to his home. After some wait, the trooper, then in civilian clothes, showed up. He was not on duty and had been called away from some activity. When Judge Irish told him that I had pleaded not guilty, the trooper got very indignant. He told Judge Irish in words to the effect that if he wrote the ticket, I was guilty. Judge Irish set the matter down for a trial the following week.

I was upset and stewed about it all week. I went to Judge Irish’s home at the time he had set for a trial, but neither the trooper nor a court reporter was there. Judge Irish told me that he was going to find me guilty without a trial for my own good, and out of his long-standing friendship with my family. If there were to be a trial, he would have to acquit me because I had passed in a legal passing zone. He said that the trooper, Anthony Hoogkamp, was new and a bit hot-headed, and if he acquitted me, he felt that Trooper Hoogkamp would lay for me and charge me with some violation like reckless driving, which would be much more difficult to defend, since it would be Hoogkamp’s word against mine, and most justices of the peace will usually take the word of the trooper. He didn’t think that I could avoid this problem since I would always be driving back and forth on Route 20 but thought that Hoogkamp would leave me alone if I was convicted. Accordingly, he declared me guilty and fined me five dollars.

The experience left me angry and disillusioned. I didn’t doubt that Judge Irish was sincere in thinking that what he did was in my best interest, but the result made me feel vulnerable. I was a college graduate who had just completed service as an army officer, living in a community where my family had lived since the turn of the century, and now I had to worry about some trooper who wouldn’t admit his mistake and might be “laying” for me. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I needed to become a lawyer so that I couldn’t be put in that position again.

I dug out my Law School Aptitude Test score certificate and went to see the admissions director at Albany Law School. Although my college grades weren’t great, my LSAT score was quite high, and I was very quickly granted admission to the fall term. My mother was very pleased, as she wanted all of her children to be lawyers. My sister, Lelia, and her husband, Mark, both were attorneys in California. My father was not very enthusiastic and expressed doubts that I could be as good as Morris Zweig, an attorney in Nassau who had represented him in some matters. Nevertheless, he agreed to pay for my tuition and expenses. Nedda and I married during the summer between my freshman and junior years. (Law school is a three-year course, and there is no sophomore year.) My parents had just moved into a new home that they had built, and Nedda and I set up housekeeping in my parents’ old home. Nedda got a job as a secretary at General Aniline and Film Company in Rensselaer, and we lived on her union salary of $105.00 per week. The federal government came out with a program, designed to encourage scientific and graduate studies after Sputnik, which somehow also applied to law school students who already had an undergraduate degree, and my tuition cost became negligible.

In 1960 Albany Law School seemed to admit practically anyone who had at least three years of successful undergraduate study, and some of my classmates didn’t even take the LSAT until the fall term had started. One or two hadn’t even applied for admission until after the start of the fall term. As a freshman, we received no grades until the Saturday of July 4th weekend after the freshman year, at which time at least 50% of the class flunked out. We started with over 120 students, but only 50 graduated. Very few were given a second chance. The only student in my class who was given a second chance was Walt R. Walt was an army veteran and was married. He did poorly in all of the first-year courses with the exception of criminal law, which was taught by Dean Andrew Clements. Because he scored near the top of the class in criminal law, Dean Clements agreed to let Walt repeat the freshman year. Unfortunately, Walt grew a mustache during his second try, something that was frowned up by the faculty. Although Walt was of German heritage, he looked like a Mexican bandito with his large black mustache. When the grades came out the following July 4th weekend, Walt had done much better in all of the courses, with the exception of criminal law, where his score in the low 30s gave him an average grade of 64.9, just one-tenth of a point below passing. Dean Clements, who claimed to be have been a friend of Houdini, was himself an accomplished amateur magician. He told our class that a law school dean is very much like a magician anyway. Just as a magician can make a rabbit appear or disappear, a law school dean can make a student appear or disappear. Thus, Walt R. disappeared. Dean Clements had spent his entire adult life at Albany Law School. He was a Canadian by birth but entered Albany Law School as a student following his graduation from high school. Years ago an undergraduate college degree was not a requirement for admission to law school. Following graduation, Dean Clements was employed by Albany Law School in various positions, including registrar and professor before being appointed dean. He had married a woman from Ravena and they lived in her family home. All seniors, in small groups of three or four couples, were invited to the Dean's home for dinner.

We students were of the impression that Dean Clement’s closest friend at Albany Law School was its head janitor, “Sandy”. Sandy lived in an apartment in the basement of the school and had been at the college longer than any other staff or faculty member. Dean Clements was known to end many days by having a drink of scotch with Sandy in his apartment. Wise students knew that it was prudent not to get on the bad side of Sandy. When some students played basketball in the school’s gym without proper sneakers, they were reprimanded by the dean while Sandy stood by.

Albany Law School was a regional law school, and most of the students were from upstate New York. The full-time faculty numbered only nine, including the dean and the librarian. Almost everyone had a nickname, including most of the faculty. Professor Burton Andrews was known as “Bugsy”. He wore very wide ties and his speech was a bit unusual. Bugsy used geometric patterns to call on students. Unlike most other professors, he did not call on students alphabetically, or by simply going up or down or across rows, but instead might well use a simple diagonal or start with some student arbitrarily, and then perhaps go two down, one across, then two down, one across, etc. Students sometimes spent more time in class trying to figure out his pattern than paying attention to the subject matter. Although Bugsy did not require us to hand in our case reports, he would not discuss grades unless we first brought in every case report that we had done for the semester for his examination. Throughout our three years of law school, he frequently reminded us that "A horse is not a cow; even the legislature cannot make a horse into a cow". Years after I started practicing law, I realized, as did many of my fellow graduates, that Bugsy was probably the most effective member of the faculty.

Professor Ralph Semerad taught contracts and constitutional law. He was called “Button Ass” by the students because he started lecturing the moment he sat down as if he had a button on his buttocks that would turn him on when it was depressed.

Professor Carl Selinger was a Harvard Law School graduate who was younger than some of the students. Accordingly, he was “Carl the Kid”.

Professor William Samore looked somewhat oriental, and he wore glasses that were tinted a faint purple. He was quickly named “Hawaiian Eye”, after the character of a popular television series, and students would sometimes whistle the theme song from the show while he lectured.

Stuart, a fellow student, was the “Toad” because he had reportedly been born with an extra digit or some webbing between his toes. Bernie was referred to as “Two Questions” because he could never resist asking a follow-up question. Arthur was once seen looking at some sheep, and was thereafter always “Ba-a-a-d Artie”. Joe was the “Phantom” because he rarely showed up for class. Donald was “Vladimir Cool” for some reason which escapes me, and his girlfriend, later wife, who was a year behind us, was “Virgin Mary”. Carl was “Mutha”. I became known as the “King” because I arrived early in the morning after dropping Nedda at her job, and I sat in a big leather easy chair in the men’s lounge, which was referred to as my throne. Flag was in his mid-30s when he entered law school. He was married with four children and earned a living as an operating engineer. He would never take a "bye" when called upon even though wholly unprepared. Instead, he would offer to discuss some other case that he was familiar with. Phil was obsessive; he would brief all of a semester's cases within the first couple of months. He had a breakdown during the first-semester final exams of our senior year. For some reason, he only completed three of seven essay questions and knew that he failed the exam. Afterward, at lunch, he started asking Gretta about the intimate details of her sex life. Dean Clements was called, and after speaking with Phil he brought him across the street to Albany Medical Center. Phil never returned, although he was offered the opportunity to do so, and later took a job as a file clerk. Dick and Jack would leave promptly after the 2 pm class to go home to watch soap operas or go to the "skin flicks" at the Leland Theater on South Pearl Street. Bart graduated with our class. He should have graduated a year earlier but lost time because of his frequent alcohol-related automobile accidents. (Two or three years later I was in the Washington County Court on a civil matter. The county judge arraigned an indigent criminal defendant and assigned Bart as his counsel. The defendant protested and said that based upon what he had heard in jail, he would be better off representing himself. Bart was relieved of the assignment.) Vic was in his late 50s or early 60s when he entered law school. He commuted 40 miles each way from his home in Columbia County where he was a justice of the peace. He was an accomplished illustrator and had done several covers for Parade Magazine. An uncle had been the presiding justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department, and Vic had inherited his uncle's law library. Although Vic graduated with our class, he failed the July bar exam and died later that year.

We started out with four or five women in our freshman class. One woman, probably in her 60s, was the wife of the school’s accountant, and she took freshman courses on a non-matriculating basis for two or three years. She never was called on to recite a case, and she never asked questions. One young woman started during the second week of the freshman term. Somehow she was given the moniker of “Black Saddle”, possibly because she was short, dark, and hairy. She had no idea what any of the courses were about, and the faculty pretty much ignored her. She sat in the back of the freshman lecture hall, which like most of the classrooms, rose from the front to the back at a slight angle to give all students a clear view of the professor and the blackboard. One day she was playing with her ever-present pearls when the string broke and probably fifty or sixty faux pearls rolled to the front of the lecture room like marbles. She was only called on once to recite a case. She simply read from a "canned brief" and was never called upon again. She left after the first semester. Another woman was from Buffalo. After a few weeks, she began acting strangely. For a week she would commute daily from Buffalo by car. Reportedly, her father had her committed and she never again reappeared. Margrethe was probably in her late 30s when she joined our freshman class. She was the mother of four children, and her husband was a professor of surgery at Albany Medical College. She had socialized with some of the professors before deciding to become a student, and played bridge with Professor Godfrey. “Gretta” was valedictorian of our class, and had unquestionably earned that honor.

The social event of the law school year was the Student Bar Association's annual Christmas Party. The party was held in the gymnasium, and there was dancing and drinking. A lot of drinking. One year each student was given a 5th of whiskey. Walt became so intoxicated and tried to run outside to vomit; instead, he fell down the marble stairway and then smashed his head through the glass door leading to the parking lot. I, introduced my wife, Nedda, to Professor Selinger. Then, several other classmates introduced Nedda to him as their wives, and he was so intoxicated that he didn't recognize that he was repeatedly meeting the same woman. After the party, there were a couple of automobile accidents, and the dean ordered a restriction on the amount of alcohol that would be permitted in the future.

We were required to dress properly. All men were required to be clean-shaven and wear a jacket and tie to school. The faculty said that as lawyers we had to be appropriately dressed for court, and we should get in the habit right away. This dress code was strictly enforced. At lunch before our last final exam before graduation, Dean Samuel Hesson (a faculty member who became acting dean upon the death of Dean Clements during our senior year) approached our lunch table. He pointedly looked at his watch and said: “Mr. A__________, you have enough time to go home and shave before your exam.” And Mr. A _____________ did.

Graduation was a joyous occasion. My parents and my in-laws attended. Nedda presented me with a beautiful new leather attache case, the cost of which brought our bank account below $100.00.

Shortly after graduation, we started studying for the July bar exam. Bar review courses were taught in New York City, but most of us took the bar review course on tape. The lectures in New York City were tape-recorded and mailed to us at the law school with study materials. There were two different courses, and both met in the basement of the college. It was a very hot summer, and there was no air conditioning. The review course was probably four weeks long, and it was very difficult to study all day long. The bar exam was given in the gymnasium on two very hot and humid days. I sat behind a large black man who had failed the bar exam numerous times over several years. He worked as a federal Marshall, and throughout the exam, he mumbled to himself and kept clutching his large Colt .45 sidearm. It was unnerving.

The bar results were announced by publication in the New York Times in October. We were advised of the date when the results would be published, and everyone who was still in the Albany area met at Coulson’s News on Broadway at about midnight to get the New York Times when it first arrived. Fortunately for me, I passed the first time, although less than fifty percent of my class passed the July bar. Some repeated the bar exam twice before passing. I was admitted to the practice of law on November 14, 1963.

I met Trooper Hoogkamp once more. In 1969 I was the defense attorney in a rape/homicide case. Trooper Hoogkamp was called as a prosecution witness to introduce a map of the crime scene that he had prepared during the investigation. During cross-examination, I thanked him for giving me the incentive to become an attorney.

Election Day - 1962

The office of New York Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz, a Republican, requested that second and third-year students at Albany Law School volunteer to be deputized as special assistant attorneys general for the 1962 general election in Albany. Like many of my second-year classmates, I signed up, and after a brief orientation by a representative of the Attorney General’s Office the day before the election, I was assigned to a precinct in Albany’s south end, then a white neighborhood, armed with a copy of the New York election law and a telephone number. In 1962 all of Albany was dominated by the Democrat machine controlled by Dan O’Connell.

The polling place was a firehouse. The fire truck had been moved out of the firehouse and parked along the street, and in its place were two voting machines and some desks and chairs. I entered this unfamiliar territory with some trepidation and presented my credentials to the election officials, who greeted me with some surprise and some apparent hostility. I was told that there were never any irregularities there since this was “Uncle Dan’s ward” and he insisted that everything be on the up and up. I really didn’t know what to expect, and for a while, I just sat in a chair and watched voters come and go.

Election machines in common use were portable booths. Voters entered the booth and moved a large handle, which closed a privacy curtain. An election official stood by the booth and used a manual counter to keep track of the number of voters using each machine. After the voter finished moving the levers to cast the vote for the candidates of choice, the voter moved the handle, registering the votes and opening the privacy curtain.

Finally, I noticed that there was a small round hole in the curtain of one of the machines. It looked as though it had been previously been burned into the curtain by a cigarette, and it was at the eye level of the election official, giving him a clear view into the machine so he could watch the voter. When I realized what was happening, I jumped up and told the election officials to stop the use of the machine. I remembered that Nedda kept a small sewing kit in the glove box of our Volkswagen. I got the sewing kit, and to the amusement of the election officials, both Republican and Democrat, I sewed up the hole.

I thought that I had solved the privacy issue, but after a short while, I realized that I had only provided voter privacy to one of the two machines. The other voting booth backed up to the fire pole, and there were men on the second floor looking down the pole who could see directly into the voting booth. I don’t know if they could really see what votes were being cast, but their presence was obvious to anyone in the booth, which must have been intimidating. Again, I stopped the voting, but the officials said that they couldn’t move the machine, and I had to call the County’s Board of Elections, which eventually sent a couple of men over to move the booth a few feet away from the fire pole.

As the day wore on, the Democratic ward leader became friendly and sat beside me. He had a list of all of the voters and would check off their names as they came in to vote. Sometimes he would summon a lieutenant to fetch a voter who had not yet appeared, usually an older person who wouldn’t have any excuse for not coming in during the day, or who needed a ride. He shared some interesting observations with me. He would tell me who would vote a straight ticket, and who would veer away from the straight party line, sometimes offering a reason for a particular defection.

Under New York law, a voter could request assistance in the voting booth, and several voters did so and were accompanied by election officials if they were not accompanied by a relative. The ward leader told me that many of the voters asking for assistance did not really need the assistance, but wanted a party witness that they were voting a straight party ticket, and were thus loyal.

The most interesting fact that I learned from the ward leader was that the Republican election inspectors, the ones who gave me the most grief about the hole in the curtain and the voting booth being against the fire pole, were enrolled Republicans only for the convenience of the Democrats. The law required that both major parties be equally represented, and the Republican election officials in that precinct were rewarded with low property assessments and jobs for family members in the local government.

When the votes were counted, the ward leader showed me the tally he had made during the day, and not surprisingly, it was only off the official tally by a few votes.

Law Practice in the Early Years

There were not a lot of job opportunities for our Albany Law School graduating class of 1963. A few classmates were the sons of practicing attorneys, and most of them joined their fathers’ firms. A very few got positions in bigger law firms, but many had to defer job hunting until completing military service, which had been deferred through college and law school. Some had no job prospects at all; I was part of that group.

After taking the bar exam in July, I started making the rounds of Troy law firms. I wanted to practice in Troy because the previous summer I had a non-paying internship at the Rensselaer County District Attorney’s Office and was familiar with the courthouse, the Supreme Court law library, and I had met several attorneys and court personnel. I started knocking on doors and finally got two offers. One offer was from Seymour Fox, who had a storefront office on River Street, and the other was from Steve Vinceguerra, who had a solo practice on the second floor of a brownstone multifamily building he owned on third or fourth street. Both offered a salary of $50.00 per week. I asked John T. Casey, the District Attorney for whom I had worked, and taken an elective criminal law course, which of the two offers he would recommend. He said it was a toss-up. I decided to go with Seymour Fox because I disliked the cooking smells that filled the air in Mr. Vinceguerra’s office and building.

I was given a small office and was promptly put to work drafting automobile accident and sidewalk fall down complaints. Law school did not teach us the art of drafting pleadings, although we were aware of form books. Seymour had a very active tort practice, and many of the pleadings were simply pro forma documents prepared by clerk typists, copying from pleadings used in other cases. Fortunately, another attorney, Frank DeCotis, was employed in the office. He was a contemporary of Mr. Fox, and perhaps a bit older than him. Frank had once been Seymour’s partner but left the practice for a time. He eventually returned as an employee. I frequently asked Frank for help, which spared me the humiliation of asking the clerk typists or secretary questions of a legal nature. Eventually, I was promoted to drafting bills of particular, affidavits in response to motions to dismiss or to timely respond to demands for bills of particulars. I had terrible handwriting but was an excellent typist, and Seymour provided me with an electric typewriter, which I used to churn out letters and documents.

For many years the procedural law had been governed by the Civil Practice Act. While I was in law school, the New York legislature enacted its successor, the Civil Practice Law and Rules (“CPLR”), which by its terms took effect on September 1, 1963. Accordingly, while we studied the Civil Practice Act during our freshman and junior years, we studied the CPLR during our senior year, and I was much more knowledgeable about its provisions than were most of the practicing attorneys. I was eager to impress Seymour with my knowledge. Shortly after September first, I was given an answer and demand for a bill of particulars in an automobile accident case. The defense counsel was an Albany law firm that specialized in tort defense for insurance companies. At the time many litigation documents were written on 8-1/2" x 14" legal size paper. I knew that the CPLR specified that legal pleadings were to be 8-1/2" x 11" in size. I returned the pleading to Carter & Conboy, the defense counsel, with a letter pointing out that the pleading did not comply with the provisions of CPLR Rule 2101 (a). I thought myself very clever, but a couple of days later I received a dressing down from Seymour, who had received a telephone call from an irate defense counsel. Seymour explained to me attorneys simply did not hold other attorneys to such technical perfection. (The pleadings were resubmitted, however, on the proper size paper).

Seymour’s office was somewhat unique for a law firm of its size in that it had a Xerox 914 plain paper photocopier. Because of it, typists only had to produce a good original document. Most law firms of that size didn’t have a photocopier, and typists usually had to make several carbon copies of documents. Spirit mimeograph copies were made for standard documents, such as a demand for bill of particulars, which only then required the typist to enter the parties’ names and a date. The Xerox was not very reliable and usually required at least one service call each week. The machine was rented, and the charge was by the number of copies made. Seymour kept a SCM photocopier as a backup but using it was a laborious process, as the copies came out wet and dried curled. (In the early 1970s, I rented a Royal plain paper photocopier that made excellent copies, but after a few months, the ink would literally fall off the paper.) Seymour liked technology and gadgets. He was one of the first local offices to buy an IBM Electric typewriter that recorded the keystrokes on magnetic tape so that documents could be easily edited - one of the first true word processors. Seymour also had an elaborate telephone call recording device that recorded all telephone conversations from his private telephone. The device was legal in New York, and Seymour wanted to be able to accurately recall every detail of his conversations.

Sy was not well-liked by many of the attorneys whose practice was primarily tort law. He was considered by some to be an upstart who they thought must have been an ambulance chaser to have developed such a large and lucrative practice so early in his career. I discovered the depth of that feeling on the day of my admission to the bar on November 14, 1963. Candidates for admission merely submitted a short form to the Third Department’s Character and Fitness Committee, with the signatures of three attorneys who vouched for the candidate’s good character and fitness to practice law. Mine was signed by then-District Attorney John T. Casey, another attorney whose name now escapes me, and by Seymour Fox. As we prepared to go into the Appellate Division Court Room on the 3rd floor of the Albany County Court House, each candidate would meet briefly with the committee, which welcomed them to the profession. To my horror, when it was my turn, I was told that I was not to be admitted because one of the local members of the Committee, an insurance defense counsel, said that Seymour Fox was himself not of good character. Finally, after some consultation with John O’Brien, the Clerk of the Appellate Division, the Chairman told me that I could be admitted, but that I should supply a new application signed by another attorney, and suggested Morris Zweig, my father’s attorney and a justice of the peace in my home town. When I told Seymour what had happened, he explained to me that some of the attorneys thought that he was getting clients by unethical means, and threatened a bar association investigation of his practice. As a defensive measure, Seymour employed several private investigators to interview accident victims represented by the attorneys who questioned Seymour’s ethics to determine why they chose their respective attorneys. He said that when it became know that he was having his critics professionally investigated, his critics quieted. During the nearly six years that I practiced with Seymour, I never once saw any evidence of unethical conduct. His practice thrived because he was tenacious and generally got quick settlements for his clients. Troy was a close-knit community, and word of mouth was his source of clients. He was also frequently recommended by some physicians since he always made sure that his clients’ medical bills were paid out of settlement funds. Seymour was glib, and an excellent trial lawyer, frequently being asked by other attorneys to try their cases. I never did submit the additional reference to the Committee.


The practice of law in the Capital District was much different in the 1960s than it is now. There were many fewer lawyers, and the practice was quite informal by today’s standards. Any attorney could issue a bare summons to commence an action without any court filing or payment of a fee. In most cases, stipulations to extend the time to serve a pleading or a bill of particulars, or to adjourn a proceeding, were done by telephone without a written follow-up. Seymour mentioned the names of about eight attorneys in the Capital District who he felt could not be trusted to uphold an oral agreement but said that all others would honor their word.

All motions were heard at a “special term” of court. In most courts of the Third Department, the special terms were held on Fridays, once or twice a month. In Albany, however, they were held every week because of the caseload, as most proceedings involving the State of New York had to be brought in Albany County. While a special term note of issue had to be filed with the clerk of the court to place the motion on the calendar, no fee was required. Special terms consisted of Part I, which were regular litigation motions and proceedings, and Part II, which was for uncontested matrimonial actions. (Before the enactment of “no-fault divorce” laws, all matrimonial cases, including uncontested and default matrimonial actions, had to be heard by a Supreme Court justice). Special Terms were exciting and educational for new attorneys. The mimeographed calendars were distributed the morning of the Special Term. There were frequently more than one hundred motions and special proceedings listed. The clerk would call out the cases in order, and the attorneys would yell out the responses for their cases, such as: “adjourned by consent”, “off”, “settled”, “20-day order by consent” or “order if no opposition”. Motions or proceedings that were to be argued were noted by a call of “ready for the plaintiff” or “ready for the defendant”. If there was a routine consent order or a default order, it would be handed up to the judge who would usually sign it and hand it back. After the calendar call, the Part II judge would hear matrimonial cases in chambers, usually in a conference room, while the Part I justice would listen to oral arguments of the contested motions or proceedings. It was the practice in the Third Department that the motion papers would be handed up to the Part I justice at the start of the oral argument, and the judge hearing the argument had no prior knowledge of what it was about until the start of the argument. In contrast, the practice in the neighboring Fourth District required that motion papers be submitted to the Part I judge several days in advance of the special term, and as a result the Part I judges there were in a much better position to understand the issues before them. The real benefit to the new lawyer was that the special terms gave him the opportunity to become familiar with other attorneys, judges, and court personnel, and to learn the rituals of the court. I quickly learned that Justice Edward Conway was both knowledgeable and gracious to all attorneys, while Justice Isadore Bookstein was someone to be avoided except for consent orders.

Shortly after I was admitted to practice, Seymour introduced me to an alternate procedure for handling uncontested divorces. Some clients from Rensselaer or Albany County didn’t want their divorce to be public knowledge. For those who could afford the additional expense, a quick trip to Mexico was the solution. The client would be met at the airport by the Mexican attorney, taken to a hotel, and the next day would appear before a Mexican judge who would grant the divorce. The Mexican attorney would then forward both a judgment written in Spanish and an English translation.

For those clients who could not afford or want a Mexican divorce, the solution was a trip to Schenectady. Although an action for divorce is usually brought in a county in which one of the parties resides, it could be brought in another county if there was no objection. One day Seymour brought me with him to an uncontested divorce hearing in the Schenectady County Court House. The hearing was held in the chambers of Supreme Court justice Charles M. Hughes. Instead of a court stenographer recording the testimony with a stenotype machine, the minutes were kept in shorthand by Marie, the judge’s private secretary. Seymour left a proposed Decision and proposed Judgment with Marie, and a few days later, Marie mailed back the pleadings and the signed Decision and Judgment, together with her stenographer’s bill for twenty-five dollars.

Shortly thereafter, Seymour arranged for me to bring a divorce client to Judge Hughes and I followed the same procedure. Judge Hughes listened to the testimony and indicated that the divorce was granted. The next time I called Marie and set up a divorce hearing, I was in for a surprise. Judge Hughes wasn’t there, but Marie said that we should start the testimony anyway. This development caught me off guard, and when I neglected to ask some pro forma questions, Marie would ask them of the client. The transcript that I received indicated that Judge Hughes had asked those questions. This procedure was thereafter routine. Divorce hearings were scheduled in the afternoon at a mutually convenient time. Sometimes Judge Hughes would be in attendance, and more frequently he was not.

I handled most of the Troy Police Court cases for Seymour. He didn’t relish routine criminal cases but took them when asked to keep his contacts within the community and his name in the newspaper. The defendants were frequently clients or relatives of clients. Most of the criminal cases were minor misdemeanors and were resolved by a plea bargain. Neither the part-time police judge, nor the part-time assistant district attorneys, were much interested in a trial, and a defense demand for a jury trial frequently helped bring about a satisfactory resolution. Frequently, in the case of young men without a prior criminal record, there was the military disposition. Military recruiters frequently showed up in Police Court and were more than happy to review the record of such defendants and advise the court and the attorneys whether the defendant was eligible for enlistment, except for the pending criminal charge. Faced with possible jail time and the disgrace to him and his family, many young men agreed to enlist. Upon their acceptance, the criminal charges were dismissed. In fact, I once arranged a military disposition for a cousin who was a student at Hudson Valley Community College. He had done something dumb and been arrested. Although I suggested that he join the Army, he insisted on becoming a Marine, which, as it turned out, was not a good choice for him. He couldn’t take the rigors of boot camp and soon was discharged.

Fees and costs were very low by today’s standards. Except for tort claims in which the plaintiff’s fees were usually equal to one-third of the settlement or judgment, plus expenses, attorneys’ fees were calculated quite differently. Each county bar association published a list of minimum fees that its members could charge, and it was an ethics violation to charge less than the scheduled amount. That eventually changed when the United States Justice Department determined that minimum fee schedules constituted an illegal restraint of trade. When the minimum fee schedules were in effect, most attorneys charged by the type of transaction, rather than by an hourly charge. Many lawyers prepared wills without charge, hoping to get to represent the estate when the client died, and it was not uncommon for the attorney to insert a provision in the will specifying that the attorney was to be retained to handle the client’s estate.

Once I was admitted to practice, Seymour raised my salary to $55.00 per week, but I was required to give him 1/3 of any private practice fees that I developed on my own. Later, as an incentive to stay, He named the practice “Fox, DeCotis & Honig”, and Frank and I were to split 1/3 of his negligence fees as a bonus. That worked for a short while, but eventually, Seymour felt that our bonuses were too large, and did away with that arrangement, instead by giving us both substantial salary increases. Knowing that I would never be a real partner in the firm, I left in March 1969 and opened my own practice.  I rented office space from Lawrence Connors at 41 Second Street on the corner of Second Street and Broadway and had use of his secretary and library.  Larry was an interesting and affable fellow.  He was the nephew of Marty Stack, the Rensselaer County Clerk, and a power in the Rensselaer County Republican Committee.  Through that connection, Larry had been appointed Troy Corporation Counsel.  His legal acumen was somewhat limited, but he bragged that he knew which other lawyers he could call to find out the answers to legal questions,  and not have to do much research himself.  His political/legal career had come crashing down when it became known that he was the "13th man" arrested (but released without being charged) in a gambling raid conducted by Troy police officer George Dodge, who arrested a group that had a regular friendly card game.  It was said that Officer Dodge undertook to arrest some locally prominent individuals in retaliation for having his shift changed. I later represented Larry in a hearing before the New York State Commission of Investigation, which conducted hearings in New York City and Troy into alleged corruption practices.  Larry was never charged with any wrongdoing and unfortunately died quite young a few years later.

When I opened my own practice I only had about half a dozen files of my own, but I had acquired some professional credibility and public awareness as a result of the reapportionment action that I had brought against the County and was frequently mentioned in the newspaper when I appeared as a criminal defense attorney for Mr. Fox's clients.  Shortly after opening my practice, I was offered the assignment to represent Edward F. LaBelle in the retrial of his murder indictment.  He had previously convicted, along with his brother, Richard, of the 1963 rape and slaying of a teenage girl from Cohoes, whose body had been found in a culvert in Schaghticoke.  Originally both he and Richard were found guilty and given a death sentence, but the Court of Appeals reversed the conviction and ordered separate trials.  Thomas J. O'Connor, a former Troy Police Court judge and Public Defender, represented Richard in both trials.  No other Troy criminal attorney wanted the assignment because all knew it was going to be a lengthy trial for little compensation, and the notoriety of being associated with a defendant charged in a heinous crime.  Edward was again convicted.  He received a life sentence and eventually died in prison, never having asked to be paroled. (Richard was eventually paroled).  

I had met James J. Reilly when I interned in the Rensselaer County District Attorney's Office during the summer of 1962.  He was a part-time Assistant District Attorney then, and I started handling some matrimonial cases for him. He had been sharing space with a relative through marriage, Matthew Dunne, but had the chance to rent an attractive turn of the century building at 54 Second Street, with the option to buy it.  He invited me to join him, and we used the firm name, Reilly & Honig, but our practices were separate.  It was an expense sharing relationship and we eventually bought the building and stayed together until the mid-1980s when I moved my practice to Albany. "Country Jim" (distinguished from "City Jim" - another attorney with the same name) was very low key but had a fine legal mind and a droll sense of humor.  We usually had lunch together every day absent conflicting schedules. 

My First Jury Trial

Although I started handling criminal cases from the day following my admission to the bar when I was assigned a larceny case in Rensselaer County Court, and routinely went to criminal courts on a variety of matters, most were disposed of by a plea agreement or dismissal, and some times by a trial before the judge without a jury.

My first solo jury trial took place in April 1965, in the City Court in Cohoes, an old, decaying factory town in Albany County, across the Hudson River from north Troy. Cohoes, much like the City of Albany, had long been solidly entrenched in the hands of the Democrat party. William Dawson was the political boss of Cohoes, but his organization had recently lost control of the city government in 1964 to the new Citizens Party, led by a local doctor and a group of reformers. Dawson’s leadership was then looked upon with disfavor by the Albany County Democratic organization. Although his legal expertise was title insurance, not litigation, the Citizens Party installed Frank Landry as the City Court judge.

Soon after taking control of the government, the Citizens Party leadership hit upon a plan to further reduce Dawson’s influence in Cohoes. Dawson controlled a local newspaper that was really his party’s main political communication with the voters. It was called “Newsweekly Newspapers”, published by Newsweekly Newspapers, Inc., which Dawson said was owned by him and the Democratic Party of Cohoes. It naturally was very critical of the Citizens Party and its governmental administration.

Paul G. VanBuskirk, the executive assistant to Mayor McDonald, filed a criminal complaint against Newsweekly Newspapers, Inc., charging a violation of New York General Business Law Section 330, which requires that:

“Every newspaper, magazine or other periodically printed publication published in this state, shall publish in every copy of every issue, upon the editorial page or in one of the first four pages of the publication, the full name and address of the owner, owners, proprietor or proprietors of such publication; and if said publication shall be owned or published by a corporation, then the name of the corporation and the address of its principal place of business shall be published, together with the full names and addresses of the president, secretary, and treasurer thereof; and if the said publication shall be owned or published by a partnership, limited partnership, or an unincorporated joint-stock association, then the full names and addresses of the partners, or officers and managers of said partnership, limited partnership or unincorporated joint-stock association shall be published in like manner. The representative capacities of those named shall be indicated in like manner.”

Bill Dawson was friendly with Seymour Fox, the Troy attorney who I had been working for since graduating from law school in 1963. He asked Seymour to defend his newspaper, but Seymour didn’t want to get into a political fracas, particularly one in which the defendant corporation was in clear violation of the statute. Seymour suggested that I handle the defense, and I jumped at the chance.

The prosecutor was William Gray, an Albany County Assistant District Attorney, and Richard Kohn, a law school classmate who had recently joined the District Attorney's Office. From the outset, it was clear that there was not going to be any plea bargain or compromise, and I demanded a jury trial. I had Robert Clark, the nominal president of Newsweekly Corp., file a similar criminal complaint against the Capital Newspapers, part of the Hearst Corporation, since its Albany papers, The Times Union and The Knickerbocker News, also were in clear violation of the statute. (Although the Hearst Corporation appeared to defend the complaint, that case mysteriously died before the scheduled May trial). Judge Landry did not find that Newsweekly Corp. was being selectively prosecuted, even when shown that none of the other newspapers circulated in Cohoes, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, failed to comply with the letter of the law.

A six-person jury was impaneled on Monday evening, April 12, 1965, and the trial went into the late hours and then was continued the following morning. Not surprisingly, Judge Landry denied every motion and objection I made, including one that he disqualify himself as being a member of the Citizens Party. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and Judge Landry fined Newsweekly Newspapers, Inc. $250.00 on each of the 14 counts of the complaint, for a total of $3,500.00, which was paid.

I filed an appeal in the Albany County Court but did not immediately push the appeal forward. Two years later, when Albany’s affection for the Citizens Party waned, and there was some new blood in the Cohoes Democratic Party, I submitted a brief and finalized the appeal for the now-defunct newspaper. In June 1967, Albany County Judge Martin Schenck granted my appeal and reversed the conviction on the grounds that Section 330 was unconstitutional in violation of the right of freedom of expression. He ordered the fine returned.

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Reapportionment

I enjoyed the practice of criminal defense law. I was admitted to the New York bar on Thursday, November 3, 1963, and the next morning I received a call from the clerk of the Rensselaer County Court, telling me to report at 10:00 a.m. for a criminal assignment. That was prior to appellate court decisions and the passage of a law in New York that provided for payment of assigned counsel, and the county judge was always on the lookout for newly admitted attorneys to give “pro bono” assignments for the representation of indigent criminal defendants. Actually, I, like most newly admitted attorneys, welcomed the assignments because it provided immediate court experience, and we didn’t have to answer to a fee-paying client if we didn’t perform well. In 196_ New York enacted legislation that provided for the formal system for the defense of indigent criminal defendants, and Rensselaer County established the office of the Public Defender. In the event of a conflict of interest by the Public Defender, such as when there were multiple defendants who might blame each other for the crime, the courts would continue to assign individual attorneys, who were paid $10.00 per hour for each hour spent out of court, and $15.00 per hour for each hour spent in court in the defense of the client, for a maximum total fee of $350.00 in most cases, and $750.00 in capital cases.

The first Public Defender was Thomas J. O’Connor. Tom was an older attorney who had been the Troy Police Court Judge at one time and was a very effective criminal defense attorney. He was given two part-time assistants, Jim Reilly and John Burke, both of whom had been assistant district attorneys when the office was under the control of a Republican district attorney, but who had lost their jobs when M. Andrew Dwyer, a Democrat, was elected to that office. I had become quite friendly with Tom from the time I started practicing criminal law in 1963. (When I first came to Troy Police Court, he referred to me as “the Jewish kid from Fox’s office.) During those early years, Tom was my informal mentor. After Tom was appointed Public Defender, I let it be known that I would like to join his part-time legal staff if a position became available.

Rensselaer County was governed by a Board of Supervisors, as were most upstate counties. New York’s County Law provided that the Supervisor from each town and the Supervisor from each ward in the cities in the county constituted the Board of Supervisors. All members were part-time elected officials who served two-year terms, and the majority party elected one of their members to be Chairman and appointed the Clerk of the Board. Unlike the members, the Clerk was a full-time employee who ran the day to day operation at the direction of the Chairman.

Although the Board of Supervisors was traditionally under the control of the Republican party, their majority was dwindling. The Democrats had gained strength and elected Supervisors even in traditionally Republican towns, including my family’s home town of Nassau. My uncle, Harry Honig, had been a Justice of the Peace for several years there, and subsequently was elected Supervisor. When he retired, he was followed by Earle Cooper, an attorney. Earle was defeated for re-election by Sylvester “Whitey” Currier, the first Republican to be defeated for that office since his father, Ralph Cooper, was defeated decades before. Whitey was very popular. The Curriers were an old Nassau family, and Whitey was smart and very likable. He had been a pilot during World War II, and when his P-47 fighter developed mechanical problems in the Boston area, he rode it down to a crash landing in a wooded area to keep it from falling into a populated area. 

One day Tom called me into his office and said that Joe Casey, the Republican County Chairman, wanted to get Nassau back under Republican control, but the party had no candidate that he believed could defeat Whitey Currier. Joe felt that the only chance to win the office back was to run my uncle Harry against Whitey, but Harry was quite adamant that he had retired from politics, and besides, Harry liked Whitey. Tom told me that Joe had asked me to intercede with Harry and if I could persuade Harry to run and the Republicans maintained control of the Board of Supervisors, Tom could appoint me as an assistant public defender the following January, when appointments were made for two-year terms. I went to Harry, and he reluctantly agreed to be the candidate for my sake. He won the election.

On the morning of January 5, 1968, Tom presented me with a letter appointing me to the office of an assistant public defender. I brought it to the County Clerk, who swore me in, and I signed the Oath of Office book. The Troy Record photographer took a photograph of me being sworn in by the County Clerk, with Tom looking on. I went to the Public Defender’s office and filled out the usual employment forms for tax withholding, health insurance, and the retirement system. Later that afternoon I received a telephone call from Lenore Coleman, Tom’s confidential secretary. Lenore said that there was a problem, and my appointment had to be put off for a few days until the Board of Supervisors amended the budget to appropriate funds for my position. I was very disappointed, but Tom told me that it was an oversight, and the Board of Supervisors would make the appropriation at its next meeting.  My oath of office that I executed that morning was covered over with another oath of office, carefully scotched tape over mine.  (During January 2020, I went to the bowels of the Rensselaer County Clerk's Office and found the 1968 Oath of Office book.  Ironically, my oath had been covered over with the oath of James Reilly, who later became my law office associate.  The scotch tape had dried out, and when I opened the book the two oaths were uncovered. )

The Board of Supervisors met a few days later but didn’t make the appropriation. Tom was very upset and said that he was told that I should take John Burke’s place. We both agreed that it wouldn’t be proper for me to replace John, and that had not been part of the arrangement. Tom reported that back to the Republican hierarchy and said that he was told that the appropriation would be made in February. Before the February meeting, however, Seymour Fox, the attorney with whom I was associated, told me that his friend, Dr. Carl DeLucia, told him that I was not going to get the job. Dr. DeLucia was a close friend of Dean Taylor, a former Republican County Chairman and Representative in Congress. The reason, I was told, was that I had incurred the wrath of Dr. Richard Drumm, the Schodack Supervisor. We moved to Schodack in 1964. At first, Nedda and I became active in the local Republican organization. I even incorporated the Schodack Republican Club, Inc. in 1966, and Nedda and I were charter members. The problem began when I was retained to represent an elderly man who lived in a mobile home on a lot that he owned. The town board passed an ordinance that required mobile homeowners to get a special permit and pay a fee in addition to real property taxes. The town building inspector charged my client with a violation of the ordinance for not having a permit, a criminal offense. I demanded a jury trial, and the jury convicted him, following the justice of the peace’s directions. The town board was upset, because a jury trial was expensive, and I said that I would represent anyone else that they prosecuted for a similar offense without fee, and would demand a jury trial in each case. The town stopped enforcing the ordinance by criminal prosecution, although most mobile homeowners complied and paid the fee anyway. The Schodack Republicans were also very upset with me for representing two party members who challenged the party regulars in the 1967 primary election, even though my clients failed to win the primary.

The practice was that the County Republican Chairman would ask for the approval of a proposed appointee by the appointee’s local Republican chairman. In my case, the approval was not forthcoming because of my defense of mobile homeowners and for representing the primary challengers.

I was angered and frustrated, as I had considered the appointment to be a sure thing since Harry agreed to run, and there were to have been no other strings attached. I knew that I had no legal recourse, although I probably could have salvaged the position had I gone hat in hand to Dr. Drumm and said that I would no longer defend trailer owners charged with violation of the town ordinance, and generally fall into line with the town Republicans.

All New York appellate court decisions and lower court decisions of interest were published by the official court reporter. To subscribers of the hardcover books, the official reporter would mail the “Advance Sheets”, the softcover advance copies of the decisions. These came out two or three times a month, and it had been my habit to bring these home to read as a method of keeping current on New York law. I would usually skim all of the cases, even in areas of the law in which I had little interest. I recalled having read a decision from one of the Long Island counties in which the subject matter involved the equal representation of voters in local legislative bodies. I believe that it was called Greenberg v. Board of Supervisors. That New York case was based upon a United States Supreme Court decision, Reynolds v Sims, which mandated “one man, one vote” for legislative representation. From my brief reading of that decision, I knew that Rensselaer County Board of Supervisors, like most county legislative bodies in New York, did not measure up to the one man, one vote standard, as it was created under Section 150 of the County Law which prescribed that the board consisted of the Town Supervisor of each town in the county, plus the Supervisors elected in each ward of the cities.

I realized that I could have my revenge! There were no form books to guide me in the preparation of documents for the litigation, so I started going to the New York State Law Library, which maintained a copy of every appellate court record on appeal. A record on appeal consists of all of the legal documents and lower court decisions in each case. I photocopied the record on appeal of the Greenberg case and a couple of other cases that had followed it and made my own manual. I needed a plaintiff; someone with standing to bring the lawsuit against the Board of Supervisors. The ideal plaintiff was my wife, Nedda. The town of Schodack had a large population compared to the very rural towns in the county, such as Stephentown, Grafton, and Petersburg, but each of the towns had one elected representative on the Board of Supervisors. I told no one of my planned litigation, hoping that the politicians would yet honor the commitment that I had been given. There was a little movement; although Tom O’Connor continued in his efforts to get the additional appropriation to hire me.

For a couple of weeks, I spent every evening typing pleadings. Finally, just before the March meeting of the Board of Supervisors, I completed the summons, notice of petition, complaint, and petition, entitled:

STATE OF NEW YORK
SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF RENSSELAER
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEDDA R. HONIG, on behalf of herself and all other persons
similarly situated,

                                                          Plaintiff - Petitioner

                              -against-

THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY
and THE STATE OF NEW YORK,

                                                Defendants - Respondents.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nedda signed the complaint/petition, and I notarized her signature and made multiple copies of the pleadings. In those days, it was not necessary to file any papers with the court or the clerk before starting an action. The litigation sought a declaration by the New York Supreme Court that the Board of Supervisors was improperly apportioned; that under County Law Section 150, insofar as it mandated the structure of the Board of Supervisors, was unconstitutional, and directing a reapportionment of the Board of Supervisors consistent with the “one man, one vote” precedents.

On my 30th birthday, March 12, 1968, I went to see Jack Manning, the full-time Clerk to the Board of Supervisors. I asked him if there was a resolution on the agenda for that evening’s monthly meeting to appropriate funds to enable the Public Defender to hire an additional part-time assistant. Jack was a former Troy police officer who had been appointed Clerk after his retirement from the police force. He was a decent guy and seemed genuinely embarrassed to tell me that the resolution was not on. I handed Jack the pleadings and told him that it was a present from me to the Board.

The next morning the clock radio woke us up, as usual, to the 6 a.m. news on WGY. The news broadcast started with Dick Beech announcing that “a Schodack housewife has sued the Rensselaer County Board of Supervisors complaining that she is not properly represented...”

The result was interesting to observe. At first, the politicians considered the lawsuit to be just an irritant, as local governments frequently are sued by residents whose claims are dismissed as meritless. It did not take long, however, before all realized that my lawsuit created a new dynamic in Rensselaer County politics. The Republicans, who for many years maintained control of the Board of Supervisors, realized their vulnerability; the Democrats, who had gained some vitality by electing some candidates to county offices in the Goldwater year, sensed an opportunity.

The initial court appearance was before T. Paul Kane, a Supreme Court justice from Schoharie County, who had been assigned to preside in Rensselaer County for the month. Judge Kane, a former district attorney, was a Republican. He was a tall man with silver hair and an even demeanor. The Board of Supervisors was represented by the County Attorney, James T. Ronan. Jim, like all Rensselaer County Attorneys until 1984, held the office on a part-time basis. He was a member of Wager, Taylor, Howd, and Brearton, a prominent Troy law firm, one of whose members, Dean Taylor, was the local representative to Congress, and a former Republican County Chairman. Although the State of New York was officially represented by its Attorney General, Louis Lefkowitz, a Republican, the Assistant Attorney General assigned to the matter was Robert W. Imrie, an older attorney who represented that office in all prior reapportionment cases, and who was generally considered to be the most knowledgeable reapportionment attorney in the state. Mr. Imrie’s legal position was consistent with mine, which he made clear to Judge Kane during the oral argument. The Democrats intervened in the lawsuit. The minority Democratic leader, Joseph Manupella, was represented by Thomas Kenny, and while their position favored reapportionment because they could not get control under the existing law, they always proposed reapportionment plans that would be most helpful to their candidates.

Once it was clear to the Republicans that there would be reapportionment, they sought to comply by offering a plan of weighted voting. Under their plan, the Board of Supervisors would continue, but each Supervisor would have the number of votes corresponding to the number of voters in their district. They hired an expert from Columbia University to prepare an analysis of the weighted voting plan for the Court, but Judge Kane rejected the plan and directed the Board of Supervisors to devise a plan for the creation of a County Legislature to be elected in the 1969 election.

Several plans were drawn up and submitted to the Court, which finally selected a 15 single-member district plan that I had submitted. Judge Kane’s selection of the plan was upheld by the Appellate Division as an interim plan only. The Republicans were furious since the town Supervisors wanted to continue as members of the County legislative body as well as being the head of their town governments. They had the County Attorney prepare a local law that would permit the Supervisors to also be members of the County Legislature, the so-called “two hats” law. I told Jim Ronan that if they passed the law, I would immediately bring another lawsuit to declare it illegal as being in violation of the Public Officer’s Law. I believe that Jim got an oral opinion from Robert Imrie that if any Supervisor were also elected to the County Legislature, he might forfeit the first office when he took the oath of office for the second one, and Jim convinced the Board of Supervisors to give up on that plan.

The Democrats were elated. County Court Judge Timothy Fogarty called me to his chambers and asked if I would run for the County Legislature from the new district that included Schodack as the candidate of the Democratic party. I told him that I would not, as I was a Republican, albeit a disenchanted one. A few days later, he brought me back to convey that the Democratic County Chairman, Edward McDonough, said that if I wanted to run as an independent candidate, the party would fund my campaign. Again, I declined.

The Democrats won control of the first County Legislature. Before the election, Joseph Casey, the Republican County Chairman, was indicted following a lengthy investigation into corruption by the State Commission of Investigation. The Republican party was in disarray and turned to Raymond Siek in 1970 to take over the county committee and cleanse its image. Ray was the manager of Ford Motor Company’s Green Island factory. He had no background in politics, but he had an unblemished personal reputation. He accepted the job with the understanding that he was going to be the absolute boss. He enlisted his top aide at the Ford plant, Nicholas Pinchuk, to work with him, and for several months Nick spent much more time working for the Rensselaer County Republican Committee than he did for Ford.

A few weeks after Ray took over the party, his secretary telephoned me and asked if I would meet him and Nick for lunch at the Troy Holiday Inn. (The Holiday Inn was also the location of the Republican Party Headquarters). I agreed, and he told me his plan to clean up the party. He asked me to help by writing new by-laws for the organization, and when I agreed he installed me as vice chairman for legal affairs. As a token of appreciation, he provided me what was then a party chairman’s “perk”, namely my MIH vanity license plate, which I kept until I moved to Florida in 2003. (It was not until several years later that vanity plates became available for purchase by the public in New York).

With control of the new County Legislature, the Democrats drafted a new legislative reapportionment plan based on the 1970 census and required by the Court.  At the request of Ray, I drew up a couple of different plans which favored the Republicans.  The matter came on before Judge Kane again, and he disallowed the plan submitted by the Democratic County Legislature and ordered one of my plans to be used for the 1971 election.  The Democratic County Attorney, Bill Jubic, appealed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, which affirmed Judge Kane's decision.  Mr. Jubic then appealed to the Court of Appeals, the highest court in New York.  This was my first oral argument in the Court of Appeals.  The evening before the oral argument, Nedda and I took down 2 roll-up window shades from our home and pasted "exploded" views of the different plans on the shades, which rolled up like scrolls.  I unveiled them before the Court, whose members seemed both amused but impressed.  The Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's decision. The Republicans, reinvigorated by Ray Siek and the new legislative districts, took back the County Legislature in the November 1971 election by a slim 1-member plurality, and I was appointed County Attorney, a part-time office I held until the mid-1980s when I resigned because of the press of my private practice.  

Although the election was over and the Republicans took over the County Legislature, the Court still retained jurisdiction because the law required that the plan be adopted by a formal local law. The Democrats, out of office, but still being an intervening party in my reapportionment lawsuit, brought it back before the Court with the intention of having a new districting plan ordered for the 1973 election.  We all then realized that I was still the attorney for the plaintiff (Nedda), and as County Attorney had become the attorney for the defendant County Legislature, the successor to the Board of Supervisors. The conundrum was resolved when I advised the Court that “I discussed the situation while in bed with the plaintiff last night, and she gave me permission to withdraw.” Papers were signed in which I ceased representing Nedda, who continued in the lawsuit “pro se’”,  technically representing herself. 

Prior to the 1971 election, the County Legislature adopted a local law providing for a county executive to be appointed by the County Legislature, similar to the form of government in effect in the City of Troy, which was dominated by the Democrats.  The local law was subject to a mandatory referendum, which was defeated, probably because of the history of failed appointed city managers in Troy.  With a bi-partisan commission, I drafted a new county charter proposal that differed from the failed law.  The new plan provided that the chief executive officer would be elected at large in the County, and this plan was approved by the voters.  The Democrats nominated a prominent Troy politician for the office, but the Republican candidate, William J. Murphy won handily.  (It did not hurt his candidacy that he lived in a Republican town, and was half Irish and half Italian, the two largest ethnic groups in Troy)  The Republicans have never since lost control of the office of County Executive or the County Legislature.  

Notes:  Now that so many years have passed, there is no harm in telling that Mr. Murphy was not Ray Siek's first choice to be the first County Executive candidate.  At Ray's request, I approached the late Edward "Ned" Pattison, a lawyer from a prominent family, and asked if he would run for the office as a Republican.  Ned, a Democrat, had been elected to Congress during the Goldwater Year, and after losing his bid for re-election to Congress was elected County Treasurer.  Ned declined and asked me to thank Ray for the offer.   

When the control of the county legislative body changes, the successful party generally installs its own party members in non-civil service positions.  When the Republicans regained control of the County Legislature and I was appointed County Attorney, among the Democrats they intended to replace, was Whitey Courier, who was in charge of the Tax Mapping Department.  Soon after I was admitted to the bar in 1963, Whitey, then the mayor of the Village of Nassau, appointed me as the Village Attorney.  To return the favor, and perhaps because I was partly responsible for his election defeat by my uncle, I insisted that he not be replaced by a Republican, and he continued in that position until his retirement.