State Bar of Georgia

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, original 1918 building

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta after expansion in 1920 and possibly after additional expansion in 1922

The headquarters building was originally the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta which opened in 1918.

In the late 19th century, Macon was not only in the middle of the state geographically speaking; it was essentially the population center of Georgia and was easily accessible to the rest of the state. All roads and rail lines seemingly led to Macon. While neighboring Milledgeville had lost its status as state capital to Atlanta in the aftermath of a Civil War ransacking, Macon had been bypassed on Sherman's march to the sea, and the city by the Ocmulgee River prospered through the Reconstruction era. When the state's legal community formed the Georgia Bar Association in 1883, Macon was chosen as its headquarters location, and it remained so for the next 90 years. L.N. Whittle was the first of 10 Macon lawyers to serve as president of the Georgia Bar Association during its eight decades of existence. He and Walter B. Hill, also of Macon, who served as the first secretary/treasurer, were among 11 petitioners from around the state listed on the association's corporate charter when it was granted by the Superior Court of Bibb County on July 19, 1884.[3]

Although membership remained strictly voluntary, the Georgia Bar Association gradually expanded its activities and organizational efforts throughout the state. In 1942, the association set up an office in downtown Macon, utilizing space in the Persons Building offered by the law firm of John B. Harris, who was then the secretary of the Georgia Bar and later served as its president. Beginning a practice in the same building in 1950, one floor above the Harris Firm, was a new lawyer named Frank C. Jones, who would later become president of the State Bar of Georgia. "During those years, I had frequent contact with Mr. Harris and his firm's personnel, including Madrid Williams, a remarkably able and talented individual," Jones said in a recent interview. "I was president of the Younger Lawyers Section in 1956-57 and worked closely with Mrs. Williams in that respect. John D. Comer, who was then practicing with the Harris Firm, and I served for several years as associate editors of the Georgia Bar Journal. We would review proposed articles and meet on a regular basis with Mr. Harris and Madrid to discuss the acceptability of these articles and other matters."[3]

Efforts to bring about a unified bar in Georgia began in the late 1920s and continued almost without interruption. In 1963, soon after his inauguration, Governor Carl Sanders was visited by Atlanta lawyers Gus Cleveland and Harry Baxter, who had been delegated by the voluntary Georgia Bar Association to approach the Governor about supporting legislation to create a unified State Bar. It turned out to be an easier task than they expected, as the 37-year-old new lawyer-Governor immediately saw the advantages of an organized Bar capable of enforcing academic and professional standards for would-be lawyers along with a disciplinary process to protect the public from lawyer misconduct.[4]

Sanders later recalled that, "Up until that time, while a fairly rigorous written Bar exam was required of every applicant, it was not nearly as comprehensive and onerous as the one we have today, and there was no multistate component. Also, the Bar association at the time was a toothless tiger, unorganized, with no right to discipline its members." The governor told Baxter and Cleveland (who later served as State Bar president in 1971-72) that his administration would indeed support the unified Bar proposal. He directed his House of Representatives floor leader, future Attorney General Arthur Bolton, and the lieutenant governor, future Supreme Court Justice George T. Smith, to head up the legislative effort.[4]

The harder task was actually passing the bill. "Any time you seek to change something that has been in existence for that many years, it's going to be difficult," Sanders said. "Like many other lawyers, I knew there were going to be some who would not be able to meet the requirements." He recalls there was vigorous opposition to the proposal under the Gold Dome. "I remember Johnnie Caldwell (who later served as the state's insurance commissioner) making a long speech in the House about Abraham Lincoln having read the law by candlelight in a log cabin in Illinois," Sanders said. "He said if that was good enough for Abe Lincoln, it was good enough for Georgia."[4]

In 1963 the General Assembly passed an Act (Ga. L. 1963, p. 70) stating that ". . . the Supreme Court of this State shall be authorized, upon a petition presented by the Georgia Bar Association, to establish, as an administrative arm of the court, a unified self-governing bar association to be known as the 'State Bar of Georgia' composed of all persons now or hereafter licensed to practice law in this State." This Act recited that it gave the Supreme Court authority, upon recommendation of the Georgia Bar Association, to adopt rules and regulations for the organization of a unified bar and to define the rights, duties and obligations of members, including payment of a reasonable license fee, and to otherwise regulate and govern the practice of law in Georgia.

A committee of 22 lawyers was charged with taking the next steps, which included the preparation and filing of a petition with the Supreme Court of Georgia, asking for the Court's approval. Although some opposition was voiced at a hearing in October, the Court issued an order on Dec. 6, 1963, establishing the State Bar of Georgia.Pursuant to this grant of authority, the Supreme Court of Georgia created and established the State Bar of Georgia by court order on December 6, 1963.[5] Thus, the State Bar of Georgia was created pursuant to the authority of the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Act of the Georgia General Assembly approved by the Governor on March 11, 1963 (Georgia Laws 1963, page 70).

The initial draft of the proposed rules for the new State Bar was discussed and agreed upon in an all-day meeting in the conference room of Frank Jones' law firm in Macon, under the leadership of Newell Edenfield of Atlanta, who chaired the organizational committee, and Holcombe Perry of Albany, who was president of the Georgia Bar Association in 1962-63. Attributing the successful incorporation of the Bar in large part to Perry's leadership as president, Jones said, "Holcombe worked hundreds of hours on this undertaking, and few, if any, other lawyers in Georgia could have achieved the success that he did."

In 1968, Jones was elected as the unified Bar's sixth president and the first of three from Macon. He says a highlight of his term was the Supreme Court of Georgia issuing resounding opinions in Wallace v. Wallace and Sams v. Olah, rejecting constitutional challenges to the State Bar of Georgia's existence.

Creation of the unified Bar was not without controversy. The only member of the Board of Governors ever "impeached" by the lawyers in his circuit was due to his support of bar unification. Irwin Stolz was informally impeached—as there was no procedure for that—at a meeting of the Lookout Mountain Circuit Bar Association in 1963. He later served as State Bar president and on the Georgia Court of Appeals, and his law partner, Norman Fletcher, became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In their post-judicial careers, Stolz practices law in Athens and practices law and mediates in Rome.

During Frank Jones' presidency of the State Bar, the potential benefits of moving the Bar headquarters from Macon to Atlanta started to become obvious to him. In addition to quarterly meetings of the board of governors that were held around the state and the annual meeting that was almost always in Savannah, there were meetings of the executive committee and various general and special committees and other meetings that Jones sought to attend. "The great majority of these meetings were held in Atlanta, with virtually none in Macon, because Atlanta was more convenient to a majority of attendees and the facilities were limited in Macon," Jones said. "Madrid Williams or Judge Mallory C. Atkinson, our first general counsel, and sometimes both, usually accompanied me in traveling to Atlanta for such meetings and we would talk from time to time about the probable need someday to move the office to Atlanta." Jones also noted that Atlanta was shedding its reputation as what he called "kind of a sleepy metropolis." Starting in the 1960s, there was an explosive growth in the number of lawyers practicing in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and many law firms greatly increased in size.[4]

In 1971-72, Jones served on the Governor's Commission on Judicial Processes, chaired by Hon. Bob Hall. The panel's recommendations resulted in the establishment of the Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC) as a constitutional body and the Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) by executive order of each of Georgia's governors. "The meetings of the JQC were invariably held in the Judicial Building because we reported our findings and recommendations to the Supreme Court of Georgia, and the meetings of the JNC were normally held in Atlanta as well," Jones said. "This is another illustration of how Atlanta increasingly became the focus of the activities of the State Bar and related organizations."[4]

A Special Committee on State Bar Headquarters was appointed in 1970, with Jones as chairman and Ben L. Weinberg Jr. as vice chairman. Also serving were B. Carl Buice, Wilton D. Harrington, G. Conley Ingram, H.H. Perry Jr., Hon. Paul W. Painter and Frank W. "Sonny" Seiler, with then- Bar President Irwin W. Stolz Jr., A.G. Cleveland Jr. and Thomas E. Dennard Jr. as ex-officio members. In November 1971, the committee submitted its final report during a meeting of the board of governors, officially recommending that the State Bar headquarters be moved from Macon to downtown Atlanta because, in part, "Ideally, the headquarters should be reasonably close to the State Capitol area, as accessible as possible to those lawyers throughout the state who would enter Atlanta on the interstate and other highways, and at the same time not inconvenient to the large number of State Bar of Georgia members who have their offices in the business and financial district in Atlanta." The fact that the State Bar had been authorized by the Supreme Court of Georgia, and its rules had to be approved by the Supreme Court, was another persuasive reason why the headquarters should be in downtown Atlanta and within reasonable proximity to the Supreme Court.

The report acknowledged that the anticipated doubling of office space, addition of at least one more staff member, higher rental rates and salary scales prevailing in Atlanta and various other factors would result in a substantial increase in operating expenses. A dues increase would undoubtedly be required. One of the committee's recommendations specified: "The State Bar of Georgia should not give any further consideration at this time to building its own headquarters building (as some other state bars have done)." Jones said, "That was a wise decision at the time, I believe. We needed to walk before we could run."[4]

After the committee's recommendations were unanimously approved by the board of governors, the wheels were set in motion for the move from Macon to Atlanta. F. Jack Adams joined committee members Seiler and Cleveland in submitting a detailed report concerning costs and a proposed dues increase, which was approved by the board in July 1972. Increased expenditures were estimated at just over $75,000, necessitating a dues increase of $20 per year. The target date for opening the new headquarters in the Fulton National Bank building was July 1, 1973. By Feb. 9, the contract had already been signed, construction of the offices was underway and moving vans were packed and ready to leave Macon for Atlanta. Seiler, who was the State Bar president that year, recounted, in his end-of-year report for the 1973 annual meeting, what happened next.[4]

"I'll never forget that day," Seiler said of the planned moving day of Feb. 9. "Gus Cleveland, Jack Adams and I were in Cleveland, Ohio, attending the ABA National Conference of Bar Presidents. It was extremely cold in Cleveland, but the skies were clear. We knew that winter storms were harassing the South, and Gus and I had speculated as to whether or not the move could be accomplished. On the day of the intended move, I picked up a Cleveland paper and the headlines read 'Heavy Snow Hits Macon, Georgia,' and I knew darn well they weren't talking about Cubbege Jr. or Sr.!" (Cubbege Snow was the name of a father-son legal duo in Macon, with a third generation having since joined the practice.) The snow melted a few days later, and the new office was fully occupied on Law Day, May 1, 1973, two months ahead of schedule.[4]

Performing an integral role in the move was Madrid Williams, who had originally informed the officers of her intention to retire as executive secretary on Jan. 1, 1973, rather than make the move to Atlanta. "But she got caught up in the excitement," Jones said, and instead of retiring, Williams wound up personally supervising the entire project, coordinating the moving and purchase of equipment, furniture and decorations, as well as interviewing and hiring new staff members. "Her help was invaluable during those first years after the move," Jones said of Williams, who in 1970 became one of the first women to serve as president of the National Association of Bar Executives. She did retire in 1976, a full 34 years after opening the first Georgia Bar Association office.[4] f

According to Jones, opposition to the move from Macon to Atlanta was virtually non-existent, and the only backlash he received from below Georgia's fall line for having spearheaded the effort was some good-natured ribbing from his hometown colleagues. "When I accepted an invitation to become a partner in the firm of King & Spalding LLP in Atlanta as of July 1, 1977, several of my friends jokingly remarked that I was being run out of Macon because I had been instrumental in the move," Jones said. "But I had realized it would be an easier pill to swallow if a past president from Macon was the one making the recommendation."

Jones concluded, "In my judgment both then and now, it was essential that the State Bar have its headquarters conveniently located in downtown Atlanta in order to maximize its service to the lawyers of Georgia, the judiciary and the general public. Such a location provides ready access to the Supreme Court of Georgia, the Governor's Office, the General Assembly and other governmental agencies with which the State Bar has dealings from time to time. It is also consistent with the extraordinary growth in the number of practicing lawyers residing in the greater Atlanta area."[4]

In 1995, the State Bar began an effort to establish a Bar Center that would be a professional gathering place for members of the profession from around the state. After an exhaustive search and a struggle with financing, the State Bar purchased the former home of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The Georgia Bar Center is reputedly the finest state bar headquarters in the United States, in the assessment of delegates to the ABA midyear meeting in 2011. It includes a conference center used for continuing legal education seminars and professional meetings almost daily, a law related education program that hosts over 10,000 school children each year, the offices of the State Bar and a number of other law related organizations. In addition, visiting bar members enjoy free parking when attending events in downtown Atlanta.[6]

And adjoining the lobby is a small museum depicting a nineteenth-century law office near the site of the Bar Center, where Woodrow Wilson labored until he gave up the "dreadful drudgery" of law practice and boarded a northbound train in 1883.

Past presidents of the former Georgia Bar Association and the State Bar of Georgia include the following.

This was the voluntary bar that existed in Georgia until 1964.

The current mandatory bar was instituted in 1965.