LEX FUGIT

DR. DON NEWMAN-PART 1

 

Dr. Don Newman, right, with his wife, retired Michigan Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Kelly,and attorney Albert Dib

Dr. Donald Newman died on December 8, 2018,  A true character in a business filled with them.  And, though  a character who had a definite pro-plaintiff bent, he was respected by both sides of the personal injury bar.  I discovered this as I read the comments to Michael DePolo's FB post, which is how I learned about Dr. Don's death.  I still feel bad that I learned of his passing after his funeral service, and so did not attend.

Dr. Don was a member of the legendary Newman clan:  Dr. Max (father, an immortal in the medical legal biz), and sons Drs. Don and Steve.

This blog post will have 2 parts.  Part 1 will be about some of my personal experiences with Dr. Don.  In Part 2, I will share some other lawyers' stories, and end with a sad touch of irony.

I first met Don two weeks after I started at Bernstein & Bernstein.  On the Friday afternoon of my second week at the firm, my boss, Harvey Howitt, gave me a red rope file and told me to take a look at it over the weekend.  There was a settlement conference on Monday morning.  I was to meet him and the client at 8:45am outside a courtroom in the Lafayette Building. 

I looked at the file and showed up as directed.  Harvey introduced me to the client as the attorney who would be handling her case.  He then left, before the courtroom door opened.  The case had mediated for 30K (Case evaluation was called mediation back then).  Both sides had rejected.  Defendant offered 5K.  These were the the days of the "spin off" system (a topic for another day*),and I soon found myself walking my client over to the 17th floor of the City County Building, where Nick Shaheen, the Wayne County Assignment clerk, would see if there was a judge available to try the case.  I prayed that there would not be one available, as I had discovered that none of my client's treaters had been deposed for trial.

WAYNE COUNTY MEDIATION TRIBUNAL MARCH 6, 2019

I sat as a neutral case evaluator in Wayne County on Wednesday.  I did not know that the Tribunal had started having "theme" days.  There were 4 panels, and the defense evaluator on each was a former AAA house counsel attorney--Charly Pfeffer on my panel, Tim O'Neill, Dennis Killeen, and Charles Trickey III.  Traded a lot of stories, and even managed to work in a few evaluations as well. 

LAWYER CARTOON OF THE WEEK-3

WAYNE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT IN THE OLDEN DAYS

While Friday morning is still Wayne County Circuit Court Motion call, and it can still be described as chaotic, it is nothing like what used to be in the 80s and 90s.  Admittedly, attorneys did not have to deal with mandatory metal detectors and security staff back before 911, at least all the Circuit judges were in the same building.

Before 1997, Wayne County Circuit Court was not divided into separate civil and family divisions.  In addition, Recorders Court ( located in the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice) had exclusive jurisdiction over felony cases in the city of Detroit.  Felony cases in Wayne County, outside of Detroit, were under the jurisdiction of Wayne County Circuit Court judges.  So, before 1997, a Wayne County Circuit judge would have a civil, domestic and criminal docket.  A lot of work for a lot of judges.  In the very early years of my career, the Friend of the Court referee system did not exist, and all domestic motions were heard by the assigned Circuit judge.

In addition, during that period, what would later become the civil division of 36th District Court , was the Detroit Common Pleas Court, housed in floors 9-12 of the City County Building (now called the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, but still the old CCB to me).  I still remember sitting in the Common Pleas 9th floor “bullpen”, waiting to be assigned to a judge for trial.

The CCB could not hold all the Circuit judges needed to handle that volume of cases.  So, as the members of the circuit bench increased, courtrooms were built in the Wayne County Building ("the Old County Building”), shown at left and the Lafayette Building, located in a triangle of land bounded by Michigan Avenue, Layette and Shelby, behind the American Coney Island.  

A couple of views of the Lafayette are shown below.  Closed in 1997, the same year as the Court's overhaul, it was slowly demolished over 2 years, beginning in 2009.* Built in 1923, the Lafayette was not built to house courtrooms.  Each Lafayette court contained columns that prevented most attorneys and litigants from seeing the judge.  The 5th floor hallway, just outside Judge James Hathaway's court contained a huge air conditioning  condenser, five feet on a side, mounted on a 4 foot high platform.  It was difficult to make yourself heard over the noise from that equipment.

These were the days before the cell phone and universal texting.  If your City County Building opponent told you he had to check in with a Lafayette or Old County judge, there was no way to check his progress.  You had to wait until such time, if ever, he returned.  Check in for Friday morning motion call could take a half hour, even if all your motion judges had opened their courtrooms when you arrived.