Remembering a Marquette Lawyer (and Judge) on the Centennial of His Birth

Tom Curran A week and a half ago, the Law School held our annual Alumni Awards Reception and Conferral—always a highlight of our year. For it enables us to celebrate Marquette Law School’s spirit and ideals by recognizing four exemplars of the genus (or perhaps it’s the species) of the Marquette lawyer.

I had occasion that day to talk with a longtime colleague about past such alumni awards receptions and conferrals, including the one in 2007, where we honored Martin J. Greenberg, L’71, with the Charles W. Mentkowski Award for the Sports Law Alumnus of the Year; (now-Judge) Katie Maloney Perhach, L’00, with the Howard B. Eisenberg Service Award; the Hon. Patricia J. Gorence, L’77, as the Alumnus/a of the Year; and the Hon. Thomas J. Curran, L’48, with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Then, last week, my colleague noted to me that today would have been the 100th birthday of the last of these individuals (the other three, happily, still being active alumni). I relate a brief story about Judge Curran here.

I recall my commendation of him on that occasion in 2007. I said in part this:

You may think that it is his service for almost a quarter-century as United States District Judge here in Milwaukee that recommends [Tom Curran] for this award. And this is relevant, for it is a lifetime achievement award. I am inclined to think, though, that Tom Curran would be receiving this award even if he had never become Judge Curran, for his accomplishments from 1948 to 1983 would have sufficed.

Tom Curran joined his brothers’ law firm in Mauston, Wisconsin, in 1948, and for a brief moment—a year or so—the firm was Curran, Curran & Curran. That did not last, not I am sure because of any difficulty on the part of Irish brothers in getting along with one another, but because one of his brothers left in 1950 to become a circuit judge in Juneau County, where he served for the next 30 years. The firm flourished nonetheless, and today it is one of the largest firms in the state outside of a major metropolitan area (with apologies to the many Currans and others here today from Mauston for my characterization).

Of course, the fact that there are several Currans at the firm still (Judge Curran’s children) does contribute to the numbers somewhat, but you cannot maintain a firm of this size—or even stay in business for so long—without developing a reputation for quality and trustworthiness, and the Curran firm surely has that reputation. And much of that reputation developed during Tom Curran’s 35 years of practice in Mauston.

His own stature as a lawyer meant that Tom Curran was elected by his statewide peers to the presidency of the State Bar of Wisconsin, a signal honor.

I said more, but let me move the story along. I also recall a portion of Judge Curran’s remarks in then accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award:

Given the very special place Marquette already had in the lives of the Currans, it was no surprise, when I was discharged from the Navy in July 1946, that I would come up and enroll at Marquette. And I found myself, four days later, sitting in a classroom, as we then had the three-semester-a-year program, given that probably 95 percent of us were veterans. I would guess that we ranged in rank from a private to a brigadier general—a former brigadier general. The only problem was that the general had trouble remembering the “former” part of it—or at least he did, for maybe two or three weeks, until he ended up in Professor Ghiardi’s class.

Finally, I recall but, alas, cannot directly quote the moment in his acceptance remarks—not scripted, I should think—where Judge Curran turned around from the podium and looked back at Rev. Robert A. Wild, S.J., then the president of Marquette University, and me.

Judge Curran noted the coincidence of two guys from the South Side of Chicago leading a beloved Wisconsin institution, and his remarks were most generous. This was characteristic of Judge Curran, in my experience: he made that moment not about himself but about others—and about Marquette.

I have never forgotten it or him. It is pleasant to remember a generous and gracious Marquette lawyer and judge both on his 100th birthday and on other occasions.

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In Remembrance of One Public Defender—and in Praise of All Such

Howard EisenbergHoward B. Eisenberg’s yahrzeit, as some might say, is late this week: June 4 will mark 20 years since his death. We remember him at Marquette University Law School as our dean, a position in which he served with great effect and distinction but for too brief a time (1995 until his death in 2002). On occasional past anniversaries of his death, various of us have recalled one aspect or another of his deanship (a post last year contains various links).

Yet it is another part of Howard’s remarkable professional life to which I find myself often returning these days. For almost six years—from December 1972 to September 1978—Howard served as the State Public Defender, by appointment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Without doubt, this was his great formative work after law school, and much that he did subsequently can be traced to those six years (we reprinted Howard’s full resume in the special memorial issue of the Marquette Law Review published upon his death, beginning at p. 208 in the journal’s numbering).

Without doubting the difficulties of a deanship (in Howard’s case, first with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and then at Marquette), Howard’s work as the State Public Defender was an extraordinary challenge. He was thrust into it barely a year out of law school and only months after finishing a clerkship with Justice Horace Wilkie of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (What remarkable work Howard must have done as a law clerk to engender that sort of confidence from the court.) Howard met the challenge, at least insofar as anyone could have, as attested in the 2002 memorial issue by three of his former colleagues in the public defender’s office. Their essays capture an impressive amount of his work and even personality, as I am reminded by his occasional wry self-introduction in those years (recalled on p. 248): “I’m Howard Eisenberg, State Public Defender, which the Supreme Court thinks is Latin for ‘Judgment Affirmed.’”

I have never been a public defender, of course, although a long-running pro bono case that over the past decade Anne Berleman Kearney and I have handled, as appointed by the public defender’s office, has given me a small bit of relatively firsthand insight into the joys and (mostly) sorrows experienced by public defenders, at least in appellate matters (Howard’s métier). So I am reminded of him in that professional sphere as well.

In all events, this year, even as I recall Howard Eisenberg, I hope, looking forward, that we, as a legal profession and certainly as a law school, can celebrate the work of these extraordinary men and women: our public defenders. We are fortunate in Wisconsin to have the leadership of Kelli Thompson, L’96, as the State Public Defender, and her colleagues include Tom Reed, longtime adjunct professor here. To preview an upcoming issue of the Marquette Lawyer magazine (the one coming out not in a couple of days but in late 2022), I imagine that we will have more to say there. For what it is worth here, I wish to say that the work of all of these individuals has my great admiration.

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Recalling (and Rehearing) Howard Eisenberg

Howard B. Eisenberg

Howard B. Eisenberg, dean of Marquette Law School from 1995 to 2002, died nineteen years ago today. That number may not have independent significance or resonance (unlike, say, 18, in Jewish tradition as I understand it, or 20, for a round number), but we may agree that it is now some time ago. Yet no one will doubt that Howard’s spirit—indeed, legacy—lives on here at the Law School, even in Eckstein Hall, opened more than eight years after his death.

Our Office of Public Service, which we created in 2006 and now house in the Howard B. Eisenberg Suite, has been our most significant institutional effort to ensure his legacy of “doing good,” as Alan Borsuk noted as recently as a week ago, in this Marquette Lawyer article. In light of this evidence surrounding us all, there seems no need to post at length on his yahrzeit. “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice,” one is tempted to say (well, I am, anyway).

Yet I wanted to use this blog to mark the anniversary, pointing anyone interested to two previous posts: one by me, twelve years ago today, whose virtue is that it contains a link to the wonderful 2002 special issue of the Marquette Law Review, remembering Howard in so many different ways (and through so many different eyes); and the other a decade ago, by our longtime colleague, now-retired Professor (and Justice) Janine P. Geske, whose welcome advantage is that it enables you to hear Howard’s very voice on a special topic: “What’s a Nice Jewish Boy Like Me Doing in a Place Like This?”

May his memory be for a blessing.

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