Strong Advocate: The Life of a Trial Lawyer

12. Growing Pains

191 12 Growing Pains After a year and a half in our new venture, it was apparent that we needed more lawyers and more space. In 1978, I had built a new building on two levels (one underground) at 2060 East Sunshine that would accommodate five lawyers and an adequate support staff. We then added a new lawyer, John Wooddell , the following year. As time passed, the firm had several names:“Strong and Placzek ,” “Strong, Placzek, and Wooddell,” “Strong and Associates,” and finally “The Strong Law Firm.” New lawyers were added from time to time to replace those who had left or to handle an ever-increasing case load. By 1983, we had outgrown our office on Sunshine Street, and so I set out to build a larger one at 901 East Battlefield. Attorney John Hulston soon called and said he was interested in buying the Sunshine Street building. Thus began one of the simplest transfers of ownership imaginable. I told John how much I had paid for the lot and my construction cost. “You are a friend. If I sell it to you, I don’t want to make a penny’s profit,” I said. John did not ask for evidence of my investment. My word was all he needed, and the price was fair, he surmised. John said he would put a down payment in escrow and asked about drafting the agreement. I told him there was no reason for escrow, and his word was as valuable to me as anything we could reduce 192 Strong Advocate to writing. I would give him a deed, and he would pay me when the building on Battlefield was completed and we had moved in. “Fine,”said John, and the deal was struck. There was no bargaining , no posturing, no real estate agent, no writing of any kind, not even a letter confirming the sale. It all happened in one tenminute phone call. Over the next eighteen months I kept John updated on the progress of the construction of the new office, and on January 1, 1985, I located into our new office on Battlefield while John moved into my old one on Sunshine. I gave John a deed, and he gave me a check. Two pieces of paper was all it took. The new building was large, 16,300 square feet on two levels (one underground), in order to allow room for as many lawyers as I could ever have in my firm. More lawyers were on the way. The 1986 graduating class of the University of Arkansas School of Law produced three who would have the greatest impact on our firm: Steve Garner, who had graduated with the highest grade point average in the history of the law school; Clif Smart, who had graduated with the second-highest grade point average in the school’s history; and Steven Harrell, who was fifth in his class. Over the years the firm accepted every type of personal-injury or wrongful-death case imaginable but refused all criminal defense and divorce cases. Our goal was to promote safety on the highways, in the air, on the job, in the places we visit or do business , and, in particular, in the products we use. One example will illustrate how we prosecuted defectiveproduct cases. On March 2, 1977, Kathy was involved in a collision at the intersection of Industrial Park Road and Highway 65 in Harrison, Arkansas. Kathy was driving west on Industrial Park when she was struck by a southbound pickup driven by Ronald on Highway 65. Kathy, alone in her car, suffered a devastating head injury, which erased any memory she otherwise might have had of the collision. There would have been no Growing Pains 193 way to prove that she had the green light except for the statement of the driver of the car following her, who said the light just changed from green to yellow as Kathy entered the intersection . Ronald, southbound, said the light was simultaneously red and green for him, while another southbound driver said Ronald had the green light. It was difficult to explain Ronald’s claim that the light was showing two colors at the same time and impossible to accept the contention of the two witnesses that the light was green for their respective directions of travel. Someone must be lying. Yet both witnesses, with no dog in the fight and no reason...