"SERVING ALL OF FLORIDA"
Russell Troutman - Presidential Profile
By Linda H. Yates
Right to a trial by jury.
Rights of the people.
A counter to unwarranted criticism of lawyers.
These are causes etched deeply within Russell Troutman. They follow his days--through the committee rooms of the legislature, in courtrooms, before the television camera, in bar meetings.
They began building as he watched his father make his rounds as company doctor in the coal mining fields of Page, West Virginia; they stirred his conscience through the pages of Profiles of Courage, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the Holy Bible and The Nature of the Judicial Process. They motivated him to serve as president of The Florida Bar.
"Russell has a sincere feeling that action is needed, not just talk," colleague William Trickle, Jr., of Orlando said. "He sees the legal profession battered on all sides and wants to provide the leadership necessary to save it."
It was this strong motivation that prompted the Winter Park lawyer to run for president-elect of The Florida Bar in 1976. He asked fellow lawyers to vote for him, promising to give "my total commitment of time, energies, talents and financial resources. The time has come for lawyers to be seen and heard and for the official spokesman of The Florida Bar to advocate their case," he wrote in dozens of letters soliciting support.
"Our ship is listing and our efforts have been inadequate to return the fire triggered by erroneous facts, fallacious reasoning, and emotionalism against lawyers in this Watergate era. The course of destruction to our dignity and indirect prejudice to the public can be altered because our information will be accurate, our logic sound and our presentations on a professional basis. No lawyer need be embarrassed by an aggressive program to inform the public and to protect our credibility in the legislature," he said.
An overwhelming majority of Bar members agreed and voted him into office. In the forum provided him as leader of the state's 20,500 lawyers starting June 18, Troutman will be --and in fact has been during. his year as president-elect--a strong advocate for the public and for lawyers. He offers the job special talents -- courage, persuasive speech, instant recall of the historical perspective, sensitivity to people rights vs. special interests.
"He's not afraid to stand up against the mob," his friend Paul A. Louis of Miami says. His own Orange County Bar Bulletin said it another way when it supported his candidacy for president-elect: "He was never known as one reticent to express his views and is always willing to stand up for his convictions regardless of the opposition or the nature of the controversy."
Troutman is an intense person, taking all things seriously. "My goal is to be totally sincere in all that I do and say," he says. He admits he may not be the life of the party at social gatherings because "I don't make speeches to humor a faction. If I have nothing to say, I keep quiet." It bothers him that on every hand he sees manifestations of people trying to be or standing for something that is not right for that person in an effort to advance a political or corporate career.
Saying what he sincerely believes is "refreshing" to friends like William Trickle, Jr., who has known him for 13 years. "Some may think he has a lack of tact when he is open and honest in his conversation," Trickle said. "At first it may create some alienation for Russell, but when people realize that his candid statements are said not out of malice but are a way of life for him, they respect him. Russell doesn't pussyfoot around."
"I've noticed that since he was elected president-elect, and as he nears his term as president, he thinks more before taking a stand. He knows that he now represents the Bar and it is not just his opinion he's voicing," Trickle said. "He has the ability to bring in a mature, reasoned opinion."
Courage to express and pursue his convictions is the main thread that cloaks Troutman. If a man may be known by the heroes he admires, Troutman is Jonathan Livingston Seagull who soars to new levels at the risk of gaining the derision of his friends - who may face defeat but refuses to give up. Or John Quincy Adams who gave undeviating devotion to what he considered to be the public interest. Or any of the other seven U.S. Senators described in Profiles of Courage, who were pressured to compromise but endured it with grace at risk to their careers.
"And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods?"
Thus spoke brave Horatius at the bridge — another hero Troutman points to — who withstood alone the army of Tuscany. ("Horatius," Thomas B. Macaulay)
President Troutman will not be alone as he faces the pressures battering the legal profession. During four years' service on the Bar's Board of Governors and during the past year as president elect, he caught first the attention of his fellow lawyers and then their support as he convinced them by telephone, letter, personal contact and public speeches that "individual rights of unwary citizens are being bartered away in return for proclaimed efficiency and economy. The crescendo peaked with the emphasis on reduced rates to the prejudice of individual rights ... . No amount of economy or efficiency is adequate consideration for a fair and impartial judge and fair and impartial jurors whose record throughout the years has demonstrated an uncanny grasp of equity and fair play."
Although he excels in the well-turned phrase (journalism was his undergraduate major) Troutman's words are not mere rhetoric. His advice -- and immediate plan -- "is to storm the legislative halls with our presence, and make our voices heard individually and en masse to the press ... . None of us can afford to be onlookers, the critics standing on the sidelines."
Running his campaign as president-elect on issues, he promised to stay in Tallahassee during the entire legislative session. Even as president-elect designate and as president-elect, Troutman has spent most of the time since the session began in April in Tallahassee, attending committee meetings, talking on a one-to-one basis with legislators, organizing Bar members in lobbying task forces. His efforts, along with the efforts of President Ed Atkins, the Bar's legislative counsel, section and committee leaders, may have averted the passage of legislation that would have bartered away the rights of the people to seek redress for injury, the right to a trial by jury, and access to the courts for resolving disputes. His emphasis this year has been to construct mechanics of an effective legislative program.
"As president, I will throw our resources in the legislative arena for the benefit of the public and to enable the lawyer to effectively represent the public," he said. He is appointing legislative committees in each judicial circuit, selecting those lawyers whom he feels are motivated and share his concern for establishing close contact with legislators between sessions. This local liaison will make work easier for the central lobbying force of the Bar in Tallahassee. In addition, he supports the Florida Political Action Committee (FLALAW PAC) as another component of an effective legislation program.
"In the past the people have been protected by lawyers who are driven to shield the people from attacks by special interests. In the formation of our nation, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hancock and Henry were the lawyers who took care of the man in the field... . It was the ideal, the principle, the outrages of abuse of power that inspired them to lay down their fortunes and their lives. Each generation must produce its own leaders to renew the claim of inalienable rights, to carry on the eternal vigilance for liberty. No one is doing it in Tallahassee now," Troutman said.
A second program Troutman plans to implement is creation of a self-insurance plan to provide Bar members with professional liability insurance.
His third major goal is "to assemble a task force of aggressive people to embark on projects to remind the public of the indispensability of a fearless law profession in a free society." Call it a public relations program or a counter to unwarranted criticism heaped upon the legal profession in recent years, Troutman sees its objective as creation of a climate for public acceptance. The projects would help the public see that lawyers must defend unpopular causes in order to maintain balance in society and to ensure that every special interest group must answer to someone.
"The criticism leveled against lawyers is worse now than ever before," he said. "The lawyer who loses the credibility of his community cannot practice effectively. His client loses an effective advocate. With the present idea that all lawyers are suspect, our credibility is lost and our ability to serve the public is diminished."
"A fearless law profession can be an antidote to tyranny and injustice, a police force against abuse of power. The public needs to know and appreciate this," he said.
Most members of The Florida Bar were first introduced to their new president through a letter he wrote and mailed to each of them at his own expense in 1975. His cause then was waiver of confidentiality in grievance proceedings. The Board of Governors had just voted to waive confidentiality upon finding of probable cause. Troutman felt strongly against the waiver and was concerned that the interest and wishes of individual Bar members had not been given full consideration in the decision. Integration Rule 11.12(5) affords the public, bench and Bar waiver of confidentiality if the charge involves a serious crime, general unfitness to practice law, or when the public interest clearly demands. Troutman opposed further relaxation of the rule. Reputations can be damaged or ruined by what frequently turns out to be groundless charges sensationalized by the news media, he pointed out.
Hundreds of letters came in response from members of the Bar opposing the waiver. At the next Board of Governors meeting Troutman moved that the previous action of the Board be rescinded and presented the letters to support his motion. It carried. He vows as president that "the views of the lawyers will have a strong spokesman."
His ideals for the profession, and the causes for which he fights are products of the love Russell Troutman has for the legal profession. He loves being a lawyer. "I like the competitiveness, the adventure. The lawyer is one who gives solutions to people's problems. It is fulfilling to find a remedy, to serve as advocate for someone who has entrusted you with his case."
His expertise in personal injury, wrongful death and products liability cases has earned him an AV rating in Martindale-Hubbell. But his greatest tribute is that lawyers themselves retain his services when faced with a legal problem of their own.
Being a lawyer was not his first career choice, however. While attending Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, he was managing editor of the school paper and worked for Huntington Publishing Company. With a degree in journalism in 1955 it seemed likely that he would continue to write news and features for the Huntington Herald Dispatch. "But I lifted my head one day and saw that something else was there."
In 1954, he had married his childhood friend, now a registered nurse. Troutman first met his wife Pat in 1939 when they were both in the first grade at Page, West Virginia. They continued to be friends throughout 12 years in public schools and four at Marshall University. "As pledge master for Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Russell conducted a one-man fight against hazing," she recalls. "This was possibly the first of many times he picked up the gauntlet, virtually alone, and prevailed against overwhelming odds." The Troutmans' friends hasten to add that Pat's support and understanding make it possible for him to be the crusader that he is.
The year 1955 was one of mixed emotions for President Troutman. His father who had been a practicing physician for 50 years died, his son, Holmes Russell, Jr., was born, and he began his first year of law school at the University of Miami. In 1958, he graduated from law school and began practicing law with the Ackerman firm in Orlando, becoming a partner three years later. In 1962, he left that firm and continued practice with Fishback, Davis, Dominick & Troutman in Orlando where he remained for seven years.
Troutman was elected president of the Orange County Bar Association in 1968, the year The Florida Bar gave the outstanding local bar award to it. He was one of the original incorporators, first vice president and president during the first full year in operation of the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association, Inc. Since 1968, he has conducted over 90 one-half hour talk shows on WFTV Channel 9, an ABC affiliate. The show continues every Sunday afternoon despite the momentum of President Troutman's other activities.
In an effort to slow down, Troutman left Orlando in 1969, taking his wife, sons Russell and Richard and daughter Teri to live in Winter Park. For two years he was a sole practitioner and then formed his present firm of Troutman, Parrish & Weeks.
The new Bar president neither smokes nor drinks. He and his family regularly attend services at the First Baptist Church of Orlando where Troutman was Sunday school teacher for senior high boys for seven years and chairman of the Board of Trustees. Quoting of the Scriptures intersperses his conversation as easily as quoting from the Bill of Rights he fights to preserve. He makes no claim to righteousness, and in fact, postponed his church's offer to designate him as a Deacon because he felt he has not yet attained the attributes of that office.
He has his quiet side too in which he indulges only when duty and preservation of principle are not at issue. At such times "I'm either playing tennis or thinking about playing tennis," he confesses about his addiction to the sport. Every Saturday and Sunday he plays until he is completely exhausted.
During less vigorous moments he plays ballads on his guitar, performing for church or other "friendly" groups, recalling those days back in West Virginia when he and his two sisters performed at PTA meetings.
President Troutman, like his admired Jonathan Livington Seagull, is not a conformist and is capable of great achievements. He will exhaust that potential this year for lawyers and the public they represent.
From:
The Florida Bar Journal
Volume 51, Number 6, June 1977
Troutman, Williams, Irvin, Green, Helms & Polich, P.A.
311 W. Fairbanks Avenue - Winter Park, Florida 32789 - Phone: (407) 647-2277