Perched
high atop the Downtown Albuquerque Plaza office
building, the main conference room of the law
firm of Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb
commands an unparalleled vista of Albuquerque
and the surroundings. It is very similar to the long history of the firm: elevated
and unparalleled.
Tracing its roots back in New Mexico for more than 100 years,
the firm has been an integral part of the growth of the state
and of the Duke City in particular.
The University of
New Mexico campus, as a matter of fact, might have ended
up somewhere other
than Albuquerque but
for the founding Rodey in the firm, said Rex D. Throckmorton,
the firm’s managing director.
 1885: Former
U.S. District Court Judge Bernard S. Rodey sits at his
desk in this photo taken about 1885. Law clerk Al Coddington,
Rodey's brother-in-law, works in the center background
and an unidentified secretary sits at a typewriter.
In 1889, years before
New Mexico became a state, the Territorial Legislature
had to decide
which of the state’s two largest
towns would get the proposed campus: the capital of Santa
Fe or Las Vegas.
Bernard S. Rodey, at the time a judge in the territory,
thought a third town should be in the running.
He pushed hard for
the dusty, backwater burg of Albuquerque. His oratory skills
honed in the courtroom
have been credited
with helping him win the day. He eventually became one of
the authors of the statute that created UNM and earned him
the moniker “Father of the University,” Throckmorton
said.
That started a long and fruitful relationship between the
university and the firm, which continues to this day.
Earlier this year, the estate of the partner Don Dickason,
who died in 1999, bequeathed the UNM School of Law $1 million
to be used to support two professorships.
And the firm itself recently committed $100,000 to the law
school for a renovation and building program.
The firm also sponsors an annual law school scholarship
and usually hires several second-year students as law clerks
during the summer. Rodey attorneys have been adjunct and
visiting professors at the law school.
That spirit of giving
back to the community that was instilled in the firm’s infancy was continued by Pearce Rodey,
who followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the
firm in 1915. He helped organize the middle Rio Grande Conservancy
District, providing irrigation and flood control for the
valley.
Jackson Akin, one of three firm members to argue a case
before the U.S. Supreme Court, helped form the Medical-Legal
Malpractice Panel to hear and resolve malpractice claims
fairly and amicably. The panel became a model for other states
and eventually became a part of state law under the Medical
Malpractice Act.
Partner John D. Robb helped establish the Legal Service
Corp., which provides legal services for the poor, and led
an effort that resulted in 3,299 hours of free legal aid
for indigents this past year.
And it all began in a modest, second-floor, one-room office
more than 117 years ago. The office above the Madell Clothing
Shop on what is now Central Avenue was heated with a wood
stove and used gas lamps for light.
Today, attorneys and staff have plenty of elbow room. They
can gaze east from the main conference room, surveying the
glowing pinks on the Sandia Mountains during the afternoon,
and then move to the secondary conference room on the west
to watch the sun set against the backdrop of the Rio Grande
bosque, the volcanoes and distant Mount Taylor.
The office covers
the 21st and 22nd floors of the Plaza, also known as the
Hyatt Office building,
the state’s
tallest building.
The firm has now reached a point at which 16 of the 60-some
attorneys on staff are listed in the publication Best Lawyers
in America.
 2000: From
left are attorneys Jackson G. Akin, John D. Robb, Rex D.
Throckmorton, John P. Salazar and Catherine T. Goldberg
of the law firm of Rodey, Dickason, Sloan Akin & Robb.
The business’ legal expertise
includes general liability, employment, malpractice, product
and professional liability,
intellectual property, and commercial, environmental and
natural resources law.
In the biggest court in the land, the Rodey firm has held
its own - a sure sign of success.
Akin, who retired several years ago after a career at Rodey
that spanned almost 50 years, went up before the Supreme
Court in 1953 representing Aetna Life Insurance Co. against
the U.S. Government to determine whether insurance companies
were liable because of the negligence or fault of the government.
"I won the case," Akin said. "That
was quite an experience. When I was arguing before Justice
Felix Frankfurter,
he said to me, 'What we really have here is a Hobson's Choice.'
I had no idea what that was, but I said, 'That's exactly
right.' I could hardly wait to get out of court that day
to find out what that was."
A Hobson's Choice is one in which there is no real alternative
to the option offered.
| Principals: |
Privately Owned |
| Products/Services: |
Business and civil litigation |
| Year Founded: |
1883 |
| No. of Locations: |
Two, Downtown Albuquerque; [Downtown Santa Fe] |
| No. of Employees: |
62 attorneys and 80 full-time support staff |
| Business Tip: |
"We try to bring in the top graduates from the
law schools and find people that fit in with our style." -
Rex D. Throckmorton" |
|
