His Case Is For Law And Disorder -- Alva Long May Shake Up Bar Association
To say Alva Long's presence on the state bar association's board of governors may make a difference is a bit like suggesting Mount St. Helens could affect the environment.
Even a cursory review of Long's career as an attorney shows repeated eruptions against the established order.
Twenty years ago, Long recalled, he wore his hair ``down to my ass'' and marched side by side with University of Washington students who were protesting the Vietnam War.
He challenged the state's blue laws forbidding Sunday sales and local gambling interests, which led to his lifetime banishment from the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in Auburn.
He once even spent time in a Montana jail for urinating his name in wet concrete.
A self-described ``left-wing Democrat,'' Long continues to relish his reputation as an iconoclast and irreverent observer of the legal profession, a background that apparently helped him get elected this year to a board he perceives to be too autocratic and puffed up with its own importance.
The board of governors, elected by members of the Washington State Bar Association, plays an important role in the legal profession. It determines policies and oversees administration of the association, chartered in 1933 as an arm of the state Supreme Court. Among other things, the association lays down professional standards; administers bar exams; runs continuing legal education programs; and investigates misconduct complaints against lawyers.
Long was elected to the board last month. Board members serve three-year terms.
The son of a King County Superior Court judge, Long began practicing law 35 years ago. His unconventionality even extends to his desk - or lack of one - for the past 34 years. In his Auburn office, he props his feet up on a coffee table. The table sits in a rec-room type office with a motif he describes as ``early disaster decor.''
He likes to dress differently as well. The 63-year-old Long ``knots'' his tie by flipping it around and over. And he prefers neon colors and sneakers to three-piece suits and wingtips.
Married and divorced five times, the former saxophone player says his law practice today consists mainly of alcohol- and drug-related cases. Being a recovering alcoholic and drug addict helps him do a better job with his clients, he says.
``I'd rather do this,'' he says, ``because when my clients come in, I know they're lying. I've heard every lie or told every lie they've given me, anyway.''
While he may understand his clients well, Long has not always been recognized by his colleagues.
King County Deputy Prosecutor Jeanette Dalton recalls how early in her career she once mistook the flamboyantly dressed, hung-over-looking Long for one of Long's drunken-driver clients.
Then, with court in session, she recalled that Long dug into his pocket and whispered in her ear, ``Can I show you something?''
``I said `No, we're in front of the judge.' And Alva pulls out his teeth - his uppers - and says, `You know what? Look at this,' and on the underside it's got a peace symbol tattooed.''
Dalton says, ``You haven't been broken in as a prosecutor until you've got your Alva Long story.''
Despite his oddities, however, Dalton is confident Long will fit in on a board of more conventionally oriented attorneys.
``I'd say that Alva is eccentric but very well-respected for his skills as a lawyer. . . . I think he'll bring a breath of fresh air into that body,'' she says.
Board member James Turner, a Bellevue attorney who went to law school with Long, also sees the uniqueness of Long's approach.
``I've known Al for a long time; he has never been a person that runs with the crowd,'' Turner says. ``So in a lot of respects, I believe we should pay attention to people that don't run with the crowd.''
Board members say Long and the board will be a better match than either one might have anticipated.
``Alva will get a good reception and I think he'll find that the makeup of the board is different than he thinks it is. . . . There are small-firm lawyers who have a great concern of the common people and the common lawyer of this state . . .,'' says Jack Tolman, a Poulsbo lawyer and board member.
``Lem Howell, who was elected to the board last year, had a long history of taking on causes and issues. . . . Lem has been a great board member. He has given us a different side of things. . . . I trust Alva will, too.''
Longtime friend Jack Burgeson, a Seattle attorney who has known Long 25 years, says, ``I think he'll be an interesting experiment (on the board). Al's a very bright guy.
``He's also a very fearless guy. People might look at him and think he's asleep. They couldn't be further from the truth.''
To win a spot on the 10-member board, Long spent several thousand dollars, taking out a series of full-page ads in the Seattle-King County Bar Association's Bar Bulletin.
Headlined ``Take A Chance on Change,'' the ads promised to ``talk about things no one wants to talk about.''
Nothing appears sacred to Long.
``Everything has got to be on the table, including how the administration of the bar is put together,'' Long says.
Among those untouchable subjects is the association's budget.
For example, the state has roughly 16,000 lawyers, and each pays annual dues of nearly $200; this forms nearly half of the bar's $6.3 million annual budget.
Long's positions strike his critics as anything but progressive.
Kelly Corr, a 42-year-old partner at Bogle & Gates and Long's opponent for the at-large King County seat on the board, described him as ``terribly misguided'' on certain issues.
In a debate at the Seattle Public Library, Long called for an end to providing legal help for poor people by taking money from small, short-term trust accounts that belong to attorneys' clients.
It's not, Long explains, that he opposes helping the poor.
What he objects to ``is taking somebody else's money (the client's) to salve the conscience of the bar to fulfill our obligation to the public by supplying something by way of legal help to the people that can't afford it. . . . The end doesn't justify the means in any culture. . . .
``What we really need is to have the bar politically go to the Legislature and say, `Hey, this is what we need . . . public funding.' ''
Long and Corr also disagreed about the propriety of the bar's 13-year-old custom of spot audits of lawyers' trust accounts, in which the bar's computers randomly select lawyers.
``I take the position that they (the bar) should have reasonable grounds to believe that there's some reason to suspect'' wrongdoing, Long says.
Long also faults the bar for letting ``elevator attorneys'' (``the ones in the ivory towers of the big buildings in downtown Seattle'') turn the profession into a money-making business, instead of the one many thoughtful people joined ``to make a difference . . .''
``The bar association has kind of become an autocracy, and the people that are left out are the people that are defending the poor and the public defenders.''
Asked if he is concerned his fellow board members will regard him as a minority of one whose opinions will be humored but not seriously considered, Long says:
``I'm a voice in the wilderness as much as the spotted owl is, and the spotted owl is having a hell of an impact. I am not alone . . .
``I don't plan on making a difference as one man because a lot of people have called me a lot of things. Nobody thus far has called me stupid. There's no way that I'd walk in and say `I want to be the great dissenter.' I'm a team player and I don't compromise principle.''
He admitted the statement is paradoxical and somewhat at odds with his image. ``I don't fit in a box,'' he says.
``Basically I'm disarming. I just want to get the facts . . . and I'm not unmindful of who I represent.''
Howell, who is African American and the only minority member on the otherwise all-white, all-male board, recognizes the difference between Long and other attorneys.
``I'm afraid that sometimes board members forget that they represent day-to-day lawyers that practice, and sometimes we're too puffed up with our own importance rather than realize that we're just there to represent lawyers of the association,'' he says.
The message the rank and file sent the bar establishment by electing Long, Howell says, is ``they want someone to shake them up.''