Earlier in this blog, I wanted to write about being a prosecutor and got a little sidetracked with my thoughts. That’s what this is all about; writing about what I have seen and done over my almost 90 years. So, before I get to the LA. D.A.’s Office, I would like the reader to get to know me and learn of the great changes over 9 decades.
So, let me take you to the 1950s.
Times were tough for new young lawyers striking out on their own. For me, it was work for office space, secretarial help and office supplies.
Stayed with the PI. lawyer for about a year. One of the secretaries referred me to a firm that did gas and oil law as their prime law business and had a back log of divorce cases
They offered me a chance to handle the family law matters, but clearly informed me that, when the cases were cleaned up, I could not stay because their main clientele would not appreciate a Jewish lawyer. Turned down the job
In those days, in the 1950s that was not unusual or unexpected. The law allowed segregated schools, restrictive covenants on deeds to property prohibiting houses, estates, property to have a clause running with the land to exclude Jews, Negroes ( that was the term used for Blacks or African Americans at the time), Asians. There were laws forbidding mixed marriages of Whites and Asians. Times changed with the Social Revolution, but not until the 1960s. Today, if a married couple decide to part all that has to be claimed is “Irreconcilable Differences” and the marriage is terminated. In the 50s, in order to get a divorce there had to be grounds and proof of those grounds such as Adultery, extreme physical or mental cruelty mental health such as insanity and so on. Not only must the person seeking a divorce prove the grounds, but there must be corroboration through an independent witness or other evidence to get relief. And, the spouse responsible for the destruction of the marriage contract is going to have to pay through the nose in alimony support and the division of the marital property. Today alimony is not so easily given and marital property is divided equally regardless o fault. I digress, sorry.
Well after about one year, I switched offices and went to work for an attorney for the same structure; work for space. The difference was location, The Taft Building located at the famous intersection of Hollywood Blvd. and Vine St. My father, Leo Schulman, migrated to California in 1921 as a young medical doctor, and his office was in The Taft Building, as well as Dr Ruth who was the UCLA Team Doctor, as well as the doctor who treated me for a skull fracture when I was 2 years old. Interesting coincidence. Later I will relate the very sad story of my parents, their marriage, divorce, addiction.and how a person and family can be on top of the world one day, and when tragedy occurs, how it all goes to shambles. I want to save that story for later.
Stan Levinson was a graduate of the first UCLA law class, a class of only 50 hand-picked students. UCLA first started their classes housed in Quonset Huts, but by 1949 had a very nice Law School Building. Their professors were of renown. I used to use their library for studying for the Bar Exam and met most of the UCLA class, as well as we were taking the same Bar Review class preparing for the Bar Exam.
I must say I was well prepared and aced the Bar Exam. I thought the Loyola Law School Exams were a lot harder.
Stan was also sharing space for work in the Hollywood Office. We knew each other from the Bar Review course and my study time at UCLA law library. We hit it off. Stan had some business type clients, including collection agencies, debtors and general business, such as creating corporations, drafting wills, divorces and the general stuff that pays the rent.
We decided to become partners. Moved to a location on Crenshaw Blvd. renting a desk and some very little space for an old Underwood Typewriter for drafting our pleadings. We were doing OK and our firm started to make some money, enough to pay our bills with a little extra. I should mention the space was also held by two CPAs Good guys and one became a personal friend.
Stan served in the US Army Infantry in Europe during World War II. His feet were frozen with frostbite. As a result he later contracted a terrible skin condition consisting of blisters eventually throughout his body. Stan had to go to the VA Hospital and never left. He died there. a very young man.
When Stan went into the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles, I then had to do the work of two, drafting pleadings, going to Court and everything else required of a two-man firm. It wasn’t easy, started grinding my teeth to the extent a dentist created a mouth-guard so I would not lose my teeth by grinding, and I wear a mouth-guard to this day as a result of the grinding.
I had put a client who was way over his head in debt through bankruptcy. Then, one day Ralph Dixon came to my office on Crenshaw Blvd between Olympic Blvd. and Pico Blvd, introduced himself as the supervisor of some small loan offices and said, look your client submitted a false financial statement, not listing all of his creditors, and thus the bankruptcy cannot discharge the debt under California and Federal Law. I stalled in order to research. Ralph Dixon was 20 years my senior and had graduated from Ohio State University Law School at the height of the Depression. No law jobs. So, he took a job as a loan officer to pay the bills.
He was right and we worked at a re-institute of the small loan. Later, Ralph approached me wanting to know if I was interested in representing his 8 or 9 stores and, if so, would I prepare a fee arrangement covering the charges for the different stages of collection from a demand letter to a pleading to a court appearance. I did, and Ralph got permission from his supervisor to hire me. This was the beginning of a long term relationship, from his growth from Supervisor of a few offices to area supervisor to eventually vice president of the company to in 1965 and his retirement to practice law in Santa Ana, California where he joined with a lawyer who had left the LADA’s Office to venture into private practice in Orange County, California. The name of the new firm was “Schulman and Dixon” Attorneys at Law. More to come particularly “Why a DA?”
Marshall Schulman
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