The Better Chancery Practice Blog

Judge Gene Fair’s investiture as a judge of the Mississippi Court of Appeals on Friday, January 6, 2012.

COA hosts coffee and breakfast refreshments for supreme court, chancery and circuit judges before the ceremony

Chief Justice Waller's address

Judge Barbour administers the oath

Newly invested Judge Fair's address

Crowd gathering for the reception

Chancellor Jim Davidson, COA Judge Gene Fair, Chancellor Joey Kilgore, COA Judge Jimmy Maxwell

I’m hearing that Ron Doleac is appointed to take Chancellor Gene Fair’s poaition.

This may be the last substantive post here for 2011. The next you read here will come in 2012.

As with every year, 2011 provided its bounty of blessings and pestilence. Each of us can take stock of his or her own legacy from the passing year.

From the standpoint of the year’s end the coming year always glows bright with prospects. We hope for and expect better things.

In 2012, here’s what I look forward to:

• Judge Eugene Fair being sworn in as the newest member of the COA. It will be a great advantage to have the perspective of a chancellor on the appellate court.
• That our judges at all levels will continue to be dedicated and sincere in their pursuit of fairness and justice.
• That our lawyers will continue in their dedication to their role in the rule of law, and that they will continue to improve and grow in professionalism and skill.
• That the economy will recover.
• That our political leaders will put aside partisanship and actually govern our nation and state for the common good.
• That our families and all we love will be healthy and free from danger and care.
• That our favorite sports teams will do well (Lord knows, mine could not do worse … except for the Saints).

And … well, that should be enough wishful thinking to get us started.

For all of you who read this blog, I ask God’s blessings on you, and I wish you the best in the coming year. God bless us one and all!

Here’s the text of Gov. Barbour’s announcement:

GOV. BARBOUR APPOINTS FAIR AS STATE APPELLATE COURT JUSTICE

 JACKSON – Gov. Haley Barbour today announced the appointment of Chancellor Gene Fair of Hattiesburg as a justice on the Mississippi Court of Appeals. Fair replaces Justice William Myers, who will retire from the bench on Dec. 31.

Fair will hold the District 5, Position 1 seat on the state’s second highest court. The district includes Forrest, George, Greene, Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Lamar, Pearl River, Perry, Stone and parts of Wayne counties.

“Judge Fair brings extensive legal experience to the bench and will be an excellent jurist for the district,” Gov. Barbour said. “I appreciate Judge Fair’s commitment to serve in this new role.”

The Governor’s Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee reviewed applicants and recommended Fair to serve the remainder of Myers’ term in accordance with Executive Order 914. The 31-member committee includes a chairman and 10 attorneys from each of the state’s Supreme Court Districts.

Fair has served as Chancellor for the 10^th District Chancery Court since January 2007. Previously, he was in private practice in Hattiesburg. He also served as a lieutenant commander in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Fair served as vice chairman of the Mississippi Ethics Commission from 1984 to 2004, on the Judicial Nominating Committee under Gov. William Winter and on the Mississippi Supreme Court Committee on Technology. He also was board attorney for the Pat Harrison Waterway District from 1988 to 1992.  He is an Eagle Scout.

Fair, who was raised in Louisville, earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a law degree from the University of Mississippi.

Fair and his wife, Estella Galloway, have two children, Melissa and Julia, and four grandchildren. He is a trustee, elder and Sunday School teacher at Westminster Presbyterian Church of Hattiesburg.

Word on the street is that Chancellor Gene Fair of Hattiesburg will be announced as Gov. Barbour’s appointment to replace COA Judge Wm. Myers, who is resigning effective December 31.

No official announcement yet, and I haven’t been able to get in touch with Judge Fair, but if it’s true this is a good day for chancery practitioners throughout the state.

I’ll update this as soon as I have something more substantial.

We all have had a client or two who wished to wax eloquent in his or her will. You know what I’m talking about: a sermonette; a poem; an admonishment; a reproof; or even a love note. It happens, and you accommodate the client, blending the proffered language into your more prosaic will form, tucked strategically in among the bequests and devises. 

I came across a rather extreme example in the blog Futility Closet, and decided to share it with you:

At a dinner for law alumni of New York University in 1907, Walter Lloyd Smith of the New York Supreme Court read “the most remarkable document that ever came into his possession” — the will of an inmate of the Cook County Insane Asylum at Dunning, Ill.:

I, Charles Lounsbury, being of sound mind and disposing memory, do hereby make and publish this, my last will and testament, in order as justly as may be to distribute my interest in the world among succeeding men.

That part of my interest which is known in law and recognized in the sheep-bound volumes as my property, being inconsiderable and of no account, I make no disposal of in this my will.

My right to live, being but a life estate, is not at my disposal, but these things excepted all else in the world I now proceed to devise and bequeath.

Item: I give to good fathers and mothers, in trust for their children, all good little words of praise and encouragement, and all quaint pet names and endearments, and I charge said parents to use them justly and generously, as the needs of their children may require.

Item: I leave to children inclusively, but only for the term of their childhood, all and every, the flowers of the fields, and the blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely according to the customs of children, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. And I devise to children the banks of the brooks, and the golden sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odors of the willows that dip therein, and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees. And I leave the children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the night and the moon and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at, but subject nevertheless to the rights hereinafter given to lovers.

Item: I devise to boys jointly all the useful idle fields and commons where ball may be played; all pleasant waters where one may swim; all snowclad hills where one may coast, and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim Winter comes, one may skate; to have and to hold the same for the period of their boyhood. And all meadows with the clover blossoms and butterflies thereof, the woods and their appurtenances, the squirrels and the birds, and echoes and strange noises, and all distant places which may be visited, together with the adventures there found. And I give to said boys each his own place at the fireside at night, with all pictures that may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without let or hindrance and without any incumbrance of care.

Item: To lovers I devise their imaginary world with whatever they may need; as the stars of the sky; the red roses by the wall; the bloom of the hawthorn; the sweet strains of music, and aught else by which they may desire to figure to each others the lastingness and beauty of their love.

Item: To young men jointly, I devise and bequeath all boisterous, inspiring sports of rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weakness and undaunted confidence in their own strength, though they are rude; I give them the power to make lasting friendships, and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively I give all merry songs and brave choruses, to sing with lusty voices.

Item: And to those who are no longer children or youths or lovers, I leave memory, and I bequeath to them the volumes of the poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other poets, if there be others, to the end that they may live over the old days again, freely and fully, without tithe or diminution.

Item: To our loved ones with snowy crowns I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love and gratitude of their children until they fall asleep.

The original, it turns out, was written by Williston Fish in 1897 and published in Harper’s Weekly the following year. He had intended it as a poetic trifle, but newspapers around the country had picked it up and run it as fact, often embellishing the language, until, Fish wrote in 1908, “this one of my pieces has been translated into all the idiot tongues of English.” Charles Lounsbury was the name of an old relative of his — “a big, strong all-around good kind of man,” but not, evidently, insane.

In a couple of weeks, the population of the world will pass seven billion. That’s 7,000,000,000 people on the third rock from the sun.

BBC has a site where you can go, click in your birth date, and find out what number person you were on this planet.

The site tells me, based on my birth date, location and gender that:

• I am the 2,513,525,838th person born among the 7 billion pop.
• My life expectancy is 75.4 years (that will be in 2025 or so, for you “planners” out there).
• I was the  75,616,463,538th person to have lived since history began.

A UN site with even more detailed info is here.

If you enjoy stats, this is a thought-provoking and entertaining way to see how you fit into this rapidly changing — and growing — world.

So how will this help you practice law? I have no idea. I just found it interesting.