It’s All in the Family

Generation after generation, MSU-DCL prepares students for success.

BY CHRIS HENNING Search engine Google® turns up 849,000 results for fathers and sons, and 673,000 for mothers and daughters. Uncles and nephews registers more than 370. Throw in 102 million results for law and another 3.2 million for family legacies, and you’re looking at more than 106 million starting points for gaining an appreciation of a family’s legacy in the practice of law. You could also whittle your search by dropping by the Amazon.com “bookstore” and trolling its list of more than 200,000 titles on the same topics. Better yet, look no further than Michigan State University-DCL College of Law, where you’ll find familial connections, revered legacies, and shared journeys in life and law. Frederick G. Ecclestone, ’76, was named after his uncle, a 1940 DCL graduate who was killed in Anzio, Italy, during World War II. Ward D. Powers, ’51, and his son, Ward M. Powers, ’82, practiced in the same firm for 13 years. Denis D. Walterreit, ’91, and his daughter, Janice Terry, ’92, attended law school at the same time. Was it nature or nurture that delivered another generation from these families to DCL? Legend and lore? Circumstance or happenstance? Maybe a little of everything, but in no case, they all say, was it ever “push or shove.” “My father never told me I had to be an attorney,” recalls Ward M. Powers. “He never brought his work home with him, didn’t talk about clients or cases or issues at the dinner table. A couple of times a year, he’d take us kids down to his office and we’d open his mail and spend the day with him. As far back as I remember, I wanted to be a lawyer—not a policeman or a fireman like other kids did. And it was by his example that I saw that it was a desirable profession.” Ward M. Powers, ’82 “Everything was there for you to arrive at the level you wanted…every opportunity was there to succeed. I never wished I’d gone to Notre Dame or U-M. DCL gave you everything you needed to prepare yourself for a successful practice. The practice of law has been everything I expected it to be and, in some ways, even more.” Says his father, Ward D. Powers, “He just sort of went that way.” For Ward M., “that way” included first clerking at a firm in downtown Detroit while attending DCL; in the meantime, his father—after a 31-year run as a solo practitioner—took over a smaller firm, with eyes on the future, including his son’s future. Ward M. Powers, ’82, and his father, Ward D., ’51, practiced together. “In large part,” says Ward M., “he was creating a place for me to go after I graduated. And while Dad and I worked together in the same firm, we always had different clients. It was perfect—we’d have lunch together practically every day, and never had to quibble about how to handle something on a case.” “We had a great time working together,” says “Dad,” Ward D. “And about the time I retired, he left to head out on his own. We had a different philosophy—and it all comes down to what you accomplish, not how you accomplish it. He’s an excellent attorney.” Ward D. Powers, ’51 “It really was a working school back then, a very different kind of education…DCL was one small building surrounded by a barbed wire fence. You had to have a guard walk you across the street from the parking lot. When I saw [the new] MSU-DCL, I was favorably impressed.” Recalls Ward M. Powers of the first step he took on his journey at DCL: “My dad was still working downtown then, and he dropped me off the first day. I have a lot of memories about that day—buying books for class, knowing he’d bought his in the same store; going into the building for class, knowing he’d gone to school in the same building. He helped me get started at DCL. And for me, I had the sense that I was carrying the torch for another generation.” Denis D. Walterriet, ’91, and his daughter, Janice Terry, ’92, attended law school together. Denis Walterreit, on the other hand, took a cue from himself—a tip he was passing on to his daughter, Janice Terry. She had just graduated from Western Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, but wasn’t sure what she wanted to do next. Why not try law school, he suggested. “I saw that all her interests would’ve required a PhD,” says Walterreit, “and I thought she could short-circuit that with a law degree. It’s good training to get into just about any field. At the time, I was a parish pastor and was also selling medical exams to plaintiff attorneys and doing other jobs that brought me into contact with attorneys and doctors. Then I asked myself, ‘If law school is so good for her, why don’t I do it?’” He did, she followed, and the father-daughter duo was off. Denis D. Walterreit, ’91 “What DCL did for me was provide me enough contacts that I could go to work while I was in school and learn the practice of law as a clerk. There are a lot of subtleties to law, and I learned by doing. The classes fed my outside activities, and my outside activities helped me in the classroom.” “I hadn’t lived with this lifelong ambition to be an attorney,” says Terry. “It just sort of happened. My father has always been there to guide me gently, never overbearing—just extremely supportive. And when I got into law school, and realized what I’d gotten myself into, he was there then, too. He helped keep my confidence level up, support me emotionally. It was a good thing he was there.” It was a good thing, her father agrees. “It was a lot of fun. We’ve always had a real nice relationship and have always spent a lot of time together. When she was younger, I’d drive her to track meets, do the cooking at night. And when we were in school together, it was my life experiences—experiences she hadn’t yet had—that gave me an opportunity to do some real mentoring.” Janice Terry, ’92 “After graduating from DCL, I felt I was very well prepared for prosecution…DCL is geared toward courtroom experience—and advocacy, which I do now, is a big part of that.” Despite taking the same classes, the two rarely found themselves in the same classroom. “We didn’t really hang out together,” says Terry. “Occasionally we’d run into each other, but we had our own class and our own group of people and friends.” They both admit to commiserating then and now on the finer points of law, and the minor points of law school—not cases—when they’d get together. Walterreit closed his private practice in the Detroit metro area to move to Mt. Pleasant and become a Tribal Court judge for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan. Terry was already living in Mt. Pleasant and was an assistant prosecutor for Isabella County; just recently, she left the prosecutor’s office for a job as a recipient rights advisor for the State of Michigan, acting as an advocate for persons with developmental disabilities and mental illness who reside at the Mt. Pleasant Center. “This really feels like the right thing for me, the right thing to do—to do something to help people who really need help,” she says. Once a classroom or two away from each other, the father-and-daughter DCL alumni are now just a stone’s throw away, living across the road from each other. Frederick G. Ecclestone, ’76, holds the memorial plaque honoring his uncle, Frederick G. Ecclestone, ’40, and six other DCL graduates who died during World War II. Ecclestone is joined by his daughters, Julie (left), MSU Class of 2005, and Jennifer, MSU Class of 2008, during a recent visit to the law college. The plaque, which hung in the old building in downtown Detroit, was rediscovered in storage at MSU-DCL’s new building when Ecclestone inquired about its status. It will be remounted and placed in a prominent location at the school. Says Ecclestone, “I’m proud to have been a part of the process to have that plaque resurrected to a place of honor at the school, not only for my family, but the families of other DCL graduates also mentioned as having served their country so honorably. The legacy, therefore, lives on for all of those families as well.” The plaque is inscribed: “In memory of the men of this college who gave their lives in the service of their country in World War II. Raymond John Ala, WillThe plaque is inscribed: “In memory of the men of this college who gave their lives in the service of their country in World War II. Raymond John Ala, William Edward Bowler, Cyril Gordon Brown, Jr., Fred George Ecclestone, Lawrence L. Heideman, Hubert G. McIntyre, William Anthony Richards.”iam Edward Bowler, Cyril Gordon Brown, Jr., Fred George Ecclestone, Lawrence L. Heideman, Hubert G. McIntyre, William Anthony Richards.” Frederick G. Ecclestone, above, was never close to his namesake—not physically close, that is. “Uncle Fred” died six years before the younger Ecclestone was born. But the legend, the lore and the love live on in countless other ways. Ecclestone heard stories about his uncle, his father’s brother—a 1940 DCL graduate who only briefly practiced law before joining the Army and being sent abroad. He heard how his uncle single-handedly captured 29 enemy soldiers, allowing his company to achieve its mission; how his bravery earned him the Silver Star; and how he died in Anzio, Italy. He saw the pictures, sat at the same table his uncle did, celebrating holidays with a close extended family. And he carried his uncle’s name with pride. Fred G. Ecclestone, ’76 “There’s no question about the quality of preparation you get. The educational experience was broad, and the majority of the instructors were extraordinarily strong. There was a tremendous bonding with other students, too—and some of the friends I made at DCL are still my friends today.” “I knew I was his namesake,” says Ecclestone, “and it was sort of surreal to know he’d gone to DCL, too, but it wasn’t for a long time that I put together how similar we are.” Every day during law school, he walked past a plaque memorializing his uncle. “I felt a connection to him, though I never met him—we went through the same legal training; we both came out with a diploma. Whether it was the stories I heard, or a calling to come here, I definitely felt a bond to the school and to the practice of law.” Despite the bond he felt with an uncle he never knew, it wasn’t always a calling to law that he heard. “My first love was medicine, and I started out in pre-med. Organic chemistry at Princeton University changed my mind.” He found the best of both worlds practicing personal injury defense. “Damage suits were tied indirectly to anatomy issues. I loved it.” Fast-forward by 24 years, enter tort reform, and Ecclestone, as a sole practitioner, found himself out of a job. “Most people think of the practice of law as being a secure job, immune from layoffs.” Not so. Since then, he’s done commercial real estate, and says being well schooled and experienced in legal transactions has made the transition smoother. But he misses law. “I didn’t fire the law,” he says. “The law fired me. I would love to re-enter the practice one day.” Whether legend or lore, nature or nurture, circumstance or happenstance, the legacy lives on…the ties that bind drawing close one generation to another, one family at a time.