Justice Nicholson Inspires Area Lawyers to be Leaders and Legends

By Doug Potts

On September 12, Justice George W. Nicholson of the Third District Court of Appeal gave an inspiring address to a large group of attorneys and business people at Zigatos Restaurant. The luncheon meeting was sponsored by the SCBA affiliate, St. Thomas More Society, the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, and the LDS Business Association.

In his remarks, entitled “Lawyers as Leaders and Legends,” the Justice stated it was “important for lawyers to think about what it takes to be a leader; to conceive, plan and execute dreams, large and small, and to be a legend never, not ever for fame or fortune, but for service alone; unselfish, sustained service.”

He challenged his listeners to develop a life of service and sac­rifice similar to Branch Rickey, a lawyer who believed he had received a call of God to fight against racism. As co-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 became the first African-American to play in major league baseball.

Justice Nicholson recounted how Rickey's desire to eliminate racism grew from his college days when he coached the men's baseball team at Ohio Wesleyan University. When the team traveled to South Bend, Indiana to take on Notre Dame, a hotel manger refused to let a room to the team's sole black player. Rickey convinced the manger to allow the player to sleep in his room on a cot. When Rickey got to his room, he found the player sitting in a chair, sobbing, and pulling frantically at the skin on his hands. He said to Rickey, “It's my skin. If I could just tear it off, I'd be like everybody else.”

Justice Nicholson detailed how over the next four decades, Rickey overcame numerous obstacles to execute his plans for breaking that barrier. The Justice used Rickey's life to illustrate how execution is “an indispensable, but largely overlooked element of leadership. In short, meticulous monitoring, assessment, adjustment, and followup are central to achieving any worthwhile end, especially any transformational end.”

The Justice challenged his audience members to ask themselves about becoming leaders and legends “not in connection with achieving fame or fortune, or any public visibility at all. I believe we must do so to provoke ourselves into providing service to others and with impact. Good intentions, good plans, good delegating, are not enough. Rickey and Robinson were hands-on leaders. And so, we must be hands-on as well.”

Doug Potts is a staff attorney at the Third District Court of Appeal

November/December 2006