Read Article (June 2002)

The Founder: 1852-1904
A Gentlemen's Firm: 1904-1945
The Thurber Era: 1945-1980
Change and Continuity: 1980-2002

The Founder: 1852-1904

Sidney Davy Miller

The law firm that became Miller Canfield was founded in Detroit in 1852, when ships' masts studded the city's riverfront and the Erie Canal rivaled the railroads. In that year a young lawyer named Sidney Davy Miller, fresh from the University of Michigan and Harvard Law, opened an office at 168 Jefferson Avenue. He was talented and well-connected, a hard worker with a dry sense of humor and a powerful civic conscience.

Gifted with these traits, Miller also owed his rise to prominence and the staying power of his firm to the character of Detroit and Michigan in the mid-1800s. The city was then bursting with immigrants, mostly working men and their families-dockworkers, shipbuilders, sawyers and clerks, who needed a place to save a portion of their earnings against the vagaries of old age. Yet the state had been swept clean of banks in the fiscal crisis of the 1830s and '40s, and those that reopened catered only to business. In 1849, the state had authorized an institution devoted strictly to individual savings, without the power to issue notes or make loans. It was named the Detroit Savings Fund Institute, and Sidney Miller became its first attorney. The organization would change its name to the Detroit Savings Bank, The Detroit Bank, Detroit Bank & Trust, and finally, in the distant future, Comerica. This was to be the most significant professional association of Miller's career, and the foundation upon which the firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone was built.

The "Bank Chambers"

Miller's practice, rooted in the bank, spread rapidly. He soon represented Eber Ward, the first steelmaker in the U.S. to use the revolutionary Bessemer process; Dr. Samuel Duffield, who founded the pharmaceutical firm that would become Parke, Davis & Co., by 1880 the world's largest drugmaker; and clients throughout Michigan, the Midwest and beyond, to Philadelphia, New York, even Paris. At the same time, Miller was highly active in the wider life of his city, serving on many public commissions and in many private charities.

In 1883, Miller was named the third president of the Detroit Savings Bank. In six years he nearly doubled its assets, and when the Panic of 1893 touched off a four-year nationwide depression, including the failure of some 500 American banks, Miller was among the Detroit banking leaders who cooperated to ensure that not a single bank in the city went under. When he died in 1904 at the age of 73, the Detroit Free Press called him "a man of the people, conscious of his moral and ethical obligations to his brother citizen and these he discharged to the letter."

A Gentlemen's Firm, 1904-1945
Sidney Davy Miller is best seen as the grandfather of Miller Canfield. His son, Sidney Trowbridge Miller, was the father of the firm we know today. As Detroit rose from a provincial commercial hub to a behemoth of industry, the second Sidney Miller transformed a successful but small law office into a multi-dimensional firm prepared for the full range of practice in a complex industrial society. The younger Miller's life was a bridge from his father's time to our own, from frontier law to the high professionalism that characterized the best American firms of the mid-twentieth century.

"Sidney T.," as family and friends knew him, was the sort of young man who seemed born to succeed in any pursuit he tried. At Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut-where he met his future wife, Lucy Trumbull Robinson-he excelled in football, baseball and track. After Harvard Law, he returned to Detroit, where he was captain of the first Detroit Athletic Club football team. For a year he studied law at his father's side, then joined him in practice in 1888. From that point forward, Sidney T. Miller was the principal force shaping the character and practice of the firm.

As his father spent more time on the bank and less on the law, young Miller reached out to friends and family to build a firm of his own. The first major step came in 1902, when he and James Cosslett Smith, another associate, joined forces with Lewis H. Paddock and Charles T. Alexander. Smith's wife and Paddock's wife were sisters; Alexander was Miller's cousin. Paddock, like Miller, was a Trinity College man, though four years younger. His athletic credentials may have attracted Miller's notice; he was for several years the city's tennis champion. He and Alexander had practiced as partners for a couple of years when Miller drew them into his fold, forming the firm of Miller, Smith, Alexander and Paddock. They were among the first tenants of the new Penobscot Building, which would be the firm's home for some sixty years.

To build the firm's expertise in admiralty law-a major specialty in the Great Lakes cities of that era-Miller turned to a father and son, Frank H. and George L. Canfield, perhaps the foremost admiralty practitioners in the Midwest. The latter became a partner. By 1920, with the hiring of Ferris D. Stone, the firm took the name Miller, Canfield, Paddock, and Stone. The next partner, named in 1926, was a highly capable youngster named Cleveland Thurber. But it was decided-perhaps because several name changes had occured within several years-that the name should remain stable for the time being. Nearly eighty years later, that decision remains unrescinded.

In some firms of the 21st century, the phrase "public service" is regarded either as an anachronism or as a public-relations buzzword. In Sidney T. Miller's world, it defined an approach to legal practice. Surely his good name in the community channeled many clients to Miller Canfield. Yet just as surely, the heroic scope of his work for public institutions and charities suggests a generous spirit and a conception of the lawyer's role that transcended the mere advancement of client, firm and self. He served countless community organizations, including schools and hospitals. These connections, augmenting his father's, built a formidable stable of clients which ranged from the Packard Motor Car Company to the Detroit Free Press to numerous prominent families. In the 1920s, as Detroit expanded in its geographic reach and began to spawn suburbs, the firm's connection with the banking industry led to a signature specialty in the new field of local government bonds. Among the beneficiaries of the firm's expertise in this area were the University of Michigan and Michigan State College, where new dormitories sprang up thanks to Miller Canfield's innovations in financing.

Sidney Trowbridge Miller, Jr.

In 1921, Sidney Trowbridge Miller, Jr., joined his father's firm and swiftly established a reputation as one of Detroit's ablest corporation lawyers. When the Great Depression struck Detroit with particular ferocity, precipitating a banking crisis that threatened to spread across the U.S., it was the third Sidney Miller who persuaded state regulators that the Detroit Savings Bank was sound and could remain open for business, even as other banks collapsed around it. By the fall of 1933, it was the largest state bank in Michigan. It seemed clear that the youngest Miller would succeed his father as head of the firm. But in 1936 he died of pleurisy. His father lived on until 1940. In the intervening four years, Sidney T. Miller groomed Cleveland Thurber for the leadership role that would have fallen to his namesake. In fact, many said Thurber became Miller's surrogate son.

The Thurber Era: 1945-1980
Cleveland Thurber was the son of a prominent Detroit lawyer who served as private secretary to President Grover Cleveland. By the age of eight he lost both of his parents, and so was raised in the custody of two aunts-one of whom married into the Canfield family. He gravitated toward his father's profession, and after service in World War I and Harvard Law, he joined Miller Canfield.

In the history of the firm, it appears that only Sidney T. Miller, Jr., served a shorter apprenticeship. Thurber advised important clients and worked on important cases from early in his career. Qualities that inspired confidence throughout his life-high intelligence, a keen perceptiveness about people, his father's charm and tact-made a deep impression on Sidney Trowbridge Miller. It was a natural fit-the father who had lost his son, the son who had lost his father, the older man passing knowledge and responsibilities to the younger. After the elder Miller's death in 1940 and the death of Ferris Stone in 1945, leadership passed into Thurber's hands.

With Thurber very much in command, the senior attorneys-including Lawrence King, Edward Reid, Emmett Eagan and William Butler-presided over a measured expansion of the firm's geographic reach and its range of specialties. Offering wages of $200 per month, they hired a cadre of excellent young lawyers, most of them veterans of World War II and the Korean War, who would become the firm's backbone-John Gilray, James Tobin, Berrien Eaton, Stratton Brown, Richard Gushee, George Bushnell, Peter Thurber, and Lawrence King, Jr. "It was a very different time," Bushnell recalled, "but we had fun. We all knew one another. We all helped one another. And we just had one hell of a great time."

Stratton Brown
Mackinac Bridge

Under the leadership of Stratton Brown, the firm's bond practice became its best-known specialty. Brown rose to national prominence in the field. While growing the bond department from three lawyers to twenty, he drafted key laws establishing state housing and hospital authorities and testified frequently on issues of public finance. His handiwork can be seen across Michigan, in the highways, roads, sewer systems, schools, hospitals and factories that were built with the help of Miller Canfield's bond department. The most famous of the firm's bond projects was the Straits of Mackinac Bridge, a critical link in the nation's transportation system, not to mention the physical and social geography of Michigan, and for a time the longest suspension bridge in the world.

The easy collegiality and friendship among these lawyers of the postwar generation persisted as they moved into partnership and became the firm's backbone. In 1966, those characteristics were evident to Robert Gilbert, who would join the firm in that year and later become its chief executive officer. "Miller Canfield struck me as a place where people were genuinely nice, where people weren't pretentious," he said. "They were decent human beings." Gilbert also perceived that Miller Canfield tolerated diverse opinions and philosophies. "There was almost a gentleman's agreement that if you functioned responsibly as a lawyer, you were not going to be forced into any pattern," he recalled. "Almost every organization tries to set a pattern of acceptable beliefs for its people. There's 'the right mindset,' and there wasn't that at Miller Canfield."

As the members of Thurber's generation began to retire in the 1960s and '70s, the postwar group increasingly set the tone of the firm, a hard-to-define yet distinctive mixture of integrity, collegiality, intellect, informality and humor. The lawyers who learned the profession under that post-war group invariably speak of the powerful examples they set. Collectively, they provided a model of how to practice law that persisted in the firm's institutional memory long after their retirement. Simple honesty and fair dealing were the sine qua nons, with clients and opponents alike. David Joswick, who joined the firm in 1969 and worked closely with Gushee for many years, remarked: "Dick has always said not, 'What can we do?' but, 'What should we do?' That stuck with me."

Change and Continuity, 1980-2002
Cleveland Thurber retired in 1980 after arranging for a more democratic method of governing the firm. For more than a century, the size and influence of Sidney Davy Miller's firm had grown by increments that were scarcely perceptible from one year to the next. But the quarter-century after Thurber's tenure saw greater changes than in the firm's entire previous history. The number of partners and associates grew five fold. The firm's geographic reach expanded enormously. Its membership came much more closely to resemble the cultural profile of the communities it served. Technology and market competition quickened the pace of practice. Yet the traditions that earlier generations had nurtured remained strong-traditions of collegiality and mentoring between partners and associates; a sense of obligation to the communities in which the firm worked; and high professional standards in serving clients and society.

Year by year, as each class of associates grew larger than the last, growth allowed the firm to take larger strides toward the diversity that many lawyers felt it should achieve. Among the earliest women to sign on were Gillian Steinhauer; Donna Donati, a native Detroiter and graduate of Wayne State and Michigan Law; Maureen Aughton; Beverly Hall Burns, a Michigan Law graduate who had been city editor of the Lansing State Journal; Marjorie Basile, another Detroit native and a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Detroit Law School; and Amanda Van Dusen, a graduate of Williams College (the Thurbers' alma mater) and Michigan Law, and the daughter of Richard Van Dusen, a major figure in the history of Dickinson Wright. By 2002, there were nearly sixty women attorneys in the firm. Each crop of new associates included roughly as many women as men. And no one any longer gave a thought to a prospective associate's ethnic origin or religion.

Black attorneys and women attorneys rose to partnership and assumed leadership positions throughout the firm. By 1993, an independent national survey revealed that Miller Canfield had more black partners than any other major firm in the United States. Leonard Givens became head of the labor and employment group and CEO of the firm. Mack Faison became head of the product liability group. Marjorie Basile led the intellectual property group. Both Beverly Burns and Donna Donati became deputy leader of the labor and employment group, and Burns became deputy CEO of the firm. Amanda Van Dusen became deputy leader of the public law group. Dawn Schluter became co-leader of the personal services group.

Opportunities for growth-and the pressure of competition from other firms-spurred the firm to undertake an ambitious series of expansions. The firm's first suburban office had opened in Birmingham in the 1950s. Now, starting in the late 1970s, there came a rapid-fire expansion to Monroe (1978); Lansing (1980); Washington, D.C. (1981); Pensacola, Florida (1994); and New York City (1996). In 1984, Miller Canfield merged with the Kalamazoo firm of Brown, Colman and DeMent. About the same time, a major presence was established in Grand Rapids. In 1984, the firm merged with the Ann Arbor firm of DeVine, DeVine, Kantor and Serr. And through the fortuitous expertise and connections of the firm's Richard Walawender, the firm joined the rebuilding of Eastern Europe with the establishment of Miller Canfield in Poland, a firm of thirty attorneys with offices in Gdansk/Gdynia, Wroclaw and Warsaw.

The firm's most recent move to broaden its international capabilities occurred much closer to home. In January 2002, Miller Canfield combined with Wilson Walker Hochberg Slopen LLP, the largest firm in Windsor, Ontario. Founded in 1919, Wilson Walker has focused on providing legal services to foreign corporations and investors seeking to do business in Canada. The combination comes at a time when U.S.-Canadian trade is increasingly important to the economies on both sides of the border. "Combining an American and a Canadian law firm broadens our ability to provide legal services to organizations doing business in North America," said CEO Thom Linn, "and greatly expands our ability to offer clients seamless, cross-border representation."

The Madden Building

Growth in the number of attorneys has been extraordinary. Compare, for example, the year 1971, when two lawyers joined the firm, to 1984, when newcomers numbered fifty, or 1985, when fifty-three came on board. By 1993 the firm was again the largest in Michigan, with 244 attorneys to Dykema Gossett's 241. In the late 1980s, quarters in the Comerica building in Detroit had grown so tight that the firm needed new space after a quarter-century at West Fort and Congress. The partners agreed to become the anchor tenants in the new Madden Building at 150 West Jefferson, the first major office building erected in downtown Detroit since the opening of the Renaissance Center in 1976. By the eve of the firm's sesquicentennial in 2002, the number of attorneys had passed 260, with a support staff of some 300.

To better prepare associates and staff for the practicalities of modern legal practice, firm leaders in 1999 established an ambitious in-house program in continuing legal education. It carries the tongue-in-cheek title of "Miller Canfield University," but MCU is no joke. New lawyers and support staff are expected to choose from a range of semester-long courses in five "colleges"-practice development; technology; substantive law; practice management and economics; and personal development. All these areas are slighted or ignored in most law schools; the firm aimed to help new members learn about these matters at the outset of their careers, rather than picking up scattered details over years of day-to-day practice. Courses are taught by members of the firm, clients, and professional educators. It's an example of the firm's commitment to the future and to the task of helping attorneys and staff develop satisfying and beneficial careers.

As the firm's 150th anniversary approached, it sometimes seemed as if change itself were the only norm. Yet powerful traditions that had begun with the Millers themselves-high integrity, strong collegiality, and community service-remained the defining marks of Miller Canfield. Members of the firm continue to make extraordinary volunteer contributions to civic life in general and to the profession in particular. A few examples suggest the breadth of this commitment. Organizations assisted by Miller Canfield members include Big Brothers/Big Sisters; the NAACP; Catholic Social Services; the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith; Food Gatherers; Goodwill Industries; Inner City Youth Basketball; the Nature Conservancy; and countless churches, hospitals, colleges and schools.

Though it was impossible in such a large organization to maintain the web of personal relationships that had characterized earlier decades, strong friendships, professional and personal, remained common in each office of the firm. Miller Canfield remained well-known, too, for strong relationships between partners and associates. Because the firm continued to entrust associates with substantial responsibilities early in their careers, good mentoring was no less essential than innate ability and hard work. "Bob Gilbert was a wonderful mentor to me because Stratt Brown was a wonderful mentor to him," said Timothy Sochocki. "If I'm a good mentor, it's because I was well trained. I should be a good mentor."

As for the firm's ability to maintain its integrity amid the pressure of change and competition, it ultimately relies, as in every organization, upon the character of its individual members and the example of those who have gone before. "I think it starts with the shining examples of people like Jim Tobin, Stratt Brown, Dick Gushee," said Jerry Rupley, deputy resident director of the Detroit office. "It's always easy to step back and say, 'Is this the way those guys would do it?' That's been a really fine moral guidepost. I think that's helped a lot."

For more information, see Miller Canfield at 150: An Informal History (2002), available at each of the firm's offices.