Passing the Torch

By Alexis Brekke

As a young Oak Ridge lawyer in late 1950s, he wouldn't call it quits at the office until the lights went off in his opponent's windows. As a Tennessee Supreme Court Justice, he brought the court's docket to Tennessee 's high schools to teach students about the law. As a University of Tennessee alumnus, he has spoken at numerous College of Law ceremonies and events and has served as president of the Anderson County UT Alumni Association.

And as a matter of habit, he said, he'll usually “have three or four books open all the time.”

“Right now I'm reading Madeleine Albright's autobiography, I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's latest, and I'm reading the latest book about Sandra Day O'Connor,” he said. He's a devoted reader and collector of books on political thought, but enjoys John Updike when he wants a dose of fiction.

Tennessee Supreme Court Justice E. Riley Anderson has served on the “court of last resort” for the past 16 years. He was first elected in 1990, and the five members of the court voted him chief justice in 1994. He was re-elected in 1997 and 1998, and also served for a short time in 2005. While Anderson served as chief justice, the court worked hard to improve the efficiency of the court system, to modernize Tennessee 's laws and to initiate and support programs designed to educate the public about the legal system.

He recently announced his retirement, effective Aug. 31 of this year.

College of Law Dean Tom Galligan , a long-time friend of Anderson , said he felt “a combination of emotions” when he learned of Anderson 's retirement plans. “I felt happiness for him. I felt pride on behalf of the institution that we have graduates like him,” he said. “I also felt a little sad for the state of Tennessee because there are few like him, and those are big shoes to fill.”

Anderson 's service on the Supreme Court represents the culmination of a life dedicated to the law. Before his election to the state supreme court in 1990, Anderson was appointed by Gov. Ned McWherter to the Court of Appeals where he served for two years. Before becoming a judge, he practiced law for 30 years in Oak Ridge .

Preparation for Anderson 's 48-year law career began at the University of Tennessee where the Knoxville native graduated with a degree in finance in 1955 and then earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the College of Law in 1957.

Instruction and guidance from the college's educators had a lasting impact on Anderson . Several names stand out in his mind: Professors Harold Warner, Forrest Lacey and E.E. Overton, in particular. “I thought the whole faculty was an excellent faculty, particularly for a state law school, and most of them, when I was there, were there for a long time,” he said.

Anderson remembers the atmosphere of the law school as an exciting time, in part because of the emergence of a diverse student body at the college.

“It was a different era,” he said.

In contrast to today's diverse classes, Anderson 's graduating class included few women; the first African-American to graduate from the College of Law , R. B. J. Campbelle, Jr., was in the class ahead of him.

Also included in the mix of students were veterans returning from the Korean War using the GI Bill to attend school. Some were older than the traditional law students, which added yet another point of view to the discussions in Anderson 's classes. “I think it was more interesting because you had these people who had life experience, had been in the service, had risked their lives, and you had us who were sort of neophytes who had just gone to school had done nothing else.”

This variety of people and backgrounds made his time at law school “a richer experience,” he said. “I enjoyed law school. It was really fun.”

But as graduation approached and the good times of law school came to an end, the pressure was on to find a job.

Anderson said that jobs were “few and far between” at that time and that many people in his class didn't get law jobs. Some chose to work for insurance companies, which was the principal competition at the time, he said. “They paid more and also furnished you a new car, which is a great temptation.” Some of those former classmates eventually made their way back into the law profession, he said.

“I was very insecure, just hoping to get a job of some sort,” Anderson said. “I was lucky – I got placed with a firm in Oak Ridge that was a very fine firm.” He stayed with Joyce, Anderson & Meredith for 30 years as managing partner.

“It's very important what mentors you have when you're a beginning law graduate because you're very malleable at that stage,” he said. “I was very fortunate to have two people who were very fine lawyers. They were very ethical and highly respected; they taught me well and one of the things they taught me was to work hard.”

Anderson recalled a motivational technique used in the early days of his career. Whenever he was trying a case, his bosses would tell him to go by his opponent's office in the evening. If the lights were still on in the windows, he was to go back to his office and work – and was not to go home until his opponent's lights went off.

“It was later I learned it was a custom, at least among Oak Ridge lawyers, to leave the lights on all night – for advertising purposes they would illuminate their signs,” he said. “Took me a while to learn that.”

After 30 years as a hard-working attorney, Anderson had to make the transition from lawyer to judge when he was appointed to Court of Appeals in 1987. He described his new position as “isolating.”

Anderson explained that at that time the area lawyers shared a lot of camaraderie and common interests, but becoming a judge forced him to let go of those friendships. “When you get on the bench, they really can't be your friends anymore, even the closer ones, and even if you don't have a conflict – there's a distance that's created by the position,” he said.

One familiar aspect of his new position as a judge was its similarity to the kind of work he'd done as a law student. Anderson said that in some ways his education prepared him more to be a judge than a lawyer.

“When you get out in practice you're dealing much more with facts than you are with these esoteric legal opinions that you were dealing with in law school,” he said.

But instead of the routinely applying facts to principles of each case as lawyer, Anderson 's role as a judge focused on the close analysis of cases and the recognition of important issues. He described becoming a judge as “a return to the law school environment in a lot of ways.”

One lesson Anderson learned as a lawyer was applicable to any position he would hold in the future. He discovered the truth in the old saying that trial work was “90 percent perspiration, and perspiration equals preparation.”

“I think that lesson was taught to us in law school, too – you learn to work hard there,” he said.

It's a lesson he never forgot. His habit of hard work shows in his accomplishments at the Tennessee Supreme Court. UT law professor Carl Pierce said that while Anderson was chief justice “the court significantly expanded the administrative activities in the 1990s, and those things are part of his legacy.”

Among the many programs and initiatives launched during that time was the Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education for Students program, known as SCALES, in which high school students learn firsthand about the processes of the Tennessee Supreme Court. The court members travel to different high schools, bringing with them the regular docket. Teachers and lawyers prepare the students in advance for the court's visit when they will hear the arguments just as if they were in the courthouse. The program, which won an American Bar Association award for education, has reached more than 15,000 students in roughly 330 high schools since its inception 10 years ago.

Educating the public is an important theme in the administrative activities that Anderson supported. He also strived to spread awareness of the court with the Cameras in the Courtroom program. Realizing that people no longer visited the courtroom to watch trials as they had in the past, he found a way to bring the courtroom to the living room.

“I thought the public had an unrealistic view of what went on in the courts,” he said. “I thought it was driven by aberrant cases, and I wanted them to see the court system like it was.”

The court also collaborated with Vanderbilt University 's First Amendment Center to create the Law School for Journalists program. Anderson started the program with his friend John Seigenthaler , founder of the First Amendment Center , former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and former editor of both The Tennessean and USA Today . The program includes a panel of judges and journalists who speak on a variety of issues relating to the procedures of the legal system and the coverage of legal matters by journalists.

“The idea was that normally at a newspaper the most inexperienced reporter is given the crime beat,” he said. “We thought that this might help them understand the legal system.”

Another issue important to Anderson is foster care reform. He explained that the problem, which is a problem not only in Tennessee but across the country, is that there is a “tension between dysfunctional families and trying to place a child in a comfortable environment, yet still retain a relationship between parent and child.” Sometimes that relationship has to be terminated and the child put up for adoption, he said. During that process a child may be sent to several different foster homes, sometimes as many as seven or more, and Anderson said he believes there should be more stability in those children's lives. Anderson helped create a commission to improve the foster care system.

“The thing that interested me in it personally is that my mother took in foster children when I was a child,” he said, adding that the main goals of the commission are try to accelerate the adoption process for eligible children and to create stability for the children who remain in foster care.

One of Anderson 's proudest moments was the Supreme Court's handling of a series of cases about funding for public schools. The issue surrounded a state system of returning funds to schools that was based on the amount of sales tax raised by each county. Under this system, Knox County , for example, with its many shopping centers, would have more money returned to it for its schools. However, the less affluent counties in the state did not have as much money returned to them. Anderson explained the decision of the court to end that funding program: “The Supreme Court decided that that was an unconstitutional funding system for schools because it created a disparity in resources between those counties, and as a result the students were treated differently and didn't have the equal opportunity for education.”

Anderson said his most difficult decisions involve children, particularly support cases, child custody cases, and the termination of parental rights. Cases dealing with the death penalty are equally hard. “Those two classes of cases are the most difficult,” he said.

Anderson 's opinions have been described as “moderate” or “leaning liberal.” But rather than try to label his voting patterns, Pierce, who teaches American legal history, has a different way of looking at Anderson 's decisions. Pierce believes that Anderson is “a conscientious judge who tries to decide each case to the best of his knowledge of the current law.” Careful analysis of the situation and how it applies to the law is his top priority in each case he handles. Pierce explained that “the law is not static – people may think that's easy to do but it's not easy. Justice Anderson really tries to become informed and decide what the law is.”

As Galligan said, “He has an unerring commitment to justice, and he has character and integrity beyond measure.”

Anderson 's dedication and hard work have left a lasting contribution to the citizens of Tennessee . From his early days at the College of Law to his achievements on the Tennessee Supreme Court, the University of Tennessee can take pride in counting him as one of its alumni.

“He's intelligent, hard working, compassionate, committed and he is a great supporter of this college,” Galligan said. “He is a fantastic symbol and exemplar of this institution.”

Although Anderson will retire from the Supreme Court Aug. 31, he won't be completely out of the picture. He plans to do some part-time judging, filling in when and where needed, and also hasn't ruled out the possibility of doing some mediation work. The hard-working Volunteer turned lawyer, turned judge, turned chief justice who has dedicated his life to the law has no plans to stop just yet. But if he ever does, he'll have plenty of time to catch up on his reading.