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Former Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs senior partner remembered
SHERRY KARABIN
Legal News Reporter
Published: April 19, 2013
There is a saying that’s also been used in songs that goes “they don’t make them like that anymore.” In the case of Allan Johnson Jr., a former trusts and estates senior partner at Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, the phrase seems quite fitting.
Johnson Jr. died on March 22 at the age of 87, leaving behind many loved ones along with a unique legacy at the firm where he worked for more than 45 years.
The son of the late Allan Chalfant Johnson Sr. and Katharine Baird Johnson, Johnson Jr. was born in Akron on Bastille Day (July 14) in 1925. He attended St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, going on to Harvard College where he graduated magna cum laude and was an elected member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. After receiving his juris doctor from Harvard Law School, he returned to Akron, earning the highest score on the Ohio Bar Exam in 1949, the same year he started at Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs.
“Allan was very proud of the fact that he had the highest score on the Ohio Bar Exam in 1949,” said William Caplan, partner-in-charge of the firm’s Akron office. “I started with the firm in 1980, and when several attorneys at the firm passed the bar exam that year, the firm had a little party for us. Allan introduced himself to me at the party and asked about my score on the bar exam in comparison to my peers.
“I responded, ‘Mr. Johnson, I don’t know,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘I achieved the highest score in the state when I took the exam.’ He challenged me,” said Caplan.
“He was very, very intelligent and so proud of his achievement. In fact, it is my recollection that he framed the letter from the Ohio Bar and hung it on the wall in his office.”
Aside from his intellect, many of his legal colleagues remember Johnson Jr. for his superior work and strong conservative opinions.
“Allan was a very unique person,” said Robert Briggs, a partner, who served as chief executive officer at Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs from 1990 to 2000.
“He was extremely bright and extremely conservative, politically, socially and professionally. He had a terrific dry wit and possessed the highest integrity. He was always humorous in his observations, which he usually made from a 10,000-foot level,” said Briggs.
“We joked that he was a reincarnation of a lawyer from the mid- to late-1800s because he was so conservative,” said Briggs, who added that Johnson Jr. relied on pencils, refusing to touch a computer the entire time he worked at the firm.
“He was very smart and efficient, and he did not need a computer,” said Briggs. “I do remember, however, when the technology revolution kicked in that he thought we were spending money like ‘a bunch of drunken sailors.’ He was a great guy and everybody loved him. He had his own way of doing things. He worked in trusts and estates, which is a narrow field and he did everything extremely well. Everyone knew that if you wanted something done right you should give it to Allan Johnson.”
Johnson Jr. was divorced and had four children when he met his second wife, Mary Dure Johnson at a New Year’s Eve party in 1972.
“We traveled in the same social circles but we never connected until that night,” said Dure Johnson, who was also divorced and had four children of her own. “We got married that June. I never knew what hit me until eight children moved into the same house with us.”
Today the family is even more extensive and includes more than a dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“Allan was always looking forward when it came to family,” said Dure Johnson. During their long marriage they often joined their children and grandchildren in South Conway, New Hampshire, where Johnson Jr.’s family owned a place.
“We both enjoyed New Hampshire. We also canoed down the Saco River in Maine,” said Dure Johnson. They named their most recent Jack Russell Terrier, Saco. The two owned other Jack Russell Terriers over the years.
“He taught me to ski because it was a real skiing family,” said Dure Johonson. “He was a solid skier. I only saw him fall once in 40 years and that was when he was getting off a lift and got bumped. He was very solid and I was always in a heap of snow somewhere.”
The couple also spent time traveling in France, where Johnson Jr. served as his wife’s tour guide.
“Allan was a confirmed Franco File,” said Dure Johnson. “He was a tremendous historian. I could point to a castle and he would give me a complete history. He spoke French. I’m not sure about his accent but by golly it was grammatically correct. The recessional at his funeral was the French National Anthem,” said Dure Johnson.
“He was a good guy and we had a long and interesting life together.”
“As children growing up, my father gave us every opportunity,” said Allan Johnson III, Johnson Jr.’s son from his first marriage. “I have very fond memories of trips to New Hampshire.
“He was a real father’s father. He was not heavy-handed,” said Johnson III. “If you had a problem he would let you figure it out first but if you asked for direction he would give you advice. My favorite phrase is ‘well I wouldn’t do it that way.’
“One thing about dad, when he did something you knew it was done right”
In fact the only things Johnson III said his father could not do was pick up a wrench or change a light bulb.
“He held the chair and Mary screwed in the light bulb,” said Johnson III.
As an attorney, his colleagues remember him as a self-reliant man who paid attention to detail.
“Allan did things for himself,” said longtime Buckingham attorney, Ronald Allan, who handles business matters. “He mailed his own letters and carried his own pleadings to the courthouse, filing his own papers.
“He always presented himself in a distinguished way, wearing tweedy sports jackets and suits."
Johnson Jr. was also an avid biker. In fact his wife said the only reason he would not go for his nightly bicycle ride is if the road was icy.
“Come hell or high water, he was out there. He changed his route but at one point you could count on seeing him in Sand Run Park,” said Dure Johnson.
“He presented a unique appearance on the Towpath Trail as he peddled around on his khaki-colored bike, wearing knickers and distinctive hats,” said Ronald Allan.
“Allan was always interested in being healthy and keeping fit,” said Frederick Lombardi, a partner who joined the firm in 1962. “He bicycled all the time and also was an avid skier. My wife and I would run into him at Boston Mills. We would also see him at social events at the firm. He was a very intelligent and astute lawyer, a problem solver, who had a great sense of humor. He was enjoyable to work with.”
While Johnson Jr. had the respect of his colleagues, he also earned the confidence of the firm’s founder, Lisle M. Buckingham.
“Allan was Mr. Buckingham’s personal attorney,” said Patrick Weschler, a partner who worked alongside Johnson Jr. in the trusts and estates practice group. “Mr. Buckingham entrusted his personal legal affairs to Allan who handled them with great discretion and care.
“I remember after Mr. Buckingham died in 1992, Allan approached me about a complex tax question. This was unusual because he rarely asked anyone for assistance with anything in his practice. In this case, he was checking the answer on something he had already researched. Today, most senior attorneys would have had someone else do the research, but this was not Allan’s way. He did his own research, made his own filings, and wrote all his own letters. Probably the most he would ask anyone to do for him would be to type the letters.”
Weschler said when Johnson Jr. first presented the answer to the tax question pertaining to the estate, Weschler thought it might be incorrect and went back and checked it himself.
“As it turned out, Allan came up with the right answer on a matter so obscure and complicated, it was like he had found the answer in a corner of a corner of the code. And this was not an area in which Allan would normally have done a lot of work. Mr. Buckingham was correct in trusting Allan to handle his estate.”
Johnson Jr. could be quite strong-minded in his opinions on legal matters, Weschler said, recalling a debate that he and Johnson Jr. had on the subject of living trusts.
“After living trusts were implemented in Ohio in the 1960s, Allan didn't have much faith in their legal sufficiency,” said Weschler. “I remember having a heated discussion with him in the early 1990s in which he railed against living trusts, by then in widespread use, because he did not feel all the bugs had been worked out.”
Johnson Jr. retired from Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs in July 1995, opening a small office in the Valley where he handled probate work, until he retired a few years ago.
The Akron native was an honorary lifetime member of the Ohio Bar Association, and was part of the Probate Law Section from 1997 to 2007. Johnson Jr. served as treasurer for Akron Community Trusts (now Akron Community Foundation) and was a member of the Mayflower Club, Portage Country Club and the South Conway Club.
Prior to his death, the Summit County Historical Society honored Johnson Jr.’s, great-grandfather, Brevet Maj. Gen. Alvin Coe Voris, a highly-decorated Civil War veteran and public servant in the county and Ohio. Voris was one of eight men and women named a 2013 Class of Summit Award recipient, and honored at a dinner on March 16 at Greystone Hall in Akron. Voris was wounded at Fort Wagner in South Carolina in April 1863, and a part of the bullet that was taken out of his bladder has remained in the family ever since.
“Apparently when the bullet was taken out initially they only got part of it, and he was uncomfortable for quite a few years when they finally removed the other portion, which was in Allan’s possession,” said Dure Johnson.
A memorial service was held for Johnson Jr. on April 6 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron, and he was laid to rest Glendale Cemetery. In addition to his wife and son, Johnson III, he is survived by three other children, Katharine Johnson Mears, Anne Johnson Hurt and Alicia Johnson Spearman. He also has four stepchildren--Page Bullock, Sarah Nix, Henry Bullock and Madelene Wilson, 18 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
One of the grandchildren, Dr. Jennifer Trittmann, recently wrote a letter to Dure Johnson, summing up the impact that Johnson Jr. had on her life.
“I don’t remember a time when you and Allan were not together,” said Trittmann. “From my perspective he was my grandfather.
“To me at a young age, he helped formulate my view of what it was to be an ‘intellectual’ and in my journey forward I found myself drawn to substantial books and to the people who read them.
“It became obvious as time went on that Allan was a sort of living history. From his thinning wool sweaters and hats with earflaps to the old leather boots with metal hooks, it was clear that the modern way did not interest him.
“We used to joke that your house looked like a museum but really it was his and your pervasive good sense of fine art and quality. Now I find that Uwe and I receive the same criticism for a somewhat austere lifestyle but I am proud to say that we are not the first in our family to renounce convenience in order to preserve the purity of nature and art in a world that loves fast, large, motorboats and yachts. I agree with Allan and will always choose the canoe,” Trittmann said.