Personal History
A Lawyer Reflects on His “Radical” Youth
By Pete Eikenberry
In the 1970s there were radicals in America. On a recent Sunday I met one of them, my friend, lawyer Earle Tockman, for breakfast in Cobble Hill. Outside the restaurant, he displayed his new touring bike with electronic gears. Over scrambled eggs, he recounted his service, for instance, as a $200 per month community organizer in North Carolina in 1979-82. In 1969, Earle, a superior law student, upon his graduation from law school at Northwestern University, had been granted a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellowship. The fellowship carried a stipend for the new graduate to do community law and Earle was assigned to Compton, California.
At his bar swearing in ceremony, Earle and eight other colleagues stood and unfurled a banner which read “Stand against Oppression” to protest the war in Vietnam. As a result, the protesters were denied California bar entry for several weeks until the ACLU threatened suit. Upon being admitted, Earle and six other recent law graduates formed a self-styled Marxist law collective, “Bar Sinister.”
Its purpose was to provide legal support to the “movement,” which included the antiwar, feminist, civil rights and gay movements. As a radical new lawyer, Earle had plenty of work. He defended a member of the Black Panthers in a criminal case. For a period, Earle was counsel to the Gay Liberation Front and he tried a case in defense of a gay Unitarian minister who was charged with solicitation in a men’s room. For four days, Earle studied a book on how to select a favorable jury in a hostile environment. Upon the opening of the trial, he looked behind him to note dozens of members of the gay community, many in flamboyant attire. Nevertheless, Earle secured a hung jury and upon retrial the minister was found innocent.
Commencing in 1973, he was for two years a law professor at DePaul University where he taught, inter alia, evidence, property, labor law, and trial practice. At DePaul, Earle became advisor to the black law students’ organization and a student chapter of the radical National Lawyers Guild. In 1976, Earle and other radical lawyers went to work in factories to organize workers. Earle worked a year building Fords, a year manufacturing Pullman railroad cars and a year as a millwright apprentice for U.S. Steel. When I asked what he accomplished, he said sheepishly that he was able to get some workers to read Marx. Thereafter, Earle returned to the legal field and became an administrative law judge for the Illinois Human Rights Commission in Chicago where he presided over substantial trials.
An event on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina cut short his service as an administrative hearing officer. In 1979, the Ku Klux Klan was involved in anti-union activities in the South since union members were of mixed race. There was a highly publicized anti-Klan rally in Greensboro on November 3 that had been organized by a radical group. The Greensboro police were present in force at the rally. However, after the police were ordered to go on lunch break, a caravan of seven cars pulled up to the rally, men got out of the cars, opened their trunks, took out shotguns and automatic weapons and fired into the people participating in the rally. (Police had followed the caravan all the way to the rally.) Five of the anti-KKK demonstrators were killed and newspapers throughout the country referred to the incident as a “massacre.”
Three television stations filmed the rally, including the arrival of the caravan, the guns taken from the trunks, and the resulting killings that had taken place. Seven Klansmen were identified and arrested, yet, the police also arrested 11 of the rally participants for “inciting a riot.” Earle was asked by the radical organizers of the rally to leave Chicago to go to Greensboro. For the next three years, at the compensation of $200 per month, he attended every day of the trial, and traveled throughout the South speaking at law schools and bar association meetings to raise money for the defense of the arrested marchers.
At the criminal trial, the Klansmen’s defense was that they shot in self-defense. An FBI agent testified for the Klansmen that the one of the shots had come from the marchers after the first shot by a Klansman. One of the district attorney’s questions to the jury was “can you be fair in this case although the victims were Communists who stood for everything we hate in America?” The Klansmen were acquitted. Thereafter, the charges were dropped against the 11 marchers. Earle helped raise money to fund a lawsuit against the city of Greensboro, the police and the KKK members. A judgment was secured against two policemen and three Klansmen; $350,000 of the judgment was paid by the City of Greensboro.
In 1982, while still in South Carolina, Earle received a call from New York and was asked to go to Albany. Two black members of the Communist Workers Party had been arrested for the alleged possession of a gun in their car’s glove compartment. They had travelled to Albany from New York City to protest a rugby match by the South African Springboks team, which traveled throughout the world to promote a South African racist agenda. William Kunstler had agreed to represent the CWP members. Upon receiving a call to handle another case, Kunstler asked to withdraw from the representation; he attempted to work out a plea deal to be able to take the other matter. Under the proposed plea deal, one of the men would admit to possession and have to face a possible prison sentence of up to seven years.
Earle was brought in to help Kunstler but he also stiffened his backbone by reminding him that he could not ethically withdraw. Kunstler, with Earle’s assistance, tried the case. Their defense was that the police had planted the gun. Earle says that Kunstler was brilliant, e.g., he spent six hours cross examining the policemen on a two page report that he had never seen before. In rural Albany County in upstate New York, Kunstler and Earle secured an acquittal for both defendants.
He then secured a Legal Aid position in New York City, after which he went into private practice where he made a living largely by handling assigned counsel cases. In private practice, he was pro bono counsel to the Asian Americans for Equality (“AAFE”). In 1991, Earle was counsel to Margaret Chin, then running to be the first Asian elected to the New York City Council. Following her primary loss, Earle sued the New York City Board of Elections claiming Asians had been systematically discriminated against. In a landmark ruling, the board was for the first time ordered to print ballots in Chinese and other Asian languages. (Ms. Chin currently is a member of the New York City Council.)
Through the AAFE connection, he was retained by a Chinese group to represent them in purchasing a 65 story building at 40 Wall Street. He negotiated the purchase for $5 million with Shearman & Sterling and earned a very substantial fee. Thereafter, he broke up with his partner, his practice dried up, and he became broke.
Then, remarkably, he got a telephone call from Donald Trump, who invited Earle to his very sumptuous office. Trump stated he wanted Earle to become his counsel, or, alternatively, he would retain Earle periodically as his outside lawyer. Although Earle was making little money at the time, he declined the offer. Earle did receive a call from Trump’s office asking Earle to give an opinion on whether Trump could assign a lease. Earle determined that Trump could and wrote a letter to support his opinion. He billed Trump $2,400 but said he was never paid; the Trump representative claimed that they had not intended to retain Earle but merely wished to find out what he thought. (Trump later bought 40 Wall Street from the Chinese for $1,000,000, perhaps revealing a possible motive for attempting to retain Earle, counsel of the owners from whom he purchased the building.)
Thereafter, Earle became general counsel for two different construction companies for six years; for over 10 years, he has now been general counsel to a real estate development company. He owns a house on Lake Wallenpaupack in the Poconos where he has a sailboat. He said he has always loved sailing but never had enough money to sail in the years after law school. He does not regret trying to “make a difference” in his youth. Earle supports efforts to bring about change through contributions and is optimistic about the future.
Personal History
A Lawyer Reflects on His “Radical” Youth
By Pete Eikenberry
In the 1970s there were radicals in America. On a recent Sunday I met one of them, my friend, lawyer Earle Tockman, for breakfast in Cobble Hill. Outside the restaurant, he displayed his new touring bike with electronic gears. Over scrambled eggs, he recounted his service, for instance, as a $200 per month community organizer in North Carolina in 1979-82. In 1969, Earle, a superior law student, upon his graduation from law school at Northwestern University, had been granted a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellowship. The fellowship carried a stipend for the new graduate to do community law and Earle was assigned to Compton, California.
At his bar swearing in ceremony, Earle and eight other colleagues stood and unfurled a banner which read “Stand against Oppression” to protest the war in Vietnam. As a result, the protesters were denied California bar entry for several weeks until the ACLU threatened suit. Upon being admitted, Earle and six other recent law graduates formed a self-styled Marxist law collective, “Bar Sinister.”
Its purpose was to provide legal support to the “movement,” which included the antiwar, feminist, civil rights and gay movements. As a radical new lawyer, Earle had plenty of work. He defended a member of the Black Panthers in a criminal case. For a period, Earle was counsel to the Gay Liberation Front and he tried a case in defense of a gay Unitarian minister who was charged with solicitation in a men’s room. For four days, Earle studied a book on how to select a favorable jury in a hostile environment. Upon the opening of the trial, he looked behind him to note dozens of members of the gay community, many in flamboyant attire. Nevertheless, Earle secured a hung jury and upon retrial the minister was found innocent.
Commencing in 1973, he was for two years a law professor at DePaul University where he taught, inter alia, evidence, property, labor law, and trial practice. At DePaul, Earle became advisor to the black law students’ organization and a student chapter of the radical National Lawyers Guild. In 1976, Earle and other radical lawyers went to work in factories to organize workers. Earle worked a year building Fords, a year manufacturing Pullman railroad cars and a year as a millwright apprentice for U.S. Steel. When I asked what he accomplished, he said sheepishly that he was able to get some workers to read Marx. Thereafter, Earle returned to the legal field and became an administrative law judge for the Illinois Human Rights Commission in Chicago where he presided over substantial trials.
An event on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina cut short his service as an administrative hearing officer. In 1979, the Ku Klux Klan was involved in anti-union activities in the South since union members were of mixed race. There was a highly publicized anti-Klan rally in Greensboro on November 3 that had been organized by a radical group. The Greensboro police were present in force at the rally. However, after the police were ordered to go on lunch break, a caravan of seven cars pulled up to the rally, men got out of the cars, opened their trunks, took out shotguns and automatic weapons and fired into the people participating in the rally. (Police had followed the caravan all the way to the rally.) Five of the anti-KKK demonstrators were killed and newspapers throughout the country referred to the incident as a “massacre.”
Three television stations filmed the rally, including the arrival of the caravan, the guns taken from the trunks, and the resulting killings that had taken place. Seven Klansmen were identified and arrested, yet, the police also arrested 11 of the rally participants for “inciting a riot.” Earle was asked by the radical organizers of the rally to leave Chicago to go to Greensboro. For the next three years, at the compensation of $200 per month, he attended every day of the trial, and traveled throughout the South speaking at law schools and bar association meetings to raise money for the defense of the arrested marchers.
At the criminal trial, the Klansmen’s defense was that they shot in self-defense. An FBI agent testified for the Klansmen that the one of the shots had come from the marchers after the first shot by a Klansman. One of the district attorney’s questions to the jury was “can you be fair in this case although the victims were Communists who stood for everything we hate in America?” The Klansmen were acquitted. Thereafter, the charges were dropped against the 11 marchers. Earle helped raise money to fund a lawsuit against the city of Greensboro, the police and the KKK members. A judgment was secured against two policemen and three Klansmen; $350,000 of the judgment was paid by the City of Greensboro.
In 1982, while still in South Carolina, Earle received a call from New York and was asked to go to Albany. Two black members of the Communist Workers Party had been arrested for the alleged possession of a gun in their car’s glove compartment. They had travelled to Albany from New York City to protest a rugby match by the South African Springboks team, which traveled throughout the world to promote a South African racist agenda. William Kunstler had agreed to represent the CWP members. Upon receiving a call to handle another case, Kunstler asked to withdraw from the representation; he attempted to work out a plea deal to be able to take the other matter. Under the proposed plea deal, one of the men would admit to possession and have to face a possible prison sentence of up to seven years.
Earle was brought in to help Kunstler but he also stiffened his backbone by reminding him that he could not ethically withdraw. Kunstler, with Earle’s assistance, tried the case. Their defense was that the police had planted the gun. Earle says that Kunstler was brilliant, e.g., he spent six hours cross examining the policemen on a two page report that he had never seen before. In rural Albany County in upstate New York, Kunstler and Earle secured an acquittal for both defendants.
He then secured a Legal Aid position in New York City, after which he went into private practice where he made a living largely by handling assigned counsel cases. In private practice, he was pro bono counsel to the Asian Americans for Equality (“AAFE”). In 1991, Earle was counsel to Margaret Chin, then running to be the first Asian elected to the New York City Council. Following her primary loss, Earle sued the New York City Board of Elections claiming Asians had been systematically discriminated against. In a landmark ruling, the board was for the first time ordered to print ballots in Chinese and other Asian languages. (Ms. Chin currently is a member of the New York City Council.)
Through the AAFE connection, he was retained by a Chinese group to represent them in purchasing a 65 story building at 40 Wall Street. He negotiated the purchase for $5 million with Shearman & Sterling and earned a very substantial fee. Thereafter, he broke up with his partner, his practice dried up, and he became broke.
Then, remarkably, he got a telephone call from Donald Trump, who invited Earle to his very sumptuous office. Trump stated he wanted Earle to become his counsel, or, alternatively, he would retain Earle periodically as his outside lawyer. Although Earle was making little money at the time, he declined the offer. Earle did receive a call from Trump’s office asking Earle to give an opinion on whether Trump could assign a lease. Earle determined that Trump could and wrote a letter to support his opinion. He billed Trump $2,400 but said he was never paid; the Trump representative claimed that they had not intended to retain Earle but merely wished to find out what he thought. (Trump later bought 40 Wall Street from the Chinese for $1,000,000, perhaps revealing a possible motive for attempting to retain Earle, counsel of the owners from whom he purchased the building.)
Thereafter, Earle became general counsel for two different construction companies for six years; for over 10 years, he has now been general counsel to a real estate development company. He owns a house on Lake Wallenpaupack in the Poconos where he has a sailboat. He said he has always loved sailing but never had enough money to sail in the years after law school. He does not regret trying to “make a difference” in his youth. Earle supports efforts to bring about change through contributions and is optimistic about the future.