Tales of a Corporate Lawyer – The ALLTEL Years – best legal lesson I ever got.

Every once in a while, you get a lesson that is so profound it changes your perspective on life.  You know them when you see them, and often their impact is magnified by their elegance and simplicity, and hilarity.

We had the fortune to work with a lawyer at ALLTEL named Steve Refsell.  Sadly we lost Steve way too early to cancer, but not before we got to appreciate how special he was.  Steve was a bear of a man from Minnesota that did a lot of regulatory work.  He was a bit older than the rest of us with more experience in both law and life.  He was quiet and unassuming, but there was a twinkle in his eye that belied a wonderful, dry sense of humor.

Occasionally Steve would share stories from his life and career.  My favorite was when he was a young associate at a Minneapolis law firm.  Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale had just been elected and Steve obtained a piece of campaign letterhead to send a “confidential” note to a rather arrogant partner informing him that he was about to be nominated for an opening on the federal bench.  As Steve predicted, the partner couldn’t keep his mouth shut and was humiliated when he learned he was the butt of such a brazen prank.

When we looked to Steve for advice, he often spoke in parables.  The most profound was about his first assignment as a newly minted Navy JAG lawyer at a base on the east coast.  The base was near a river popular with duck hunters, and with the season approaching the base commander was concerned that hunters across the river would shoot into the base, potentially injuring someone or damaging equipment.  He ordered Steve to research the law and find a way to stop them.

Steve diligently studied both state and federal law and determined that the hunters in fact had an absolute right to duck hunt opposite the base, and there was nothing to be done to stop them.  He provided his opinion to the commander who was disappointed, but responded “that’s fine, sometimes you need something other than the law to deal with a problem.”

On the first day of duck season the hunters opposite the base were met with helicopters hovering over the river, chasing away any duck that even thought about landing.  After several days the hunters ultimately abandoned their spots across from the base, never to return.