Old Missoula

The Evolution of a Large Missoula Law Firm

Murphy & Whitlock Name Changes With New Year

The firm name of Murphy & Whitlock, one of the older law firms of Missoula, has been changed to Murphy, Garlington & Pauly as of January 1, 1941. W. L. Murphy, J. C. Garlington and H. C. Pauly, firm members, and Edmund T. Fritz and R. F. Clary, Jr., associates, continue with the firm and constitute the same personnel which has carried on the business here for the past several years.

Mr. Murphy and A. N. Whitlock organized the law firm in 1917 and received appointment as state solicitors for Montana of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway company, which representation, with the trustees and successor company, has continued.

In 1935 Mr. Whitlock accepted appointment as Western general attorney for the railroad and moved to Seattle, but maintained membership in the firm until his appointment last year as general counsel for the trustees of the railroad property with offices at Chicago, which necessitates his withdrawal.

The firm continues its offices at 611 Montana building, Missoula.

The above article appeared in the Daily Missoulian on January 4, 1941.

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William L. Murphy died in 1954. His obituary below appeared in The Daily Missoulian on June 21, 1954.

Lawyer, Banker W. L. Murphy Dies at Age 77

William Larkin Murphy, 77, Missoula attorney since 1900 and a resident of the city since 1888, died Saturday a few minutes before midnight. He had been in ill health for several months.

Funeral services will be Tuesday morning at 9:30 in St. Anthony’s Catholic Church. Rosary will be recited at the church Monday evening at 7:30. The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Denis P. Meade, pastor, will officiate at both services. The Squire-Simmons-Carr Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

Mr. Murphy was chairman of the Board of Directors of the Western Montana National Bank, Western Montana counsel for the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. and Montana solicitor for the Milwaukee Railroad. He retired last January as a director of the Montana Power Co., after serving from June, 1935.

He was president of the Missoulian Publishing Co. In respect to his memory, the firm’s business office will be closed for the funeral Tuesday morning, from 9:30 to 11.

Missoula banks announced Sunday that they would be closed Tuesday until 11.

On Jan. 1, 1947, three days before his 70th birthday, Mr. Murphy withdrew from the general practice of his law firm, Murphy, Garlington & Pauly, but continued to maintain an office in the firm’s suite in the Western Bank Building and to handle legal business of firms he had represented over a long period.

Native of Philipsburg

Mr. Murphy, a native of Philipsburg, became an orphan at the age of 10 with the death of his father, Cornelius Murphy, in 1886. His mother had died three years before. Their son came to Missoula in 1888 to live with his uncle, W. C. Murphy, whose mercantile firm of Murphy & Worden was the successor to that of C. P. Higgins and Frank L. Worden, founders of the city.

Mr. Murphy is survived by his widow, the former Edith Bickford, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Bickford of Missoula, to whom he was married on June 23, 1909.

Attended University at Opening

Prior to establishment of Montana State University, Mr. Murphy attended Gonzaga University of Spokane. When the State University opened in the fall of 1895, he was among the first students to register. Long after, at MSU’s 1952 commencement exercises, he was awarded the honorary degree of doctor of laws in recognition of “legal counsel and financial and personal support to University endeavors throughout the years.”

The first classes were in the old Willard School Building, and the initial faculty consisted of five members. After two years at the local institution, Mr. Murphy entered Columbia University in New York, from the Law School of which he was graduated in 1900.

He immediately returned to Missoula and became a law partner of the late Joseph M. Dixon, who later served the state in both houses of Congress and as governor. The Dixon & Murphy partnership was dissolved following Mr. Dixon’s election to Congress in 1902.

Named City Attorney

On May 6, 1901, Mr. Murphy was appointed to the then combined position of city attorney and city clerk. He was elected county attorney in 1904, and served a two-year term.

The only break in his Missoula law practice came in the fall of 1909, when he went to Helena as assistant attorney general under Albert J. Galen, subsequently an associate justice of the State Supreme Court.

Mr. Murphy returned to Missoula in the spring of 1911 and, in association with his father-in-law [Bickford], became counsel for the W. A. Clark interests here. They included the Missoula Light & Water Co., the Missoula Street Railway Co., the Clark-Montana Realty Co. and the Western Lumber Co.

Whitlock Partnership

On Jan. 1, 1917, he and A. N. Whitlock, then dean of the State University Law School, formed the partnership of Murphy & Whitlock. The relationship continued until late in 1935, when Mr. Whitlock went to Seattle as general attorney for the Milwaukee Railroad, for which the firm had been Montana solicitors since 1920. Mr. Murphy continued as state solicitor for the railroad following the departure of Mr. Whitlock, who for several years was Milwaukee vice president and general counsel with headquarters in Chicago prior to his retirement in 1951.

In 1936, Mr. Murphy, J. C. Garlington and Harry C. Pauly established the firm Murphy, Garlington & Pauly.

Mr. Murphy had been Western Montana counsel for the Anaconda company since 1917. He became a director of the Western Montana National Bank in 1918, and vice president the following year. He was elected president of the bank in January, 1933, a role he filled for 11 years. He had been chairman of the bank’s Board of Directors since January, 1944.

He was a member of Hellgate Lodge 383, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and after many years in the Missoula Rotary Club was elected to honorary membership in 1946. He was a charter member of the club, which was organized in 1916.

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Harry C. Pauly, another partner in the above law firm, also died in Missoula in 1954. His obituary, below, appeared in The Daily Missoulian on September 14, 1954.

H. C. Pauly, 44, Lawyer, Stockman Dies

Harry C. Pauly, 44, attorney and stockman, 415 McLeod Ave., died Monday morning at a local hospital of cancer. He had been hospitalized for the past few weeks.

Mr. Pauly was a director of the Montana Power Co., 1949 president of the Missoula Chamber of Commerce and president o the Missoula Kiwanis Club in 1948. He was a director of the Missoula Brewing Co., the Missoula Mercantile Co. and the Hotel Florence Co., and had been a director of the Deer Lodge Bank & Trust Co., Memorial Hospital Assn. and Missoula Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Pauly was elected Jan. 26, 1954, to succeed the late W L. Murphy on the Board of Directors of the Montana Power Co. His father was a member of its board for 18 years. He became a director of the Deer Lodge bank in 1946. He was a director of the Missoula Chamber of Commerce during 1947-50.

His organizations included the American Legion, Elks and Knights of Columbus, Montana Bar Assn. and American Bar Assn. He was a member of St. Anthony’s Parish.

Mr. Pauly operated a large cattle and sheep ranch in the Helmville area. It is composed of the Kelley ranch and other holdings.

Mr. Pauly was born March 1, 1910 at Deer Lodge, the youngest of four children of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Pauly, who were married Feb. 10, 1900, in California. His mother, who resides at Butte, was Miss Mary Jane Pucheu of Asasp, France, and his father was born at Sarrance, France.

Mr. Pauly attended grade and high school in Deer Lodge. He was graduated from Georgetown University in 1930 and from Harvard University Law School in 1933. He was admitted to the Montana bar in 1933 and to the California bar in 1934.

In 1934-35, Mr. Pauly was associated with the law firm of Williamson, Ramsey & Hoge in Los Angeles. He returned to Montana in 1935 and joined the firm of Murphy & Whitlock at Missoula. A few years later the name was changed to Murphy, Garlington & Pauly.

Mr. Pauly was married to Betty Thomas in 1938 at Butte. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Thomas of Butte.

During 1943-46 he was on active duty in the U. S. Navy Reserve. In 1944-45 he was assigned to the Navy Department at Washington, D. C. He entered the service as a lieutenant junior grade and was released as a lieutenant senior grade.

Survivors are the widow; four children, Thomas, 14; John, 12; Mary, 10, and Anne, 6; his mother; a brother, Sylvan J. Pauly of Deer Lodge, and a sister, Mrs. J. E. (Elsie C.) Corette of Butte. Another sister, Mrs. Emmett E. (Elize M.) Doherty of Los Angeles, died in 1935.

Rosary will be recited at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at St. Anthony Church.

Funeral Services will be conducted at 10 o’clock Wednesday morning at the church. Burial will be in St. Mary’s Cemetery. The body is at the Squire-Simmons-Carr Mortuary.

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J. C. Garlington, another of the early partners in the above law firm, died in Missoula in 1995. His obituary, below, appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on April 2, 1995.

J. C. Garlington

Missoula – James C. Garlington, 87, died Saturday, April 1, after a lengthy illness.

He was born March 24, 1908, in Missoula and lived his entire life in this city.

Survivors include his wife Nancy, Missoula; three children, Richard Garlington, Burnsville, Minn.; Suzanne Samuelson, Polson; and Carol Garlington, Norton, Mass. His survived by nine grandchildren, Sandra, Amy, Melissa and Bill, children of Dick and Judy Garlington; and Kristyn, Kevin, Kimberly, Kraig and Kurt, children of Suzanne Samuelson and Jim Winters. He is also survived by five great-grandchildren, Jessica, Matthew, Dylon, Lyle and Aaron.

After attending Missoula grade schools and Missoula County High School, he entered the University of Montana where he excelled in track and field events. He graduated with B.A. and LLB degrees in 1930. While in law school, he took the Montana Bar Examination. Having passed, he was licensed to practice law in 1929, prior to graduation from law school.

He married Nancy Hammatt on Sept. 13, 1933. After his graduation from law school, he became associated with Walter E. Pope, who later became a judge of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In 1935, he became associated with Murphy & Whitlock, a Missoula law firm founded in 1870 by William J. Stephens. In 1941, the firm name was changed to Murphy, Garlington & Pauly. In 1955, after the death of partners William Murphy and Harry Pauly, the firm name was changed to Garlington, Lohn & Robinson, its present name.

In his law practice, he specialized primarily in courtroom litigation and probate of estates. For many years, he was the chief trial counsel for the Milwaukee Road throughout Montana. He defended numerous cases for banking organizations, railroads, manufacturing corporations and insurance companies. He especially enjoyed defending ranchers and farmers whose lands were being condemned for highways.

He became a director of the Western Montana National Bank, now First-Bank-Montana, in 1955.

His public service included serving as a trustee of Missoula School District 1 from 1950-1956, and as a trustee of Missoula County High School from 1965 to 1970. He served as a director of the Helena Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank.

When elected to the Montana Constitutional Convention in 1972, his experienced added immeasurably to the effectiveness of that organization, especially in judicial matters.

During World War II, he served with the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945 in the South Atlantic.

He devoted much time to the legal profession. He was recognized statewide and nationally for his unselfish service to the local, state and national bar organizations.

He served as president of the Montana Bar Association in 1949 and was an adjunct professor at the UM Law School from 1939 through the 1950s. He was associated with the Mountain States Legal Foundation as a director, and had been a member since 1978. He had served as a director of the 9^th Judicial Circuit Historical Society since 1977. He was an active member of the Montana State Bar Examiners from 1966 until 1994. He had been a fellow of the American College Trust and Estate Counsel since 1960.

In 1994, the Western Montana Bar Association honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

He had been a member of the Missoula Rotary Club since 1931, and had served as its president in 1959.

Throughout his entire adult life, he took an active interest in all Episcopal Church activities. He was a lifelong member of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Missoula. His church activities were on a local, state and national level.

Memorial services will be 2 p.m. Monday at the Church of the Holy Spirit.

The family suggests memorials to:

Church of the Holy Spirit,

University of Montana – Foundation for the J.C. Garlington Teaching Award at the School of Law, or

The Missoula Symphony Association.

Arrangements are by Livingstone-Malletta and Geraghty Funeral Home.

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W. J. Stephens

William J. Stephens is cited as the founder of the Missoula firm of Garlington, Lohn, & Robinson.

W. J. Stephens died in Seattle in 1918. Born in County Dublin, Ireland in 1834, he was 84 years old. He arrived in the United States at the age of 13 in 1847, worked in Baltimore for short time and left there for the California gold fields by 1850. He spent parts of the following decade working as a placer miner in California and Nevada, clerked in a grocery business and studied law at night. He passed a bar exam in Nevada in 1864. He was practicing law in the Montana pioneer placer mining community, Beartown, Mt., in 1866. After a year there he moved to Deer Lodge and in 1868 was elected a District Attorney of the Second Judicial District, Mt. Territory. He married a Missoula girl (Emma Lebeau) in Missoula in 1868, and then moved there in 1870, starting his own practice. He soon found a lucrative business in Missoula handling mining, water and land claims. He was a volunteer in the Bitter Root valley in 1877, when Chief Joseph and his band came through Montana, part of the Nez Perce diaspora. He was elected a Missoula County Clerk in 1883. He formed a partnership with Walter M. Bickford in Missoula in 1884, but had dissolved the firm in disgust by 1890. Today’s Garlington firm makes a connection to W. J. Stephens’ original law firm through Mr. Walter Bickford, who subsequently represented Senator William Clark’s interests, especially in Missoula and W. Montana. Bickford, Murphy’s father in law, originally held several prominent local business positions that were later transferred to Mr. Murphy – counsel for Missoula Light & Water Co., the Missoula Street Railway Co., the Clark-Montana Realty Co., the Western Lumber Co., Western Montana counsel for the Anaconda company and a director of the Western Montana National Bank.

W. J. Stephens was the subject of a fascinating Master of Arts Thesis at the University of Montana, by Kenneth M. Wasserman in 1995. This thesis is available online at the following link:

http://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/8772

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