Adams retires as Gogebic County Prosecutor, caps 40-year legal career

By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

Bessemer - For Gogebic County Prosecutor Richard "Dick" Adams, his passions for practicing law and working on engines have at least one thing in common, fixing problems is at the heart of both.

"Constructive compromise is what we, as lawyers, should always to try accomplish," he said, adding that while sometimes compromise isn't possible, "more often than not, there is a middle ground both sides can live with.

"Quite frankly, it isn't a hell of a lot different from what you try to do troubleshooting mechanical problems," Adams said. "You couldn't afford to replace the whole damn thing or rebuild it, you always tried to find constructive solutions."

And with Adams' retirement Sunday, he will take at least a temporary break from the legal profession and pursue his other interests - including working on cars.

Originally from the northern Detroit suburb of Bloomfield, Adams was one of five kids.

He graduated from Earnest W. Seaholm High School in 1964, but didn't excel academically.

Following graduation, he spent a year at Northern Michigan University in Marquette.

"They had an open-door policy, where if you had a high school diploma, they'd give you a try," Adams said.

Following the year at NMU, he transferred to Michigan State University, where he graduated in 1969.

He then took a white-collar job at General Motors Truck and Coach in Pontiac.

After a year, Adams said it became clear the corporate world didn't suit him and he began taking Wayne State University Law School classes at night. After roughly a month, Adams realized the balancing act of a corporate job and night classes wasn't working and applied to study law full-time.

In what would later become a fortunate coincidence, one of Adams' classmates during the first year of law school was future Gogebic and Ontonagon Circuit Court Judge Roy Gotham.

"He sat way down in the front ... right up by the teacher, that's where Roy was," Adams remembers. "I was far back left corner, as far away from the professor as I could be."

While Adams had, and continues to have, a love of the law, he hated the process of law school. While continuing classes, he took a job working at an auto factory in Redford, working the fly-wheel line on the midnight shift.

"Loved that job," Adams said fondly. "You could get all your aggression out. You got in really good shape from flipping flywheels that weighed around 200 pounds, and it was just good no-brainer work, (but was) just interesting enough."

The work in the auto plant helped him indulge his other interest, working on vehicles.

"I'm a mechanic at heart," he said.

As he continued law school part-time and worked midnight shift, as well, he also began rebuilding engines.

He worked first in some small engine rebuilding shops before opening his own shop eventually.

He graduated from Wayne State Law in June of 1974 and was admitted to the Michigan Bar the following April.

"The same year that I finally joined the Bar, I took the national certification test for what used to be called the National Institute of Automotive Service Excellence," he said.

He continued rebuilding engines, despite passing the Bar, but as December - and the visit home for the holidays - approached, Adams decided to jump-start his legal career.

He attended a criminal law seminar in Detroit put on by the Institute of Continuing Legal Education. At the seminar, Adams ran into Gotham again, the first time since the beginning of law school.

"Roy was working in Ontonagon at this point," Adams said, explaining he asked if Gotham knew of anyone looking to hire an attorney with little experience.

As luck would have it, Gotham mentioned that the Sault Ste. Marie-based Upper Peninsula Legal Services had a job in its Bessemer office.

"I sat down that night and I wrote my - Lord knows how many drafts - my only resume to accompany my application for this job. Spent the whole friggin' night. Went through probably six beers and a little whiskey and got very honest by the time I was done," he recalls. "Pretty much the way I put it was, 'Listen, I'm basically a mechanic. I've got tools and a profession. I now have tools for a profession I've (never done).' and bingo, I sent that honest thing off and a week later I got a call."

This was early January, and Adams said he could wrap up his work in the shop in two to three weeks.

Bessemer bound

He arrived in Bessemer in early February of 1976.

There he met a local girl, the former Robin Solberg, he would later marry. Together they raised two kids, Jonathan and Katherine. He worked full-time for U.P. Legal Services for six or seven years until former President Ronald Reagan took office and slashed funding, Adams said, forcing the office to close.

"Here I've got two kids and I'm going to be out of a job, so I decided to just put my own shingle out." Adams started a private practice in Bessemer, which he continued for 19 years. In addition to continuing to do legal aid work, he handled a wide variety of other legal issues until becoming the county prosecutor in August 2001.

Looking back, he said he has always had the benefit of working with a great staff.

"It's been a good career, (I) worked with really good people. I'm going to miss my office and I'm going to miss the courthouse," he said. "... Just got a great staff, we all get along so well and we put out, I mean we get work out that door and we don't get in each other's way. I'm lucky enough that all the people that work for me here are all self-starters. I never have to give them direction, I mean they already know what they are doing.

"We had some great, as far as accomplishments as a prosecutor goes, we had some really hard murder trials," he said, recalling one of his last big murder trials as being almost a month long, with roughly 90 witnesses. "That was hard, hard work and everybody having to work together."

When he retires Sunday, Adams said he will have served the county for 14 years and four months as prosecutor.

As for what the future holds, he said he doesn't intend to practice any law for at least a year, saying, "I've got to try this retirement, see if it's what it's cracked up to be."

He has lots of interest outside the law, with vehicles to work on, building projects to finish and he wants to fix his outboard motor and get out on Lake Superior. He has also undertaken the design and construction of a combination tool shed and sauna as a retirement project.

He has lots of wooded land behind his house in Ramsay, where he can enjoy snowshoeing. "I'm just looking forward to actually relaxing, to an extent, and having just enough of my projects and interests whetted that I hope Im going to keep busy and active. We'll see."

When asked for thoughts on the legal profession, he said he feels a lot of new lawyers often forget the art of compromise. "They believe their job is to advocate for their client until hell freezes over," Adams said. "Now the problem with that mind-set is that I think good lawyers are problem-solvers. Certainly they are advocates, but they are equally problem-solvers.

"So I call this pseudo-advocacy, when you just have the sharp tongue and keep hitting obscure points thinking you're getting points for your clients. That's pseudo-advocacy. You've got to think out your case, think out your client and say 'what really, in your judgement, is the best course of action?,' and share those alternates with clients ... I tried to find in-between grounds and ways to calm things down, rather than stir them up. I think I got pretty good at that."

Adams said he takes pride in the number of times an opposing client would later say they respected Adams' handling of a case and want to hire him on their new legal issues.

"That always made me feel good because it means I probably did find a middle ground," he said.

He added that he was fortunate in finding a career doing what he loved.

"My dad used to always say, 'Do what you're interested in, follow what you're interested in and things will work out.' You want a job, no matter what it is, where you wake up in the morning and you look forward to going to work most days," Adams said. "I was lucky enough to eventually find what I enjoyed getting up (for)."

He credits his success as a prosecutor to his ability to form relationships.

"I've always had the ability to get along with anybody, as long as they had a sense of humor," he said, recalling an example of a defendant in a murder trial who helped Adams on a previous case greeting him at the beginning of each day of the trial. "... Anybody who even has a slight bit of humor, that helps so much. And if you like them and they can tell you like them, you're not looking down at them, you can establish relationships."

Forming relationships, even with those who might be less than upstanding citizens, allowed him to get the information he needed to prosecute cases.

"You've got to spend time with your people, you've got to spend time with your witnesses. And those that don't like spending time with their witnesses - because they think they are dirt - they're not going to have anywhere near (the success)," Adams said. "They wouldn't have been able to do these cases that we did, that just goes back to basic philosophies - treat people right and they'll do the right thing - and most of them did, the great majority did."

He said this last lesson - that people generally do the right thing when presented with the opportunity - goes back to what he learned during his time hitchhiking around the country in his youth.

"You just learned everybody wants to do the right thing, they really do. Even the ones that don't have the inclination, they can be decent if you meet them and treat them right."