Celebrate Your Life
Richard and Anne Sobol at the 2008 Voodoo on the Bayou.
Photo by Charlie London
The article below about RICHARD SOBOL
was submitted by Anne Sobol.
Richard came to N.O. as a volunteer lawyer in the summer of 1965 working for the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC), an organization formed to provide legal assistance to activists in the southern civil rights movement . At the time, he worked for one of the most prestigious law firms in Washington, D.C. He was so swept up in the work in Louisiana that he quit his job and came to New Orleans to live and work for LCDC.
Richard’s time in N.O. falls into three periods: (1) 1965-1968; (2) 1970- 1974; and (3) 1991- the present. In the first period, Richard handled some of the most important civil rights cases in Louisiana history: the desegregation of many of the Parish school systems State-wide; the first class action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act challenging discrimination in the Crown Zellerbach paper mill in Bogalusa (and many other Title VII cases); defense of Gary Duncan in the case that became Duncan v. La., a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the U.S., that established that the guarantee of trial by jury of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to state as well as federal prosecutions and that citizens are guaranteed a jury trial in state courts; his representation of Duncan resulted in Richard’s arrest by Leander Perez for practicing without a license, and Sobol v. Perez in federal court highlighted the need for outside lawyers to help with civil rights issues (the federal court ruled that Richard was practicing legally because he was in the State temporarily and acting in association with local counsel) and numerous other cases involving all aspects of civil rights law. In 1968, Richard left Louisiana.
In the second period, in 1970 Richard came back to La., was admitted to the bar, and was a member of one of the first and then few law firms with both black and white lawyers, Elie, Sobol, Strickler and Dennis (1110 Royal St.) During this time, Richard and his firm handled numerous civil rights cases, mostly employment discrimination, and also the defense of 21 women charged in federal court with welfare fraud. This last case, before it was resolved, involved a challenge to the manner in which grand juries were selected as underrepresenting poor and black people and a challenge to the prosecution’s use of its peremptory challenges to strike potential black jurors — at the time landmark efforts. At the time, a woman and three children in Louisiana received $142 per month in the AFDC program. In 1974, Richard moved back to Washington, where his children lived, but he continued to handle many large, long-running cases in Louisiana.
In the third period, in 1991 Richard came back to Louisiana and settled on Bayou Liberty. His wife Anne (me) opened a small law firm and represented the federal banking agencies in resolving bank and thrift failures in cases in Louisiana and around the country. Richard participated in some of the banking cases and continued to be involved in various civil rights matters. In 2003, after surviving floods following numerous rain and tropical storms, each succeeding storm threatening our home more, Richard and I sold our beautiful home on the Bayou, and moved into New Orleans. Several years ago, we both retired
Article by Anne Sobol