Public service as lawyer and helping the underrepresented
Frye discusses his law practice in Greensboro during the 1960s. When asked about cases that stood out in his memory, Frye recalls several instances in which he helped people who were otherwise underrepresented, such as the food workers at UNC. He explains that he enjoyed taking on these kinds of cases because he understands the practice of law as a public service.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Henry Ell Frye, February 18 and 26, 1992. Interview C-0091. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- AMY E. BOENING:
-
After you got out of law school, you started practicing in Greensboro, is
that right?
- HENRY ELL FRYE:
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Yes.
- AMY E. BOENING:
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I have a picture of you when you started your law practice.
It's from an article announcing the opening of your law
office.
- HENRY ELL FRYE:
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Oh, yes. Now where did you find that? This is a picture of me opening my
law office in Greensboro for the general practice of law. Sworn in
before Judge L. Richardson Preyer. At that time he was a Superior Court
Judge. Later he became a federal judge and when I was appointed
assistant United States Attorney, he was the person who administered the
oath of office to me. And I felt real great about that, you know he was
the same person who administered the oath to me as a lawyer to practice
law, and then the same one who administered the oath for that
purpose.
- AMY E. BOENING:
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During your law practice, do any cases stand out in your memory?
- HENRY ELL FRYE:
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Well, one of the more trying ones, was the time that I represented a
group of workers at UNC-G. What had happened was that the cafeteria
workers went on strike at the university and they wanted higher pay and
better working conditions and things of that nature. But they were not
employed by the university. It was a private concern that handled it.
And the student government at UNC-G got interested in it and wanted to
help the cafeteria workers. And they tried to get, I don't
know how many lawyers they tried to get, and they couldn't
get a lawyer to handle it, of course they didn't have very
much money for one thing. And it was a very sensitive type of thing,
too, because you would be representing people who were trying to form a
union and that type of thing. But, any rate, to make a long story short,
I recall that the president of the student government of UNC-G, and
somebody else came to my office and practically begged me to take the
case. They said, "All we have is ?500." They said,
"But we'll pay that and we wish you would do it, and
they said something like, "You're our last
hope." I am sort of sensitive to things like that, at least I
used to be, I'm trying to get away from it. So any rate, I
said I'd see what I can do. But the most interesting thing
about it was, they had a negotiating committee that would meet with the
lawyer and someone from the company that handled the food service. And
so every time the lawyer for the company would make a suggestion he
could look at the faces of the members of the negotiating committee and
tell whether they agreed or disagreed with it. And so I found that my
being there wasn't much help one way or the other because it
was just a poor negotiating situation and so I finally told them, it
doesn't make sense, let's find something else, and
I won't go into all the details, but we settled it because
the persons from the university got involved. When we first started, the
people at the university said they had nothing to do with it. It was a
private matter between the cafeteria workers and the company, but we
finally convinced them that the university was involved. And once the
university got involved we worked it out. They got
a fairly decent settlement and things were worked out. But, I see some
of those people today and they thank me for doing that. So that was a
very helpful one.
Without going into a lot of details, another thing that I got a lot of
satisfaction out of, down at Salisbury, North Carolina, a redevelopment
project was being conducted down there. That involved condemning a lot
of homes and then removing them and making, eventually, an improved area
from the standpoint of buildings and things of that nature. And this
particular woman owned her own home and she decided she
wasn't going to move. And they sent the people out there from
the Highway Department or something and she got a shotgun and ordered
them off the property. Any rate, to make a long story short again, her
minister called me and asked me if I would represent her. She was not
satisfied with the representation she was getting down there. And I went
down and decided to represent her and we eventually got something worked
out on it. As a result of that, I ended up representing a lot of people
whose land, whose houses, were being taken, frankly without getting fair
compensation for their property, that's really what it
amounted to. And we were able to get a better deal for all of them, so I
was well satisfied with that.
I could go on and on. Let me give you one more, then I'll
quit. There was a federal program which allowed non-profit organizations
to form a corporation and build housing for low and moderate income
people. And so I worked, first of all, with one of the churches there in
Greensboro who was trying to get some land for that purpose. And the
people who were handling it for the government who owned the land at
that particular point really gave them bad advice. After I checked out
the law, we found a way to get the property and then eventually form the
corporation and get the money and then build that housing and then later
on working with the Low Income Housing Development Corporation out of
Durham. I worked with a lot of other organizations. Mostly churches,
incidentally, who would form these corporations and
build houses and the idea was not just to build a house and get
somebody in it, but to teach the people how to take care of the houses
and things of that nature. And we did that in several cities in North
Carolina: Greensboro, one here in Raleigh, incidentally, and in
Charlotte, and Salisbury, one or two other places like that. I found
that very, very enjoyable, very rewarding.
- AMY E. BOENING:
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From that story and from some other things you have mentioned, do you see
as part of a lawyer's role going beyond just the legal
aspects of his client's case?
- HENRY ELL FRYE:
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Well, yes. I think, and this is a little oldfashioned, I suppose, but I
think of a lawyer as being a person who is performing a service and that
your primary interest ought to be in performing a service for someone,
realizing that you need to paid for your work, but that
you're working not just for the pay, you're
working because you want to perform a service.