A Tribute to Henry G. Miller: 40 Years After His NYSBA Presidency
9.9.2024
The obituary for Henry G. Miller that circulated after his death during the third week of April 2020, and which can be found online, speaks of his family, his law practice, his bar association activities, and his love of theater. But there was much more to the man than what could fit in five short newspaper paragraphs. Henry was a bigger-than-life figure in the law, both locally and statewide. He saw the law not just as his practice, in which he was extraordinarily successful, but also, as a community of fellow attorneys to whom he donated significant time and energy.
The following is in memoriam to former New York State Bar Association President Henry G. Miller, on the 40th year of his presidency. In writing this tribute, we seek to avoid merely summarizing Henry’s curriculum vitae. Instead, the intent here is to highlight the contributions that Henry made to the practitioners of the bar through his many activities outside of the courtroom. In doing so, we hope to inspire all of us to follow his example.
St. John’s University and Law School can take a bow. The university imbued Henry with the earliest tools that he used in his later career. The mainstay of his career was the tiffany law firm of Clark, Gagliardi & Miller in White Plains. He was a trial attorney through and through. His clients, of course, were his professional priority. In the mid-1980s, when certain medical malpractice reforms were being debated, Henry published an op-ed in the Jan. 26, 1985 edition of the New York Times, arguing that any proposed reforms prioritize the interests of the attorneys’ clients and not the attorneys themselves.[1] The op-ed is merely one example of how Henry saw the law as a service profession, with the interests of the clients as being paramount. An attorney who worked at Henry’s side since 1981, Lucille Fontana, who is now of the firm Fontana Giannini, uses the term “Milleresque” for “doing the right thing, being professional, and getting matters resolved for the client.”
Henry had a gift where jurors hung on his every word. Pins could be heard dropping whenever he spoke in court. His son-in-law, attorney John Rand, recounts an instance where during an opening statement in federal court, Henry’s words were so moving that it caused a juror to break down into uncontrollable tears, prompting the judge to call a recess of the trial for the juror to compose herself.[2] His long-term colleague at Clark, Gagliardi & Miller, attorney Bob Frisenda, recalls a trial where Henry was questioning a witness on the witness stand and a juror leaned forward and objected to the question. Before the judge could react, Henry, always quick on his feet, sustained the juror’s objection and the entire courtroom broke into laughter. It was keeping with one of many “Henry-isms” where you can make people laugh at trial but only if it is at your own expense.
Many of Henry’s trials were high value, initially insurance-referred defense matters including asbestos, Agent Orange, medical malpractice, and general negligence. Thereafter, with the flick of a switch, Henry redefined himself as a leading plaintiffs’ attorney prosecuting multi-million-dollar injury claims. It is unusual for an attorney to entirely flip from one side of civil litigation to the other mid-career, but Henry pulled it off with great and immediate success. And with uncommon generosity, Henry gave his insurance company portfolio for no consideration to attorney associates who built a medical malpractice defense firm of their own, so that Henry could focus on his retooled plaintiffs’ practice conflict-free. According to Fontana, Henry made a practice of meeting his clients at their homes prior to trial, “always looking for the small detail as well as the larger picture.” And each year Henry hired at his law firm a battery of law student interns, certainly more for the students’ benefit than that of the firm. As many decades passed, those student interns numbered in the hundreds.
Miller was also a generous donor of his time to multiple endeavors ancillary to the practice of law. Henry was a regent of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and a director of the New York State Trial Lawyers’ Association.[3] He was also president of the Westchester County Bar Association from 1975 to 197[4] and president of the New York State Bar Association in 1984-85.[5] He became president of the state bar without having to first climb the usual ladder of other officer positions within the organization. Henry’s inner character is seen in the president’s messages published in the New York State Bar Association Journal during the year of his state bar presidency. A focus of his presidency was to exhort the state bar toward professional excellence. A sample of the titles of his published messages reflect that focus: “Morals and Manners of Advocates,” “Let Us Be Effective,” “Let Us Be Ethical,” “Lawyers Should Be Charitable,” and “Who’s Law Is It Anyway?”[6]
During Henry’s state bar presidency, the Annual Meeting of NYSBA doubled, in part, as a meeting with the general public for its input to improve legal and judicial processes. The event, held on Jan. 21, 1985, was attended by over 125 people. Henry opened the meeting, acknowledged all non-attorney guests, and said, “We welcome you and we welcome your criticism, or just your comments. We do not fear criticism because we believe criticism is the stuff from which good ideas for improvement are generated.”[7] It was another Henry-ism. Attendees were from among an eclectic range of organizations including Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Organization of Women, the National Rifle Association, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, Phoenix House, the New York City Corrections Department, the New York State Coalition for Criminal Justice, the Women’s Prison Association, teachers, media, youth programs, and several public interest groups. NYSBA published the comments and photographs of the meeting in a booklet titled “A Town Hall Meeting: To Improve the System of Law,” a copy of which former Fordham Law School Dean John Feerick still holds to this day.[8]
The written and oral word is of importance to lawyering. Henry was well-known for both. His writing style was one of short sentences, direct and to the point. Drafts were edited using a red pen. “All good writing is re-writing,” he said, another Henry-ism. He was a contributing columnist to the New York State Bar Association Journal and an author of three legal textbooks, “On Trial – Lessons From a Lifetime in the Courtroom”,[9] “New York Practice Guide: Negligence,”[10] and “The Art of Advocacy: Settlement.”[11] Any of them are still good to have on the shelf of your law office as their multiple Henry-isms are still timely and universal.
Henry had been an adjunct professor at his alma mater, St. John’s Law School. Over the decades, he also taught countless CLEs to a wide variety of legal audiences. The CLEs were all pre-COVID and in-person, taken by practitioners to absorb the material, but also to observe Henry’s voice and his court and stage presence. Henry’s video CLE for NYSBA, “The Trial,” is a must-see for every lawyer regardless of age or anyone aspiring to the profession. He was a frequent in-demand speaker at bar dinners and events, providing remarks that were consistently witty, intelligent, thought-provoking, and with high purpose. Dean Feerick recalls that in 1985 Henry “was my first graduation speaker [from the world of private practice] when I became dean because I viewed him as the top of our profession at the time.” Actor Alan Arkin was in the audience of the Fordham Law commencement that year for his son Matthew. According to Feerick, Arkin remarked that it was the finest speech he had ever heard and he wanted to meet Henry, which Feerick arranged. Fontana recalls that a colleague once quipped that he hoped to pass away before Henry, just so that Henry would be available to deliver the eulogy.
When New York governors called, Henry answered. In 1987, Governor Mario Cuomo appointed Henry to be chairman of the nine-member New York State Temporary Commission on Local Government Ethics, the purpose of which was to propose new statewide municipal ethics regulations.[12] The work of the commission resulted in what would have become General Municipal Law Article 18,[13] but the proposed legislation died in committee despite support from municipal associations, good government groups, municipal officials, and over 40 editorial endorsements.[14] In 1995, Governor George Pataki established a 12-member Cameras in the Courts Commission chaired by Dean Feerick.[15] Henry was placed on the commission, favored the use of cameras in the courtroom, and his work included but was not limited to participating in four investigative hearings throughout the state.[16] Once again, the state failed to enact the proposals of the commission’s majority.[17] According to Pace Law School Professor Jay Carlisle, Henry viewed the state’s failure to act upon the two commissions’ recommendations with equanimity, saying that as to both, “You win some and you lose some.”[18]
Pace University received Henry’s generosity too. He was a longtime trustee of the university and a supporter of the creation of Pace Law School in 1976. He, Pace Law School Dean Emeritus Richard Ottinger, attorney B.J. Harrington of Bleakley, Platt & Schmidt, and others, established an annual leadership awards dinner that has been held each year since 1995. Over time, the dinner has raised millions of dollars for academic programs and student scholarships at the law school.[19] He received Pace Law School’s Distinguished Service Award in 1997.[20]
The theater was a significant aspect of Henry’s life. There is not much difference between keeping an audience enraptured from a theater stage and keeping a jury enraptured from the well of a courtroom. He studied at the prestigious Stella Adler Studio of Acting at 65 Broadway in Manhattan, which is known for the teaching of “method acting,”[21] and was a member of the Actors’ Equity Association SAG-AFTRA. He toyed with purchasing the coincidentally named Henry Miller Theater at 43rd Street near Broadway (now the Steven Sondheim Theater),[22] but the purchase never came to pass. He performed a play, “All Too Human,” about Clarence Darrow, at the 45th Street Theater, the White Plains Performing Arts Center, and at various other venues. He wrote at least four other plays – “Lawyers,” at (?) Mamaroneck’s Emelin Theater starring actor Kevin Conway; “A Court Street Lawyer,” for which he was a finalist in the Edward Albee Play Contest; a play about Alger Hiss, as Henry was an Alger Hiss afficionado and “Stella,” about actress Stella Adler. “Stella” received some serious interest from actor Roy Scheider (of Jaws fame) for production on or off-Broadway. The project fizzled when Scheider passed away in 2008.
Henry’s interests in theater dovetailed his command of the courtroom during trials – his audiences, and jurors, taking in every word, inflection, and nuance. The crossover of trial advocacy and acting is reflected in a story told by attorney Bob Frisenda about a significant high-profile trial in the Eastern District of New York where Henry was at a sidebar with Judge Charles Sifton, just prior to opening statements. Three hundred people were in the courtroom. Sifton observed that Henry’s notepad at the bench bore prominent handwritten letters, “HERS.” Sifton asked, “What is that?” Henry replied that it was something he learned in acting school that he used in his opening statements: Be Humble, Enjoy, Relax, go Slow. He did them all.
Henry also derived great enjoyment from all that he did. As a trial attorney, Henry was not a bombastic advocate demanding a victory, and never used shouting, cynicism, or disbelief at an opponent’s case. He instead painted pictures for juries that told clear stories, and those pictures were all that were necessary to refute an opponent’s arguments. Preparation was also a key for developing trial stories, making it easy for the judge and jury to understand and confirm narratives in the correct way for deciding claims and defenses. Henry’s enjoyment of the law was on display when he returned to the office at the end of regular work hours while on trial, full of excitement, raising issues for associates to follow up on, and asking more questions to get to the truth for a correct application of the law.
Everyone who knew Henry loved and respected him. He never gave anyone reason not to. He was a colleague in the truest sense of the word, supportive of all attorneys, courts, law schools, organizations, and worthwhile causes. Anyone interacting with him sensed his innate truthfulness, fairness, and ethics. He exuded civility and respected all attorneys, judges, and others at all times. There was an occasion when Henry and attorneys George Bickler and Jerry Director visited the Inns of Court in London, observing the ivy-encrusted buildings housing associations of English barristers that served various collegial, educational, and disciplinary functions. Fittingly, Henry was inspired to name the building that housed his own law practice The Inns of Court, symbolizing the role that law associations play in elevating the legal profession. Henry, Bickler, and Director opened a high-end restaurant in the basement level of the building called The Restaurant at the Inns of Court, later known under different management as the Jockey Club, and today as Mulino’s.
There were multiple other dimensions to Henry that went beyond the law. He was the quintessential “renaissance man” with varied interests. Henry served as a corporal in the U.S. Army in Korea until his honorable discharge from service, and it seems out of place that he somehow did not single-handedly negotiate the 1953 Korean armistice agreement. He was a longtime long-distance runner who ran and completed the New York City Marathon. He loved the works of Charles Dickens. He was devoted to and protective of his five children. And Henry was once courted to run for the U.S. Senate, an idea that he entertained shortly after his state bar presidency, but the proper stars did not align.[23] In our opinion, Henry would not have enjoyed being a member of Congress as he would have been focused on “getting things done” and doing the people’s work “very well,” in a body which sometimes falls short of both.
By now, the reader may see a pattern that defines Henry G. Miller’s contributions to the legal profession. He is not defined only by his courtroom successes, however many and noteworthy they are. His definition includes the significant percentage of professional time that he devoted to the ancillary aspects of lawyering – state and local bar associations, law schools, legal writing, CLEs, state commissions, scholarships, networking, skills honing, and the improvement of ourselves as a profession. He epitomizes how attorneys, working together toward common purposes, can raise the legal community higher than the sum of our individual parts. It is no wonder that he represented the New York State Bar Association, fittingly, as its president 40 years ago.
Upon Henry’s passing in 2020, at age 89, a tribute was published in his honor in the fall edition of that year’s Westchester Bar Journal.[24] It included memories and insights provided by 41 contributors from the bench and bar. It is an impressive reflection of the imprint that Henry made upon the law and the lives of the friends and colleagues he knew.
Henry’s life was a life well lived. His clients were well served from case to case. But the legal profession in New York State is better because of his many significant additional contributions beyond the courtroom as well. Let us all be inspired by his example.
Gary E. Bashian of Bashian P.C. is an estates, trusts and business litigation and transactional attorney who was an associate of Henry G. Miller. Henry was his mentor early in his career. He is a past two-term president of the Westchester Bar Association and is the present co-chair of the Practice and Ethics Committee and a member of the Executive Committee of the NYSBA’s Trusts and Estates Law Section. He also received his LL.M. in Taxation from New York University Graduate Law School and served in the U.S. Army, retiring as a 1st Lt. in the JAG Corps.
Mark C. Dillon is a justice of the Appellate Division, 2nd Department, a former student-intern of Henry G. Miller’s law firm in the early 1980s, a retired 1st Lt. of the U.S. Army JAG Corps., a current adjunct professor of New York practice at Fordham Law School, a contributing author of “CPLR Practice Commentaries” in McKinney’s, a member of the NYSBA CPLR Committee, and co-chair of the Westchester Bar CPLR Committee.
The authors thank Dean John Feerick, Professor Jay Carlisle, attorneys Bob Frisenda, Lucille Fontana and John Rand, and Henry’s longtime assistant, Carol Pantel, who each provided insights or materials for this article.
Photo Captions:
Photo Top Left: Henry G. Miller with the Westchester County Courthouse in the background.
Photos Right: Miller, as NYSBA president, presiding over the Town Hall Meeting with the public, to hear ideas and criticisms for improving the law in the state. The adjacent photograph is of meeting attendees.
Photo Middle: The NYSBA brochure summarizing the Town Hall Meeting of Jan. 23, 1985.
Photo Bottom Left: Henry at his law office in White Plains, which has been imaginatively known as The Inns of Court.
Endnotes
[1] “Miller, Henry G., The Lawyer Is No. 2, Not No. 1, NY Times, Jan. 26, 1985, p. 21.
[2] Nolan, Christian, Remembering Henry G. Miller, Larger Than Life Trial Lawyer and Past NYSBA President, https://nysba.org/remembering-henry-miller-larger-than-life-trial-lawyer-past-president/ .
[3]Pace University Alumni Network, “Henry G. Miller,” available at https:www.alumni.pace.edu/s/1655/bp20/interior.aspx?sid=1655&gid=2&pgid=2723 (accessed Feb. 29, 2024).
[4] WCBA, “WCBA Past Presidents,” available at
https://www.wcbany.org/?pg=pastpresidents (accessed Feb. 29, 2024).
[5] NYSBA, “Past Presidents of the New York State Bar Association,” available at https://archive.nysba.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=50951 (accessed Feb. 29, 2024).
[6] 56 New York State Bar Journal Vols. 56 (July 1984), 56 (Oct. 1984), 56 (Nov. 1984), (Dec. 1984) and 57 (Jan. 1985), 57 (Feb. 1985).
[7] NYSBA, “Town Hall Meeting: To Improve the System of Law,” Jan. 23, 1985.
[8] Id.
[9] On Trial – Lessons From a Lifetime in the Courtroom (New York: ALM Publishing, 2001).
[10] New York Practice Guide: Negligence (New York: Matthew Bender, 1989)(co-authored with NYU Law School Prof. Oscar G. Chase).
[11] The Art of Advocacy: Settlement (New York: Matthew Bender, 1983).
[12] Carlisle, Jay C., Remembering Henry Miller, 45 Westchester Bar J. 11-12 (2020).
[13] Proposed GML Article 18 (S. 6167, A. 8637 (June 1991).
[14] Supra note 12 at 12.
[15] Id, at 12.
[16] Id., at 12.
[17] Id., at 12. See also Courtroom Television Network, LLC v. State of New York, 1 Misc.3d 328, 364 [Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co. 2003] [Kornriech, J.], aff’d. 8 AD3d 164 [1st Dep’t. 2004], aff’d. 5 NY3d 222 [2005]).
[18] Id., at 12.
[19] Pace University Alumni Network, “Henry G. Miller,” available at https:www.alumni.pace.edu/s/1655/bp20/interior.aspx?sid=1655&gid=2&pgid=2723 (accessed Feb. 29, 2024).
[20] Pace University Alumni, “Honoree Henry G. Miller,” available at https://www.alumni.pace.edu/s/1655/bp20/interior.aspx?sid=1655&gid=2&pgid=2753 (accessed July 10, 2024).
Stella Adler was an established MGM movie actress 80-90 years ago, and was far more well-known during her acting and teaching years than she is known today.
[22] The theater is actually named for the playwright Henry Miller (1891-1980).
[23] The 1986 race was between incumbent Senator Alphonse D’Amato (R-C-RTL), who won, and challenger Mark Green (D).
[24] A Tribute to Henry Miller, 45 Westchester Bar J. 1 (2020).
