HB article from Issue 36 - Huddleston Bolen, LLP

(Inset) Huddleston Bolen power brokers
Eustace Gibson and Herbert Fitzpatrick.
(Below) Some of the current managing
partners assembled in the Huntington office.
From left: Tom Murray, Richard
Bolen, Fred Adkins and Bruce Stout.
H E R I T A G E
FIRM
C o l l i s P . H u n t i n g t o n ’ s
Huddleston Bolen’s heritage can be traced back to the city’s roots

Anumber of Huntington’s businesses have long, distinguished histories but how many can trace their origins directly to
Collis P. Huntington? Huddleston, Bolen, Beatty, Porter & Copen, Huntington’s oldest and largest law firm, joins the C&O
Railway and a scant few others as the oldest continuous business in the city, a distinction which goes back to 1871, the year
the city was officially chartered by the West Virginia Legislature. That same year saw the arrival in Huntington of Eustace Gibson, a
talented Virginia lawyer and former Confederate captain, who had been summoned by Collis P. Huntington to handle the legal affairs
of his Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in the new town the rail tycoon was building to serve as the western terminus of the railroad on
the banks of the Ohio River.
Huddleston, Bolen, Beatty, Porter & Copen is the direct descendant of the legal practice Gibson established. And today, 128 years
and more than a dozen name changes later, the firm still represents the C&O’s successor, CSX Transportation, in what is the longest
continuing law firm/client relationship in West Virginia’s legal history. But the firm’s status in the legal community has grown far
beyond that of the “railroad’s firm.” Today Huddleston Bolen is a modern law firm housed in a four story building on the corner of
Seventh Street and Third Avenue in downtown Huntington. “We bought the building in 1988”, notes Tom Gilpin, the
by
JAMES E. CASTO

“
For years we have been providing
law service, while working hard t

firm’s managing partner. “It was formerly the headquarters of the
Buckeye Insurance Company and when they moved out, we saw
the opportunity to accommodate our growth and move from our
cramped building at Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street. We spent
several months redesigning the building and renovating it to
serve as a state-of-the-art law office. We moved in June of 1989
and have continued to make improvements to meet the technology
demands of our clients.” But while investing in technology
makes sense in this age of rapid change, the partners of Huddleston
Bolen also realize that the lawyers who comprise the firm’s
rich history also account for its longstanding success.
For almost one hundred and thirty years, the law firm has
given the community many of its leading citizens, starting with
Eustace Gibson and continuing up to the present day. Born in
Culpepper County, Va. in 1842, Gibson had just started his law
our clients with top-quality
to o improve the community.
— Richard J. Bolen, partner
practice when the Civil War erupted. He enlisted in the Confederate
Army and rose to the rank of captain before being forced
to retire after being wounded in action. Arriving in Huntington
in answer to Collis P. Huntington’s summons, Gibson immediately
threw himself into the affairs of the new town. On January
29, 1873, when ceremonies were held here welcoming the first
C&O train to arrive from Richmond, it was Gibson who presided
as master of ceremonies. Active in politics, Gibson was elected
to the House of Delegates from Cabell County in 1876 and the
(Left) Jim Turner carries
on a long standing tradition
of defending the
railroad industry. The
firm has represented the
C&O Railroad (now
CSX Transportation)
since 1871. (Below) Attorney
Melissa Foster
questions a witness regarding
a railroad accident.
next year his fellow
H o u s e m e m b e r s
e l e c t e d h i m
Speaker. He later
served two terms
(1883-87) in the
U.S. House of Representatives.
In his
Cabell County Annals
and Families,
the late George
Wallace described
Gibson as “an unusual
character.”
That, judging from
some of his reported
exploits, was
a masterpiece of understatement.
In
one heated political
campaign, when his
war record was questioned, he showed up at a public meeting to
exhibit an old gray pair of uniform trousers. The front of the
trousers — along with part of his belly — had been shot away by
a cannon ball. Originally, Gibson practiced law on his own; later,
he partnered with Henry C. Simms. Gibson died in 1900.
The name Enslow has been a familiar one in Huntington since
1871, when railroad contractor Andrew Jackson Enslow arrived
to help build the C&O. His son, Frank B. Enslow, grew up in
Huntington, married here and entered the practice of law with
Gibson’s former partner, Simms. In addition to his law practice,
Frank B. Enslow, who died in 1917, had extensive business interests
in oil and gas, banking and other fields. Local legend cred-

its him with being the city’s first millionaire. Certainly his opulent
26-room mansion in the 1300 block of 3rd Avenue, with its
marble fireplaces, Tiffany chandeliers and stained-glass windows,
was a local showplace.
During his amazingly full lifetime Herbert Fitzpatrick (1872-
1962), was both a partner in the law firm and a corporate officer
of the C&O. After joining the firm, he quickly found himself
busy in courtrooms all over West Virginia and before long his
impressive skills as a trial lawyer attracted the attention of the
C&O which in 1895 designated him as its state counsel. Fitzpatrick’s
rise after he joined the C&O was meteoric. He became
its vice president and general counsel in 1923 and served as the
C&O’s chairman of the board from 1937 to 1940, when he retired
from the railroad and returned to practice with the firm.
In 1955, the lifelong bachelor donated the hillside property
on McCoy Road where Huntington Galleries (now the Huntington
Museum of Art) was built, and later he gave the museum
an extensive collection of English silver and Middle Eastern art.
Douglas Walter Brown practiced law in the Mingo County
coalfields before coming to Huntington and joining the firm in
1919. One of the leading lawyers in the state, he served as president
of the Cabell County Bar Association and the West Virginia
Bar Association. His son, Walter Brown, a Rhodes Scholar,
also joined the firm but left in 1941 to become general counsel
and vice president of Western Electric.
Harvard graduate and noted banking and real estate lawyer
Jackson N. Huddleston (1908-1977) represented numerous
Huntington families and businesses and was a personal friend of
former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell.
Amos A. Bolen (1909-1996) made his mark in many fields.
Long-time counsel for the C&O and The Greenbrier, he served
as president of the West Virginia Board of Regents and was a Phi
Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude graduate of the Washington
& Lee College and School of Law. He was an All-American on
the football team at W&L and in 1958 was named to Sports Illustrated’s
Silver Anniversary All-America team. Today, his son,
Richard J. Bolen is a partner in the firm.
William Beatty (1925-1994) served as president of both the
West Virginia Bar Association and the West Virginia State Bar.
His academic achievements at Washington & Lee have not been
surpassed since his graduation from that law school. A nationally
renowned railroad and labor lawyer, he argued one of the seminal
labor cases of “The Steelworkers Trilogy” before the United
States Supreme Court. Beatty also was a noted expert on the First
Amendment and represented The Herald-Dispatch for many years.
No discussion of the firm would be complete without noting
partner A. Michael Perry, a specialist in banking, mergers and
acquisitions, who left the firm to join one of its largest clients as
president and CEO of the First Huntington National Bank, then
Key Centurion, and later Bank One West Virginia. Today, he’s
wearing yet another hat, that of interim president of Marshall
University.
Today, the firm consists of more than 40 lawyers, has a staff of
over 100 and maintains offices not just in Huntington, but also
in Charleston and Ashland, Ky.
The firm’s partners and associates engage in a broad practice,
with emphasis in litigation, corporate, banking, tax, estate planning,
probate, labor and employment, environmental, real estate,
insurance and mineral law.
The firm’s modern, up-to-date collection of nearly 30,000
volumes is the largest private law library in West Virginia. In this
collection are hundreds of antique volumes dating back to the
1870s. “We’ve resisted the trend among law firms of getting rid
of bound volumes and replacing them with computers,” said
partner Jim Turner, a trial lawyer in the litigation group who
specializes in railroad and toxic tort cases.
The firm’s current roster of clients, in addition to CSX Transportation
and The Greenbrier, includes Norfolk Southern Corporation,
Amtrak, Bank One West Virginia, Genesis Affiliated
Health Services, Champion Industries, Ashland Inc., Marathon
Ashland Petroleum, Exxon, Navistar, General Electric, BASF,
Western Pocahontas Properties Ltd., Corbin Ltd., and 3M.
With its work for CSX and Norfolk Southern, the firm maintains
its close ties to the transportation industry. “We have the
largest railroad practice in the country,” says Marc Williams, a
partner who has done work for both railroads, in addition to local
companies like Ashland Inc. and BASF. “But our firm is so much
more than that,” he notes. “Our litigation practice spans three
states and a myriad of areas from mass torts to product liability
to chemical exposure cases to professional malpractice defense.”
The unqualified respect of other lawyers in the region is noted
by the firm’s “A” rating in Martindale-Hubbell, the nation’s premier
legal directory, and its listing in Best’s Dictionary of Recommended
Insurance Attorneys.
In recent years, the firm has been called upon to represent
some of the areas most respected businesses and individuals in
their times of need and growth. Partner Tom Murray has represented
Bank One and Champion Industries in their expansions
from local companies to regional heavyweights. As a consequence,
Murray has been recognized in the book Best Lawyers in
America for his expertise in banking law. Likewise, partners Marc
Williams and Robert Massie were instrumental in navigating
Ashland Oil through the Catlettsburg Refinery Litigation in the
early and mid 1990s. Williams and Massie are doing the same
for CSX Transportation in defending the lawsuits arising from
the 1997 Scary Creek train derailment.
Today, the firm’s remarkable heritage of public service continues.
Bolen, a former chairman of the Huntington Regional
Chamber of Commerce, played an instrumental role in the formation
of the Huntington Area Development Council and
served as its first chairman. Noel C. Copen specializes in banking,
trusts, tax, will and estates and is one of only a handful of
West Virginia lawyers chosen as a member of the exclusive
American College of Trusts & Estates. He is also a very active
supporter of Marshall University and has served on the Board of
the Marshall University Foundation. Firm managing partner
Tom Gilpin is Chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia.
Partner R. Kemp Morton is past president of the United
Way of the River Cities, past president of the West Virginia State
Bar and past chairman of the state Lawyer Disciplinary Board.
Retired name partner James O. Porter has served as president of
the Marshall University Alumni Association, the Marshall Foundation
and the West Virginia State Bar. Partner Fred Adkins was
the founder and first President of the Defense Trial Counsel of
West Virginia and recently completed a term as President of the
National Association of Railroad Trial Counsel. Partner Bruce
Stout is the youngest lawyer ever to be selected for membership
in the prestigious American College of Probate Counsel. Stout

is also on the boards of the Huntington Museum of Art, the Cabell
Huntington Hospital Foundation and the Friends of the Cabell
County Public Library. Tom Murray has served as Chairman
of the Marshall Artist Series as well as on the Board of the United
Way of the River Cities. Two of the firm’s former partners joined
then West Virginia Governor Gaston Caperton’s administration
as Tax Commissioner and Chief of Staff. The firm has also been
recognized by the West Virginia Pro Bono Referral Project for its
commitment to providing free legal services to indigent clients in
the area.
The list of contributions to the community by members of the
firm, partners and associates alike, goes on and on.
What, one wonders, will the 21st Century mean for Huntington’s
oldest law firm? “For years,” says Bolen, “we have been
providing our clients with top-quality law service, while working
hard to improve the community. And we intend to keep right on
doing that.”
HQ
James E. Casto is associate editor of The Herald-Dispatch.