Wallace LaMar Duncan 

September 28, 1937  –  February 22, 2008  

A Tribute

“Chief.”  It’s the name Walley’s grandchildren call him.  I admit that I chuckled to myself the first time I heard it – but in retrospect, with his tall, lanky frame, perfectly coiffed hair, stylish clothes, ever-present aroma of Polo cologne, and his always-shiny silver Porsche, he was hardly a “Gramps” kind of guy.

 In virtually every aspect of his life, Walley was, indeed, the “chief.”  He was the eldest child and the only boy -- surrounded by four sisters who adored him.  He graduated at the top of his class from both college and law school.  His first job after law school was as a Special Assistant to the Solicitor of the Interior Department.  He left the government to become the managing partner of the Washington office of a major law firm.  And then he founded his own firm, which became one of the preeminent firms specializing in energy, natural resource and public power matters.  He was, and in my mind always will be, the “Chief.”

Walley was born in Salt Lake City in 1937 and it didn’t take long for him to make his first big splash.  When he was three years old, the Salt Lake newspaper wrote a story about Walley and his uncanny ability to recognize the make and model of virtually every new car on the road.  It should have been the first clue of his love for cars that would last a lifetime.

But cars were not Walley’s only childhood interest.  He loved the outdoors and could frequently be found playing with his friends in the gully behind his house.  Like most boys, he played a variety of sports; but his passion was basketball – so much so that he was able to play on his high school and church basketball teams.  In high school, he was student body vice-president and a member of the debating team.  He also played the trumpet and sang bass in a quartet.  And, as should come as no surprise to anyone, he was always gregarious and outgoing.

Walley couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel of a car.  He drove a black Mercury 2-door coupe which he loved to show off for everyone to see, even if that meant leaving it parked in a prominent no parking zone.  On one such occasion, a motorcycle policeman pulled over and threatened to impound the car – to which Walley replied by pointing at the motorcycle and responding, “With THAT?”

One of Walley’s first jobs was to sell men’s’ clothes – first at a store named “Bud’s Duds” and later at Maurice Anderson’s, which boasted the best and most expensive fashions in Salt Lake .  For a kid like Walley, this was the equivalent of being left alone in a candy store.  Though he was already comfortably in touch with his sense of fashion, this is where it truly began to flourish. 

Around this same time, Walley began dating Barbara, whom he had first met in junior high school.  After dating through high school, they married and moved to Washington .  Walley soon entered a joint degree program at American University which allowed him to pursue his undergraduate and law degrees simultaneously.

While he was in school, Walley worked on the Capitol Hill police force, eventually achieving the rank of sergeant.  Fortunately, there wasn’t much crime fighting required, so most of his time at work consisted of studying and meticulously typing his notes from school.  While the job was not too demanding, it did have its moments – like standing guard over the Kennedy inauguration from his post in a nearby bell tower.

Walley received a Perle Mesta scholarship to attend law school.  For those not familiar with Ms. Mesta, she was a well-known socialite and political hostess in Washington in the 1940’s.  Walley thought it only appropriate to personally thank her for her generosity, and when he called on her she told him he was the only scholarship recipient to ever thank her personally.

Walley’s law school career was the stuff of legends.  He was the editor of the law review and graduated first in his class.  His graduating grade point average was the highest of any student who ever attended the Washington College of Law – this despite the fact that he was simultaneously pursuing two degrees and holding down a job.  And his law school notes were so coveted that they were memorialized and distributed to many subsequent law students, including West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who (though Walley’s senior by 20 years) was 2 years behind him in law school. 

Immediately after law school, Walley applied, and was one of six law graduates in the country to be accepted, for the prestigious E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship at Georgetown Law School .  As a Prettyman fellow, Walley studied trial advocacy and represented indigent criminal defendants while pursuing an LL.M. degree.  Walley handled a wide range of criminal cases, including some involving the death penalty.  Because capital cases required a more senior attorney, Walley was coupled with John Warner, later Secretary of the Navy and currently a Senator from Virginia .  It soon became apparent that Warner was somewhat more accomplished as a politician than he was as a criminal defense lawyer.  In fact, Walley often recalled that the only reason this particular client escaped the death penalty was that Warner was struck by a car and broke his leg crossing the street in front of the courthouse.

While Walley was in law school, Barbara worked at the Interior Department as a secretary for the Solicitor.  The Solicitor had met Walley on several occasions, and when Walley was preparing to graduate from Georgetown , he offered Walley a position as a Special Assistant.  I suspect Walley took very little time to choose between continuing criminal defense work and becoming a natural resource lawyer for the United States Government.  And thus began his illustrious career.

As a Special Assistant to the Solicitor, Walley had enormous responsibilities – especially for a kid just out of law school.  One of those responsibilities was to hire other attorneys to work in the Solicitor’s office.  One such attorney he hired was Gary Hart, later a Senator from Colorado and a presidential candidate.

One of Walley’s first jobs at the Interior Department was to try to stop efforts to rezone a scenic portion of the Potomac River shoreline in Northern Virginia for condominium development.  The work was of keen interest to the Secretary of the Interior, Stuart Udall, because the proposed development was a bit too close to his wooded home along the Potomac palisades.  Walley’s success in protecting the area from development earned him the gratitude and support of Secretary Udall  -- so much so that Walley quickly became Udall’s right hand man on a number of significant matters.

The Interior Department during the Kennedy Administration was actively promoting the development and expansion of a number of large reclamation and power development projects intended to bring inexpensive hydroelectric power to the West.  Walley became the department’s point man to negotiate the terms of those projects among Members of Congress, the Interior Department and state and local interests.  The work required traveling to the western states, and Walley soon discovered that he was afraid of flying – this from the man who, later in life, would fly more miles in one year than any other passenger on United Airlines.  To abate his fears, Walley made sure to pack his “lucky” suit on every trip – which may explain why, as his travels increased over the years, so did his beautiful wardrobe.

In the course of his work for the Interior Department, Walley developed the passion for natural resource law and public power that would last a lifetime.  It was also during this period that he first met many of the people who would later become his clients in private practice. 

Among the other people Walley met were lawyers from the Phoenix-based law firm of Jennings , Strouss, Salmon & Trask.  Jennings Strouss represented the Salt River Project and wanted to open a Washington DC office to handle their increased federal activities.  They saw in Walley the perfect candidate to establish and run the office, and when Irving Jennings personally recruited Walley for the job, he couldn’t resist.  Realizing that he might need some help in this endeavor, Walley invited Rick Brown, who was one of the other Special Assistants, to join him at Jennings Strouss.  Rick accepted, and not long thereafter, the Washington office of Jennings Strouss opened, with Walley serving as managing partner.

After the authorization for the Salt River Project was passed by Congress, Mr. Jennings asked Walley to relocate to Arizona .  Walley declined the invitation and instead, negotiated a buy-out of the Jennings Strouss office so that he could open his own law firm.

And so, on April Fools Day, 1971, the law firm of Duncan & Brown opened for business.  It was basically two guys and a lot of chutzpah – but their vision was anything but small.  Though Walley no longer represented the Interior Department or the Salt River Project he approached all matters, big and small, with the same unbridled zeal as if he was backed by the auspices of the United States Government.  No opponent was too powerful, and no case was too big.

In what can only be viewed as a tribute to Walley’s determination and persuasive abilities – not to  mention the likelihood of success of his new firm -- Walley was able to recruit Ed Weinberg, the Solicitor at Interior, and Secretary Udall himself. 

The case that first put Duncan Weinberg on the map of truly great energy and natural resource firms was the Cross-Florida Barge Canal case.  The Army Corps of Engineers was planning to construct a canal across Florida connecting the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean .  The firm represented environmental groups that were challenging the government’s decision based on its failure to adequately consider the environmental consequences of the project.  Locking horns with the Corps of Engineers is never a picnic, but in this case two sections of the canal had already been built, making the legal challenge all the more difficult.  Nevertheless, the firm obtained the first injunction ever granted under the National Environmental Policy Act, to stop the project from moving forward.  The land that was once slated for dredging and destruction is now a protected environmental habitat. 

Walley’s expertise in natural resource and public power matters was widely recognized throughout the country.  He was deputized as a special attorney general for the State of Nevada to handle the allocation of water and power generated at Hoover Dam.  For him, such cases were not merely about legal technicalities or statutory interpretations.  They involved the allocation of public resources in accordance with fundamental principles deeply embedded in American history.  To engage Walley in conversation about these issues -- or, perhaps I should say, to have the opportunity to listen to Walley wax poetic about them -- was nothing short of captivating.

Perhaps the crowning achievement in Walley’s legal career was a case he undertook in the early 70’s on behalf of a small town in northern New York named Massena.  The case is truly a story, and an achievement, of epic proportions.

Representatives of the Town contacted Walley to discuss creating a publicly owned, non-profit electric utility system to serve its residents.  Their goal was to obtain a long-term, reliable supply of electricity from the Niagara Project, a huge hydroelectric project that produced some of the least expensive electricity in the world.  Based on the federal law authorizing the construction of the Niagara Project, publicly-owned utilities had a preference to purchase its output. 

The primary obstacle to the Town’s plan was that the electric system was already owned by Niagara Mohawk, the large investor-owned utility serving upstate New York – and Niagara Mohawk made it abundantly clear that it would stop at nothing to defeat Massena’s efforts.  As Niagara Mohawk’s General Counsel remarked to Walley, Massena would succeed only over his dead body.

Despite intense opposition by Niagara Mohawk, the townspeople voted in 1974 to create the Massena Electric Department.  The next seven years constituted a veritable war between Niagara Mohawk and Massena, which included a 55-day trial before the New York Public Service Commission, two separate appeals to the New York Court of Appeals and a federal antitrust case.  The case took Walley away from home for so long that there was some speculation that the child he and Donnetta were expecting would be named “Massena” instead of “Whitney.”

The litigation was nothing if not colorful.  Walley, his partner Fred Palmer, and a small but energetic and enthusiastic supporting cast took on the giant Niagara Mohawk, whose resources completely dwarfed those of Massena and Duncan Weinberg.  In many aspects of the case, Walley was the single lead lawyer, facing off against two senior partners on the other side who looked, roughly, like Mutt and Jeff.  The exchanges in the case were so heated that highlights from the written transcripts would be posted daily in the office, as if they were the latest movie reviews.

I traveled with Walley to one of the hearings in the antitrust case and can personally attest to the fact that the litigation was a study in contrasts.  Niagara Mohawk’s lawyers – one balding and the other with a terrible comb-over -- would show up in dark, wrinkled suits, white shirts and ugly wide ties, toting banker’s boxes overflowing with documents.  Walley would arrive in his typical sartorial splendor carrying a leather briefcase.  Whenever the presiding judge called a recess, he would meet Walley outside the courtroom to shoot the breeze, while Mutt and Jeff looked on from a distance, fuming.  One of my favorite recollections was a drawing by the courtroom artist that depicted Walley as a modern-day Clarence Darrow with one hand on his hip, the other pointed to the sky and his suit jacket flapping as he turned sharply to make a point.  You couldn’t pay for that kind of publicity. 

In the end, the Town of Massena won.  They began operation on May 8, 1981.  Massena paid Niagara Mohawk the fair market value of the electric distribution system it acquired, while Niagara Mohawk paid many multiples of that amount litigating to prevent the takeover.  It was the first successful contested municipalization effort that had occurred in decades -- and there have been none since.  As a result of these efforts, the Town residents have been receiving reliable and inexpensive electric service since 1981, without a single rate increase.

Walley’s professional career was truly remarkable.  He had numerous accomplishments that were significant, far-reaching and will continue to benefit his clients, the people they represent, and many other groups for whom he established important legal precedents.  But those accomplishments reveal only a portion of Walley’s persona.

It should go without saying that Walley was an incredible intellect.  He had an amazing recall of factual information and tremendous analytic faculties that you could literally see churning away to solve dicey problems.  With his intellect came confidence; but it was a confidence that was not so much intimidating as it was inspirational.  Being around Walley made you feel like you could accomplish almost anything.

Walley always loved the outdoors – whether gardening, playing tennis, fishing or going to Redskin games (even in the dead of winter).  But clearly his favorite outdoor activity was golf.  There was virtually nothing that could stand in the way of his regular golf games at the club -- though based on his typical description of his game, I’m guessing it must have been the friendships or the scenery that kept him coming back.  But no matter how he played, he always remained focused and resolute, quietly plotting his strategy.  With single-minded determination, he could block out any distraction or obstacle; whether a torrential downpour that soaked him to the skin or, as happened during one outing, a broken ankle.  Though he fractured his ankle on No. 2, he finished all 18 holes before seeking medical attention – and later boasted it was a pretty good round.

Outside of golf, perhaps Walley’s favorite outdoor experiences were the fishing trips he used to take to Big Timber, Montana ; especially those when he was accompanied by Berney, Richie or Andrew.  The group would fly into Billings , drive for three hours to Big Timber in a beat up old jeep with no brakes and then ride by horseback down to Grizzly Creek.  Walley approached the fishing like it was just another competition.  Even after everyone else had caught their fill and retired to the campsite, Walley would continue fishing until he had landed literally hundreds of Cutthroat trout (or until the stream was cleared, whichever came first).  Walley especially liked to recall Andrew’s comment as he returned home from one of those trips.  When asked if he enjoyed the trip, Andrew replied to his Dad that it was the most fun he had ever had – and was likely the most fun he ever would have.

Walley was a natural raconteur, and there were literally countless stories he loved to share.  They were always captivating and amusing; and occasionally bore some semblance to the truth.

He also had an artistic flair.  It was definitely apparent in his gardening, interior design and fashion, not to mention his singing and graceful ballroom dancing.  He even needle-pointed an apron one time for Donnetta.  And he could draw beautiful calligraphy.  In fact, his normal handwriting was so beautiful it resembled calligraphy.  I recall him writing hundred page briefs filling multiple tablets of yellow pads with his beautiful handwriting, with barely a word scratched out.

And then there was Walley’s fashion sense.  His home and office were always impeccably appointed.  And while these were joint efforts with Donnetta, it was never clear to me which one of them loved decorating more, or which one was better at it.

But when it came to clothing, he was truly one of a kind.  No matter what the style, Walley could put it together and make it look great.  He could wear things that few around him would dare attempt.  Occasionally, he could go a bit overboard.  Like when he showed up on one of the Montana fishing trips wearing starched and perfectly creased blue jeans, a new western shirt with pearl snaps, a 4X beaver Stetson and a Rolex watch.  The local sheepherders and his fellow companions, all of whom were wearing beat up jeans and tee shirts, didn’t know quite what to make of him.  He got a similar reaction on a pheasant hunting trip when he showed up wearing a new tweed hunting jacket, hat and (of course) neatly creased trousers.

Aside from these occasional excesses, Walley was always immaculately turned out, regardless of whether he was attending a black-tie gala or gardening.  As far as I know, he has never been seen with his shirt tail untucked or his pants (even blue jeans) not perfectly creased.  I, for one, could never figure out how he could keep the crease in his jeans after a full day of gardening (or, for that matter, why he would even want a crease in his jeans).  But somehow he did it.

Walley was fiercely competitive and he loved to win, no matter what the endeavor – golf, tennis, ping pong, cards or the various games we often played at family gatherings.  When Walley and Tom Mains won a huge courtroom victory for their friend Marc Bettius based on a novel theory that an insurance company had engaged in bad faith, Walley exited the courtroom pumping his fist shouting “BAD FAITH, BAD FAITH” even as stunned jurors looked on.