History of Friday, Eldredge & Clark

By tracing the legal representation of the Missouri Pacific   Railroad in Arkansas, the Friday Eldredge & Clark law firm traces its own history to December 1, 1871, when attorneys George E. Dodge and Benjamin S. Johnson formed a partnership for the practice of law, representing what was then known as the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad, one of Arkansas' first major legal clients. Since that time the firm has maintained an unbroken record of representing Arkansas' dominant railroad, the Missouri Pacific Railroad, acquired several years ago by the Union Pacific Railroad.

Like the railroad, the law firm has changed names through the years, due to deaths, resignations and reorganizations, but the changes have not adversely affected the firm's practice. Its clients; the railroad, truck lines, utilities, banks, contractors, manufacturers, investment houses, insurance companies, professional organizations, school districts, improvement districts, estates and individuals; have continued to seek the firm's services, and today it is the state's largest law firm.

Pat Mehaffy, son of Judge Tom Mehaffy, joined Henry Donham and Martin Fulk as a law partner at the beginning of 1941, when Donham needed help with his work on the Missouri Pacific account, as well as People's Bank (later First National Bank), a thriving insurance company practice, and some general law practice. From 1942 through 1952 other lawyers joined the Donham, Fulk and Mehaffy firm in their quarters in the Boyle Building, either as associates sharing facilities, practicing independently.

Donham died in 1951 and Mehaffy organized the Mehaffy, Smith & Williams firm on June 1, 1952. William J. Smith, a native of Texarkana, had been an associate with Donham, Fulk and Mehaffy since 1946. An active Democrat, Smith served Governors Homer Adkins, Ben Laney, Francis Cherry and Orval Faubus as legislative advisor. John T. Williams had worked in the prosecuting attorney's office under Mehaffy and was in private practice in Marianna Arkansas.

Associates in the Mehaffy, Smith & Williams firm were Ben Allen and Herschel Friday, at the time a clerk for a federal district judge in Fort Smith Arkansas, who immediately began working on bond issues.

After their military service, William A. Eldredge Jr., and Bill S. Clark joined the firm in 1953. Eldredge developed a specialty in trial work and railroad representation, and Clark eventually devoted most of his practice to labor relations. In 1954, William H. Bowen an Altheimer Arkansas native, was hired from the Tax Division of the Justice Department and became the first lawyer in Arkansas to devote his practice solely to taxes. William L. Terry, son of former Congressman David D. Terry, with whom Mehaffy had shared an office in 1927, joined in 1954, developing a specialty in real estate. When Robert V. Light was hired in 1955 the firm was double its size of three years earlier.

Mehaffy, Smith & Williams was the first law firm in the state to develop several departments of two or more attorneys devoting most of their time to a specialty. Over a period of time the firm established departments in the fields of taxation, bonds, securities, trial work, commercial law and labor law. The firm became Mehaffy, Smith, Williams, Friday & Bowen after Mehaffy accepted an appointment by President John F. Kennedy to be the United States Court of Appeals of the Eighth Circuit in 1963. William Bowen left in 1971 to become president of Commercial Bank, N.A., where he served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer. With Bowen's leaving and Smith and Williams retirement in 1974, the present name Friday, Eldredge & Clark evolved.

Upon William J. Smith's retirement in 1974, leadership of the firm passed on to Herschel H. Friday who guided it during twenty years of steady growth. Upon Mr. Friday's death in a 1994 plane crash, Vice Chairman William H. Sutton succeeded him as Chairman of the Management Committee and Byron Eiseman, architect of the firm's taxation section, became Vice Chairman. The firm continued its growth during their tenure including the addition of an office in Northwest Arkansas.

In July of 2005, William H. Sutton, the firm's chairman and managing partner since the death of Herschel Friday on March 1, 1994, announced his retirement. Byron Eiseman, the firm's Vice Chairman and head of its Tax and Business Department became the fifth managing partner of the firm which has been previously led by Pat Mehaffy, William J. Smith, Friday and Sutton during its 54-year history.

J. Shepherd Russell, head of the firm's Public Finance Department, replaced Eiseman as Vice Chairman.  The firm continues its service of business, non-profit, governmental and individual clients in Arkansas and throughout the United States.  The practice groups of the firm are as follows: