William DeParcq said he \u201chad not put too much strain on his brain\u201d during his grade and high school years.\u00a0 However, the trajectory of his life changed dramatically when he was 18 years old, and an automobile accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.\u00a0 Throughout his life, he managed the difficulties resulting from his disability without complaint.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0In fact, he often described the difficulties he encountered with non-accessible courtrooms, nearly always on the top floor of a courthouse without elevators, with \u201cconsiderable hilarity in the retelling.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeParcq threw himself into representing the concerns of disabled people in policy changes including the removal of barriers to accessibility and in representing individuals who have been harmed by tortious behavior.\u00a0\u00a0 On the policy side, DeParcq was invited to participate when a state committee to study architectural barriers was formed.\u00a0 \u00a0His work, with others, began to take initial steps to correct this problem.<\/p>\n
DeParcq also remembered the disabled who came behind him.\u00a0 He was a leader in improving the quality of life for disabled people.\u00a0 Among other things, he helped found the Courage Foundation, Minnesota\u2019s premier organization to serve the needs of the disabled.\u00a0 He spent many years as a board member of Camp Courage, an internationally recognized program to train and rehabilitate disabled persons.<\/p>\n
DeParcq\u2019s attorney in his auto accident claim, Robert M. McDonald, urged DeParcq to go to law school.\u00a0 DeParcq matriculated at St. Paul College of Law, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1930.\u00a0 He began practicing law, opening a practice in Staples, MN, where he often got paid in bushels of corn.\u00a0 With his growing international fame as a personal injury lawyer, DeParcq opened offices in Minneapolis and Chicago.<\/p>\n
DeParcq was known for his \u201clifelong devotion to the art of advocacy\u201d and his extraordinary trial skills.\u00a0 He was particularly famous for representing men and women harmed by injuries in the railroad industry.\u00a0\u00a0 Ultimately, he became the dean of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers from 1954-55.<\/p>\n
DeParcq was counsel in many cases appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but few of them were granted certiorari. Among these cases, DeParcq represented plaintiff M. F. White in White v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co.<\/em>, 244 S.W.2d 26 (Mo. 1951) in which the Missouri Supreme Court held that when White was injured coupling a tank car to an engine while the train was running, he could sue for violation of the Federal Safety Appliance Act.\u00a0 \u00a0DeParcq also represented O. R. Chaney, who was injured when he attempted to pull a coupling pin (allegedly part of a defective apparatus) during a track switching operation and was run over by one of the railroad cars (Henwood v. Chaney, 156 F.2d 392 (8th<\/sup> Cir. 1946)).\u00a0 In the Chaney case, the trial judge refused to let the jury consider the issue of defective equipment, and only permitted consideration of whether the railroad was negligent in permitting an oil-and-mud slick at the scene of the accident.<\/p>\n In one case, DeParcq appealed, he represented a Cleveland resident, A. F. Whitney, who claimed to have been libeled in Chicago by a telegram sent by T. M. Madden from International Falls, Minnesota.\u00a0 The defendant was served in Chicago when he was staying in a hotel there, and the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the Illinois trial court\u2019s dismissal order on the grounds of forum non conveniens.<\/p>\n DeParcq found himself in hot water in an unusual case in the Southern District of Iowa when he consulted with Clifford Dean, who had been injured in a 1952 accident on the Great Chicago Northern Railway.\u00a0 After interviewing the client, DeParcq referred the case to local counsel, J. Riley McManus.\u00a0 McManus, out of respect for DeParcq\u2019s having sent him the case, listed DeParcq as \u201cof counsel\u201d even though he had not been notified of the filings or participated in the case in any way.\u00a0 The federal district judge in the Southern District of Iowa, Judge William J. Riley, ordered DeParcq to respond to explain how he could be of counsel when he was not eligible to be admitted to the bar of that district. When DeParcq did not reply (because he was not served with the show cause order), the judge prepared to hold DeParcq in contempt of court.\u00a0 Protesting his innocence, DeParcq filed a writ of prohibition to prevent the contempt order in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.\u00a0 The Eighth Circuit held that he was not considered an attorney of record for purposes of the admission requirements, but the Court of Appeals dismissed the writ as moot when the trial judge dismissed the client\u2019s claim on the merits.<\/p>\n DeParcq also was elected to the state legislature from House District 51 representing Todd County, and his hometown of Staples, on November 8, 1932. He sat in the House from January 1933 to January 1935, serving on several committees including Appropriations, Commercial Transportation, Crime Prevention, General Legislation, the Judiciary, Reapportionment, and Taxes and Tax Laws. \u00a0He was a long-term member of the Minnesota Judicial Committee, from 1937-1949.<\/p>\n DeParcq was one of an \u201cinner circle\u201d of Minnesota\u2019s prominent plaintiff\u2019s personal injury attorneys, a circle that included Warren Plunkett, Solly Robins, Robert King, Sr., Charles Hvass, Sr., Norm Perl, and John Norton.\u00a0 By the early 60\u2019s, they became the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Claimants\u2019 Counsel of America, and they founded the Minnesota Trial Lawyers Association on October 25, 1963.\u00a0 One of their projects was to repeal the $25,000 statutory limit on wrongful death cases.\u00a0 MTLA\u2019s first executive director was Cara Lee Neville, (MHSL 1975), later a Hennepin County District Court judge and another MHSL graduate.<\/p>\n DeParcq also participated in numerous professional committees.\u00a0 He was known as a mentor to many lawyers and happy to share his experience.\u00a0\u00a0 Among others, the Hunegs, LeNeave & Kvas law firm, originally founded by William DeParcq, has represented injured plaintiffs for 70 years; and DeParcq mentored Jim Schwebel, the well-known personal injury lawyer, in his early years of practice.\u00a0 Among DeParcq\u2019s friends was President Franklin Roosevelt.\u00a0 DeParcq was recognized by Law and Politics as 20th in Minnesota\u2019s Legal Hall of Fame in 2007.<\/p>\n William DeParcq was born on March 27, 1905, in New Orleans, Louisiana and grew up in Minneapolis.\u00a0 His father was a hotelier.\u00a0 \u00a0He graduated from the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n DeParcq\u2019s mother was a key to his success.\u00a0 After his accident, she re-taught him how to walk using crutches and leg braces.\u00a0 When he was in law school, she came to class and took notes for him, reading the law to him while he took therapeutic walks.<\/p>\n DeParcq was known as a modest man, who often used his sense of humor in self-deprecating ways.\u00a0 A friend, Bill Lehmeyer cited his \u201ccompassion, his skill and above all his fortitude in the face of tremendous adversity beyond most people\u2019s comprehension.\u201d<\/p>\n William DeParcq never married or had children.\u00a0 In fact, he spent most of his life working\u2014his clerks and partners suggested that he worked almost all of the time.\u00a0\u00a0 When he retired from practice in 1973, DeParcq built himself an accessible home in Tucson, Arizona.\u00a0 He died there on April 5, 1988, a week after his 83d birthday.\u00a0 He was an advocate for his alma mater William Mitchell throughout his life, serving on the board of trustees for eight years.\u00a0 He left a $1 million bequest to support the law school.\u00a0 For a time, the law school\u2019s annual leadership dinner was named in his honor.<\/p>\n * The quotations in this biography are taken from the references below.<\/p>\n Minnesota\u2019s Legal Hall of Fame<\/em>, L. & Pols. (Aug.\/Sept 2007), at 18, 22, https:\/\/aja.ncsc.dni.us\/news\/pdfs\/MN_LegalHallofFameAug2007.pdf<\/a><\/p>\nPersonal Life<\/h2>\n
References<\/h2>\n