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Frank Quirk retires from Akron ethics center
RICHARD WEINER
Legal News Reporter
Published: June 30, 2015
At 82, Frank Quirk is retiring from his prestigious post as co-director of The University of Akron School of Law’s Miller-Becker Center for Professional Responsibility, and says he is looking forward to whatever the next phase of his life brings him.
“I do know that it is time to step down,” said Quirk. “I would rather that people ask me, ‘why did you retire?’, than, ‘when are you going to retire?’” In Quirk’s case, his retirement is effective tomorrow.
Frank Quirk has dedicated his legal career to the field of ethics, becoming one of Ohio’s leading experts in the field. This interest, he said, led him naturally to take an interest in legal technology, a field in which he now lectures extensively.
John P. Sahl, who has worked with Quirk for many years at Miller-Becker, said, “I have had the pleasure of working with Frank Quirk for approximately the last seven years as we co-directed the Miller-Becker Center. In short, Frank is a wonderful human being and a quintessential professional. His excellent work and tireless efforts on behalf of the MBC have greatly enhanced its reputation among lawyers, judges and the public.”
Sahl will now be the sole director of Miller-Becker upon Quirk’s retirement.
Quirk began his position with Miller-Becker when many people retire—10 years ago, at the age of 72. But he almost never even went to law school.
“I was a very immature 18-year-old when I started at The University of Akron,” Quirk said. This was during the Korean War, and, along with many men of his age, he decided to enlist in the Air Force to avoid the draft.
Quirk’s story of those times is unique and lengthy, but basically he was chosen to attend Russian language school, and found himself as essentially the only non-college graduate in the program. He started at the bottom, he said, and wound up at the top of his class by graduation.
He accepted an assignment to Turkey to monitor Russian radio traffic affiliated with a missile site, and was, he said, along with a partner, “the first person to ever hear the launch of a Russian ballistic missile.”
He was in the service for four years, coming out a much more mature, confident and determined person, he said. Enrolling at The Ohio State University, he received a combined undergraduate-law degree in just over four years.
In 1960, he began working at a precursor firm to Brouse McDowell, eventually becoming that firm’s managing partner for eight years. He has stayed at Brouse for his entire legal career, something he said, “is rare in modern law practice,” and is still of counsel to the firm.
Over the course of his legal career, Quirk followed an interest in legal ethics, particularly in legal malpractice issues, he said, focusing on, he said, “attorney-client privilege, confidentiality, conflicts, and attorney work product.”
Those interests, he said, led him directly to an interest in legal technology, and particularly social media. Although he lectures extensively on the topic, he does not have a Facebook page or an Instagram or Twitter account. What he has, he said, is a lengthy list of,” lawyers doing stupid things on social media.”
Quirk leaves a long an illustrious legacy, said Sahl. “Particularly noteworthy is Frank’s stewardship of the MBC’s involvement with an annual statewide lawyer disciplinary program that the MBC started 20 years ago this past May. It is now co-sponsored with the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio Bar Association.
“Frank’s leadership role in this program has been outstanding and he has helped to make the program and the Miller-Becker Center commonly known throughout Ohio and beyond,” Sahl continued. “Dean Wilson and I are committed to continuing Frank’s fine work with this program. Frank’s ethics presentations and other work with the legal profession, especially the Akron Bar, are well-known. Frank is always incredibly well-prepared and is a great presenter. Because of his experience and devotion to the profession, I have always asked Frank to visit my Professional Responsibility classes. He inspires my students to appreciate the important role that lawyers play in our society and their special responsibility to serve clients and the public good.”
Quirk, who feels physically very good for his age, said that he has dodged many of the potential infirmities of older people through a lifetime of running and working out. He has run, “a dozen marathons,” he said, and currently works out at the new LA Fitness gym in Cuyahoga Falls.
Beyond that, he expects to continue to lecture, to keep up with the legal tech realm and to do whatever he can to keep his mind sharp.
“I can wait for opportunities to come to me,” he said. “I don’t have to rush out looking for them.”