Local law firm marks diamond anniversary

By Denise M. Champagne
Posted: 4:49 pm Mon, July 26, 2010

The Internet was more than two decades away from development when Charles B. Forsyth and his sons opened their law firm in 1950 in downtown Rochester.

They had no way of knowing a global computer network would allow them to serve clients throughout the state, let alone in all 50 states.

“The Internet has had an enormous impact on our business, allowing us to communicate instantly with our clients around the country,” the firm’s current managing partner, Duncan W. O’Dwyer, said recently. “One of the biggest changes is the speed at which matters occur, and the speed at which one can research legal matters.”

O’Dwyer said that and FedEx are the two biggest changes he’s seen since joining the firm in 1968.

He credits FedEx with enabling an attorney to talk with a client about a closing in California or some other state, and have the papers to that client on the next day. Of course e-mail has speeded up that process even further.

“We might be dealing with attorneys in New York City, but need approval of a modification from a client in California,” he said. “It can be done in an hour. That allows you to do business in a much broader basis.”

The firm known today as Forsyth, Howe, O’Dwyer, Kalb & Murphy PC is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.

O’Dwyer said he has watched it grow from a general practice operating mostly in the Rochester area, to employing more than 25 people with concentrations in litigation, banking and finance, commercial/bankruptcy law, secured lending/asset recovery, real estate, title insurance, business and corporate law, trusts and estates, higher education and municipal law.

A native of the Westchester County village of Larchmont, O’Dwyer joined the firm in 1968, the same year in which Forsyth died, so the two never met.

O’Dwyer said he also never met his grandfather, who was a lawyer and a judge in New York City, but he grew up listening to his father speak “glowingly” about him and how much he enjoyed the practice of law.

O’Dwyer hadn’t even heard about the Forsyth law firm in the 1950s, when his interest in a legal career may have been solidified by a local attorney attending career day at Mamaroneck High School, telling students about practicing law and the intellectual challenges and independence it offers.

“He talked about how much he enjoyed being a lawyer … being self-sufficient,” O’Dwyer said. “I thought I kind of liked all that.”

After graduating from Cornell Law School in 1963, O’Dwyer instead pursued an Infantry Officers Training Course, launching a lengthy military career that included  26 years in the U.S. Army Reserves. He retired as a lieutenant colonel with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

He took his first legal job in 1966 with Travelers Insurance, leaving the following year to join a Rochester law firm, where he performed negligence defense work for a number of insurance companies. About a year later, he got a call a fellow Cornell alum, Gordon A. Howe II, asking him to consider joining Forsyth, Forsyth and Neilon, a firm then run by Forsyth’s sons John “Jack” and C. Benjamin Forsyth in Midtown Tower.

O’Dwyer said he accepted the offer and never looked back.

Now, he looks out over the city from a corner office on the 19th floor at Chase Square. The firm has been known as Forsyth, Howe, O’Dwyer, Kalb & Murphy for the last 14 years. O’Dwyer has served as the managing partner for the past 20. Jack Forsyth moved to Florida in the 1970s, and Benjamin retired about eight years ago.

O’Dwyer spent the first 15 years in litigation. He became heavily involved in real estate during the 1970s, when he represented the city during Urban Renewal, taking more than 100 valuation compensation cases — some involving major commercial properties — to verdict.

“I got to learn a lot about real estate during this kind of litigation,” O’Dwyer said. “I enjoy it for a number of reasons.”

His involvement in real estate helped the firm to transition from a general practice to its current concentrations, and said the firm has represented more than 70 mortgage lenders and closed on more than 37,000 residential and commercial transactions with a loan volume in excess of $1 billion since 1973.

Two areas somewhat unique to Forsyth Howe are title insurance — more than $100 million in coverage is written annually — and the fact that it is a policy issuing agent.

O’Dwyer said 40 law firms work for his, so an attorney is present in all of New York’s 63 counties.
“That’s somewhat unique,” he said. “We’ve been in the business so long, we can really deal in any level of real estate transaction.”

O’Dwyer, 72, has argued matters before the Appellate Division about 45 times and once before the New York State Court of Appeals. He said he has no plans to retire from practice anytime soon, but that he may do a little less work in the future.

O’Dwyer can remember when the practice of law was more personable, he said: At one time there were fewer lawyers, so they saw each other more frequently and had more of a close-knit camaraderie, especially among those who were active in the Monroe County Bar Association, for which O’Dwyer has served on many committees, on the board of directors and once as its treasurer and president.

Firms today are run more like a business, he said, as opposed to being a pure profession. He said he started practicing when Rochester was a much more economically vibrant city, with large companies that employed thousands.

“As that changed, our law firm started to spread out and serve other economies,” O’Dwyer said. “It’s really broadened our practice. I’ve enjoyed the whole concept of expanding the law firm and the services we can offer. If you have the ability and the resources, you can reach out and provide those services to folks across the United States or folks across New York State. There is almost more opportunity for a law firm than ever, but you have to have skill sets and resources that are significant.”

The firm, which also has lender representation on a statewide basis in all 50 states, is A-V rated and listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers published by Martindale-Hubbell. It has been named among the Rochester Top 100’s Fastest Growing Companies five times.

“I’d like the firm to continue to grow to expand the breadth of its legal services,” O’Dwyer said. “And to continue to expand the breadth of where we provide legal services.”

To celebrate the firm’s anniversary, O’Dwyer plans to host a dinner later this year for all staff. He recently celebrated another anniversary — 48 years of marriage to his wife Alice, whom he met in elementary school. The couple has two children, both Cornell graduates — Jeffrey (Kristin) O’Dwyer, associate general counsel for United Health; and Pamela (Andrew) McGaan, who lives in Chicago. The O’Dwyers also have four grandchildren — Ronan O’Dwyer; and Duncan, Molly and Finn McGaan.