Spence Fricke Is A Trusted Representative For Attorneys

While Perry Mason made a practice of successfully influencing juries on a weekly basis starting in 1957, the fictional defense attorney from the popular television series also unknowingly influenced the career path of at least one of his viewers.

“I watched Perry Mason daily, starting when I was about nine years old, some episodes live, some reruns,” says Spence Fricke, a Barber Law Firm attorney, shareholder, and director. “By the time I was 11 or 12, I knew I wanted to be a trial lawyer, not just any lawyer, but a trial lawyer, mostly from watching that show and from going down to the county courthouse to watch trials.”

Thanks to an inside source at the courthouse (Fricke’s aunt was the county clerk), he always knew when something interesting was scheduled.

“I’d watch criminal trials, civil trials, hearings, whatever was going on,” Fricke says. “I’d just sit there and watch the proceedings, watch local lawyers to get an idea of what it was like, how they behaved, how they interacted with each other, with judges and juries.”

Even during college, when Fricke was home during the summer, he would drop by the courthouse to see if a trial was in session. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), he earned a law degree from the University of Arkansas in 1979. Fricke served as a law clerk for Justices Conley Byrd and Richard Mays of the Arkansas Supreme Court before joining the city of North Little Rock as assistant city attorney.

“I appeared in court more than any other lawyer I knew handling a lot of moving violations cases like reckless driving and speeding,” Fricke says. “The trials were usually short and we almost always won but the experience acquainted me with the ability to think on my feet, think about what questions to ask and not to ask, and how to conduct cross-examinations. For someone right out of law school, it was a really helpful education.”

After joining the Barber Law Firm in 1982, Fricke developed special expertise in several areas including products liability defense and professional liability defense. Early on, he gained experience representing fellow lawyers through the firm’s relationship with CNA Insurance, which carries most of Arkansas’ legal malpractice policies.

“It’s very rewarding to be hand-picked by another lawyer to represent them,” says Fricke. “They’re counting on you in so many ways as their professional reputation is at stake. It’s one of my favorite things to do.”

Fricke joins fellow firm partner Robert L. “Skip” Henry, III in presenting educational seminars on behalf of CNA to counsel lawyers on topics related to legal ethics and legal malpractice risk management while helping warn them of potential pitfalls that others are experiencing across the country. Fricke and Henry have been teaching these courses three times a year for nearly a decade.

Recently elected as an Associate member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, Fricke is also a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and was voted outstanding attorney of the year by the Arkansas Association of Defense Counsel for 1999-2000. He’s often called on to share his expertise and recently was appointed by the Arkansas Supreme Court to serve on its Ad Hoc Committee on Broadcasting of Court Proceedings. The committee focused on Administrative Order No. 6, which allows broadcasting in the courtroom under certain circumstances, and whether it should be revised to specifically address drug court proceedings and whether broadcasting those proceedings should be allowed or prevented.

The need for the Ad Hoc Committee was sparked in 2010 when former Circuit Judge Mary Ann Gunn, who has allowed her drug court proceedings to be broadcast locally for several years, asked the Arkansas Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee for its opinion on nationally broadcasting drug court proceedings by commercial media. The Ethics Committee strongly disapproved and also questioned the local broadcasting of drug court proceedings, saying, "We are concerned that your current program is inconsistent with the spirit of the Code [of Judicial Conduct] and Administrative Rule 6.”

“We considered different perspectives and listened to several people, including Judge Gunn, make their case for or against the broadcasting of drug court,” says Fricke. “Judge Gunn made a very compelling argument. We definitely considered current policies that support open courtroom proceedings, the educational impact for the public that viewing drug court proceedings provides, and the fact that no defendant or witness can have the proceedings broadcast over his or her objection. However, there were several things to consider on the other side of this issue.”

The committee cited five primary considerations that would support a ban of broadcasting drug court proceedings including:

• Questions about whether defendants and witnesses may feel pressured to go along with the request to have cases broadcast (in an effort to have their charges expunged) if they perceive the court favors broadcasting as well as the potential for showing minors and family members in attendance.
• The potential misuse of recordings for profit.
• The potential embarrassment caused by future public broadcasts of drug court proceedings involving individuals who have successfully completed drug court and had their charges expunged.
• The risk to the drug court judge of violating the Arkansas Code of Judicial Conduct including the potential effect on public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary and potentially abusing the prestige of judicial office to advance personal or economic interests of the judge or others.
• The difficulties involved in reviewing and overseeing the broadcasts.
• The difficulty of creating a set of procedures which would strike a balance between open court proceedings and the potential problems expressed. No committee member was able to propose a satisfactory set of procedures that could achieve such a balance.

“There’s just no way to do this halfway or ‘kind of broadcast’ the proceedings,” Fricke says. “You either do it or you don’t. So, the committee voted to recommend that the practice be banned.”

In late July, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued its opinion, amending Administrative Order No. 6 to include a ban on broadcasting, recording, or photographing drug court proceedings. Stay tuned though, as Mary Ann Gunn, who retired this year, is now working on a nationally syndicated television series featuring the former judge giving “recent drug offenders an alternative to prison . . . and one last shot at redemption.” The show is appropriately titled, Last Shot with Judge Gunn.

Fricke, who was raised “a stone’s throw from Lake Chicot” in Lake Village, Arkansas, grew up deer hunting and fishing, mostly for crappie in one of the state’s best crappie fisheries and apparently one of the best habitats for all kinds of species of wildlife.

“We had a real beaver problem on the lake and someone, I think in the ‘80s, came up with the idea to import alligators to get rid of the beavers,” Fricke says. “Well, no one planned on having a gator problem, but that’s what happened. The gators were a real issue as they had no natural predators, but the beaver population did decrease dramatically.”

Fricke doesn’t go hunting or fishing anymore, not because he’s developed a fear of gators, but because he’s developed a love for a kinder, gentler outdoor hobby.

“I’m going to sound like a geek, but I’ve been doing a lot of bird watching recently, just in the backyard where we have a wooded area and garden,” says Fricke. “I’m actually a part of a group that helps track migration and population patterns of different species in conjunction with a program at Cornell University, which has the most prolific migratory bird institute in the country.”

After marrying Kari Gillenwater earlier this year, Fricke has children in the house again: two boys, John “Trey” Gillenwater, III and Ryan Gillenwater. Fricke says the younger of the two has become fascinated with bird watching.

“He knows more than I do now,” says Fricke. “He can not only tell what species he’s looking at but whether he’s looking at a male or female. We’ve identified 23 species of birds so far.”

Fricke also has three children from his first marriage. His oldest son, Gaines, is in his second year of medical school; Elizabeth, who recently graduated from Rhodes College, is getting married this fall; and his youngest son, Wilson, is attending the University of the South, also known as Sewanee.

If they’re anything like their old man, they knew what career path they wanted to pursue at a very young age.