Five Questions: Jerry Redfern

Jerry Redfern, a 45-year veteran of Springfield law firm Neale & Newman LLP, recently received two awards. He received the Tom Cochran Community Service Award from the Missouri Bar Association. The annual award is named for former bar President Tom Cochran, who died in 1981. Redfern also received the Drury University Distinguished Alumnus Award as a member of the class of 1957. He graduated from Washington University Law School in 1961.

Q: Why did you get into law, and why come back to Springfield after attending law school in St. Louis?

A: I had an uncle who was a lawyer for years in Taney County, and that developed my interest in it. As for coming back to Springfield, it was just a desire to get back to this area. My wife’s parents lived in Springfield, she comes from Salem, and I was born and raised in Forsyth. We wanted to be back in this general area to raise our family. This law firm was looking for somebody, and we hooked up.

Q: How has the legal profession improved in your 45 years?

A: It’s changed drastically, some things for the very good and some things I don’t like quite as much. We have a lot more technology today, which is extremely helpful. When you’re old like me and not used to that, it takes a while to learn, but the technology is a great thing. Also, the lawyers are smarter today, the young people coming out of law school. They really are.

Q: What about changes for the negative?

A: Years and years ago, there wasn’t as much scorched-earth policy as there is today. It’s not as genteel and civil as it was then. There’s a professionalism that in some ways I don’t think is as apparent today as it was some years ago.

Q: Is there a particular case you remember most?

A: There are two. Many years ago, I represented a person charged with manslaughter who was 80 years old. He and a neighbor got into it over a boundary-line dispute, and they were like children – dangerous children. In that case, we raised the issue of the Miranda warnings, and that was the first time it was brought up in Greene County.

The other case I remember was that I represented some folks who owned a house on the southwest corner of Seminole and National, with a 20- to 30-acre pasture to the south. There was a horse on that land named Big Red. The city decided they didn’t want the horse there, so they filed a complaint against them in city court. I defended them in the case on the basis that Big Red was a nonconforming use, and the judge agreed.

But the sad part about it was that they put Big Red’s picture on the front page of the newspaper, and I didn’t make the front page at all.

Q: One of your awards is for community service; what types of service are you involved in and why?

A: My wife has really done more things than I have. Jenny was president of the Junior League early on. She was president of the Cerebral Palsy center, which is now the Developmental Center (of the Ozarks). We were both involved with them because our oldest son went there when he was 5. My wife and I both feel that this place has been very good to both of us – we raised our family here. It may be a trite way of saying it, but there are a lot of ways we’ve benefited from this community, and it’s important for us to give back.

Interview by Jeremy Elwood.