State Bar of Georgia - History

History

In 1878, the American Bar Association was founded at Saratoga Springs, NY. It soon began to encourage its members to form organizations of the legal profession in their respective states.

Five years later, in 1883, coincidental events occurred that would be entwined in history. In June, a frail, lonely and dyslexic Woodrow Wilson gave up on his failing law practice on Spring Street in Atlanta, which he described as “dreadful drudgery.” Few noticed or cared when he boarded a northbound train bound for graduate school at Johns Hopkins. There was scarcely a less likely prospect to become, 30 years, President of the United States. In September, the General Assembly, meeting at a building that combined the Atlanta city hall and Fulton County courthouse, appropriated one million dollars to build a new state capitol building on the same site. An in Macon, five Georgia members of the American Bar Association had a conversation about forming a Georgia Bar Association.

The next year, 1884, there was a meeting in Atlanta to form the Georgia Bar Association. The initial members of the Georgia Bar Association were all the Georgia members of the ABA. They chose as the first state bar president L. N. Whittle, who was commander of the Macon Militia during the Civil War. Anyone experienced in the ways of voluntary organizations may appreciate the fact that Col. Whittle was detained at a college trustees meeting in Tennessee, so he was unable to attend the meeting at which he was elected president. His service as the first president Georgia Bar was a point too insignificant to be mentioned in his obituary two years later.