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| MSBA PRESIDENT 2004-05 The new president of MSBA, hailing
from by Amy Lindgren Ever wonder what makes
someone choose to lead the Minnesota State Bar Association? It’s a
position that requires service, commitment, focus ... and a great
deal of time. For a lawyer from greater But then, as David Stowman, incoming president of
the MSBA has learned, some decisions are easier to make than others.
And some thorny decisions surprise you by coming into focus unexpectedly.
Leaving the Marine Corps 35 years ago was like that for Stowman. When
he volunteered after college, he and his wife Judy thought he would
make a career with the military. In 1968, near the end of his tour,
Stowman was stationed in On this particular day, after 13 months in-country,
he was making plans to return to duty in the “There was an explosion and shrapnel was flying everywhere
and we were all on our bellies, crawling like reptiles,” Stowman recalls,
laughing. “All around me guys were picking glass and wood out of their
arms and legs. I crawled right back down that hall and asked for my
papers back. I didn’t care how it affected the holidays - I wanted
to get out of there as fast as I was going to be able to.” More than three decades later, this remains one of
the few war stories Stowman will tell easily. The glamour of war had
lost its appeal, he says of his decision not to stay in the military
after all. In 1969 he left the Marines after four years of service
and moved back to the LAUNCHED
IN LAW Stowman finished law school and took the bar in two
states: “There was no public defender system in Stowman spent that first year “defending dopers and
drunks” as he puts it, before starting his own practice in The business was a family affair from the beginning.
Jeff, now a lawyer with his father’s firm, remembers his dad working
from home until he could afford an office. Eventually, Judy came to
work for him as an office manager and legal assistant and together
they built a practice that spans The focus of the firm was another difficult decision.
At first, Stowman says, he took nearly every case that came to him.
But it wasn’t long before he discovered that he hated certain kinds
of work - domestic cases, real estate, trusts and wills - he disliked
them all. Slowly he pared his practice down to its current specialty
in personal injury and products liability, always worrying that they
would starve without the income from other cases. But an interesting
thing happened, he says. As he turned away each unsuitable job, another,
more fitting case came in the door to take its place. Today Stowman enjoys a reputation as one of the state’s
top 25 lawyers (Law & Politics,
2001). He and Judy have raised four children (Matt and Anne were born
in the 1970s) and now entertain their four grandchildren as often
as possible. They conduct business from an elegant fieldstone house
they converted to an office on the southwest shore of the lake. At
the end of the day, they return to their home on the opposite shore,
where David believes the view of the sunset rivals anything he’s seen
in 40 years of travel. When he tires of that, he can visit his two
farms, one with stands of spruce that he loves to walk through. Even the journey from home to office is pleasant.
With a dock on both ends of his commute, Stowman will often motor
across the lake to work and back. Larry Buboltz, mayor of INTENSITY
FOR LIFE It sounds like the perfect life, which brings us
back to that question: Why does someone volunteer to be the MSBA president?
In Stowman’s case, the answer isn’t very surprising: It’s another
way to serve. After 32 years in Of course, each activity takes time, a price that
is sometimes difficult to pay. “I would like to be less busy,” Stowman
notes. “Spontaneity is what I appreciate, not schedule. The schedule
is controlling my life; that’s not my personality.” So, what drives him to do so much? Judy, his wife
of 40 years, has a theory. “I think he has a list in his head,” she
says. “There are things he wants to do and places he wants to see
before he dies. He was going to fly an airplane and he did. He wanted
to ski the Alps and he did. He wanted to barefoot waterski
and he did. There are things he just wants to do.” Indeed, everyone who knows Stowman well speaks of
his intensity for life and his passion for trying new things. Whether
it’s auditioning for a community play or running the Boston Marathon
he’s game to try. According to his son Jeff, even a trip to the grocery
store can turn into an experience for his dad, who seems to draw people
to him wherever he goes. “The thing is, my dad is absolutely willing to listen
to anybody,” Jeff notes. “We could be on vacation somewhere as a family
and the strangest person in the crowd will for some reason start a
conversation with my dad and the rest of us will have to wait until
he finishes this conversation with someone the rest of us are scared
to stand next to. They can tell he’s willing to listen. He enjoys
that. I think he sees it as a kind of adventure.” Stowman says he is comfortable talking with just
about anyone, an affinity he gratefully attributes to his small town
upbringing in tiny Although the small town paper carrier grew into a
skilled attorney in a community 20 times larger, friends say he hasn’t
changed. Hugh Hall, a corrections agent for the Minnesota Department
of Corrections and a neighbor of Stowman’s,
recalls the first time he and his wife socialized with David and Judy.
“We all went out together to the vfw and we were really impressed
with the way people reacted to him,” Hall says. “They were just really
proud to come up and associate with him and shake his hand. It was
clear to me that they were proud they knew him. He’s very comfortable
with people who have a lot of money and with people who have a little
money.” KEY
INITIATIVES Stowman will have plenty of opportunity to practice
his socializing and listening skills as he leads the Minnesota Bar
this year. In fact, all four of his key initiatives for the year take
advantage of those skills. The initiatives are: 1. to strengthen legislative
relations; 2. to encourage and recruit attorneys from outside the
Twin Cities to leadership roles in the MSBA; 3. to support and strengthen
the sections of the Bar Association; and 4. to leverage the MSBA’s
online resource, practicelaw.org,
to help practitioners improve their practices. Jim Baillie, the outgoing MSBA president, says Stowman
will likely face two additional challenges. First, Baillie notes,
the Minnesota Legislature’s failure to address key funding issues
this session, including monies for the public defender system, may
need to be addressed. The second challenge comes from within the organization.
Changes to the governance structure of the MSBA, formulated after
discussions over the past several years, were approved at this year’s
Convention and will be phased in over the next year -a task that falls
to Stowman to oversee. Baillie, who has worked on the Executive Committee
with Stowman on these and other issues, says he has no doubt Stowman
will handle them well. “I’ve been impressed about how different presidents
utilize their special skills and talents to make their contributions,”
he says when asked what advice he would offer Stowman. “I would recommend
to David that he be the kind of president he wants to be. But he doesn’t
need that advice - he’s going to do that anyway.” That’s a sentiment echoed by everyone who has worked
with Stowman. As his son Jeff says with the succinctness learned over
a lifetime, “It’s real tough to disagree with him, especially when he’s
in charge, because he’s going to get it done. It’s just a question
whether it’s going to be easy or whether it’s going to be hard.” Stowman, for his part, sees the situation from two
perspectives. First, he says he has been learning from others in the
Bar Association and expects that trend to continue. As an example,
he cites early conversations - fights, he calls them - he had with
Phyllis Karasov as they worked together
on questions related to the legislative funding. “We were working together to develop a model,” he
recalls, “and I didn’t have the insight I have now. She and I fought
like cats and dogs, but they were good fights. My thinking was fuzzy
because I just hadn’t thought it through enough.” AN
ACTION ORIENTATION While Stowman says he expects to continue learning
from others and from the committee process, he believes he also has
something to add from his business and community-building experiences:
an action orientation. As an example, he notes his response when given
the task of increasing membership in the Jaycees years ago. Instead
of meeting about the problem or holding a membership drive, he went
to bars and restaurants in neighboring small towns and asked for the
names of people within a certain age range who lived nearby. Then
he went directly to their doors with the new member forms and asked
them personally to join the organization. Those early recruits, he
says, became stalwart members who had a stake in building the organization. This direct approach is the same one he used to build
his practice, one referral at a time, and which his friends refer
to as “focus” or “intensity.” Maurice Strom, a friend since Stowman
moved to Detroit Lakes, says “I think David surprised a lot of people
with his success but I know how tenacious and focused he is. There’s
just no stopping him. He’s a very successful attorney because he works
at it.” Mark Fritz, a running partner, has seen that focus
during races with Stowman. Last year the pair was running a marathon
when Fritz realized Stowman could qualify for the Boston Marathon
if he picked up the pace for the last six miles. “He was looking like death warmed over and like he
would like to crawl in a hole and die,” Fritz laughs. “So I told him,
‘If we run some nine-minute miles we’re home free.’ I looked over
at him and he hadn’t talked in a couple of miles and he just grunted
and dropped his chin and charged up the hill. About a mile from the
finish he just chugged it in with time to spare. He’s super tough
that way. He just finds it in himself to get the job done.” Stowman, 60, doesn’t call himself tough. Instead
he credits his advancing age as the factor that got him into the prestigious
race. “I didn’t get any faster,” he says, “but I moved into a new
age category. This may be the only year I ever qualify.” With that in mind, Stowman was determined to make
the most of the experience. Wearing a t-shirt he had hand-lettered
“Go Dave”, he made sure he was running close to the sidelines in the
crucial last miles of the race. Why? Because the Boston Red Sox had
just won against the Yankees and “a hundred thousand rabid, fanatical
Red Sox fans are lining the last two miles of the course and they’re
reading my shirt and shouting Go Dave. Go Dave. And you can hear the
crowd all down the line yelling Go Dave! Go Dave! It worked. That
was the energy I needed.” Resourceful, tough, focused - it’s going to be a
good year for the MSBA with Stowman at the helm. Go Dave. THERE’S
A STORY BEHIND THAT... Talk to David Stowman for any length of time - 15
minutes, say - and you’ll soon hear a story. With a few well-chosen
words on his part, you’ll be transported to his practice in The question is did he become a storyteller after
he learned to litigate? Or did the propensity for spinning a tale
uniquely qualify him for the courtroom? While you ponder that, here are three of Stowman’s
favorite stories, as told by the people who were there. Eating Ted
Koppel’s Groceries Ordinarily, over the course of the four-day convention,
Stowman would have had access to a number of sanctioned activities
in his role as an alternate delegate. But, as Fiskevold
tells it, sanctioned access just wasn’t going to cut it. Stowman,
always curious, wanted to see everything. They started by using Fiskevold’s
press pass to get Stowman into news events normally reserved for the
media. But it wasn’t long, Fiskevold says,
before they decided to ditch convention and simply show up at the
parties they wanted to attend. The highlight for Stowman was finding
themselves in a media box - Ted Koppel’s,
he thinks - eating the complimentary snacks and stealing glances at
Hilary Clinton and Al Gore in the next box. Did they get any politicking done? “Oh yes,” Fiskevold says with certainty. We went to the meetings we
were supposed to attend. You can’t keep David Stowman from showing
up where he’s supposed to.” Splint As Fritz recalls, he tried to get out of it, but
he couldn’t escape Stowman’s persistent
calls. “He was leaving these messages: ‘The lake
is still open! We’ll never be able to waterski
in December again,’” Fritz says. “And I’m thinking, ‘Who the heck
wants to waterski in December anyway, let alone barefoot waterski? I always joke that I was hiding under my bed for
two weeks and he tracked me down. I did not want to go. Finally, Fritz says, he had to do it, just to get
some peace. They went in the evening, on December 6, a night Fritz
remembers as “brutally cold.” He decided the only intelligent thing
to do was to dress warmly, with hat and mittens. Stowman, on the other
hand, slipped into a wet suit. The So what about those splintered feet? “There was really
only one bay of the lake open,” Fritz says, “and it froze over later
that night. When we were skiing on it, a layer of ice was already
starting. You’re going pretty fast and you’re barefoot - it just cuts
you up.” And that’s how Mark Fritz splintered his feet on
lake water. Rattling The Embassy Gates “When we travel, we have words, but we can usually
find some middle ground,” Strom says. “I have to rein him in and he
has to prod me along.” On this particular trip, Stowman wasn’t going to
be reined in - he had to find out for himself that sometimes persistence
doesn’t get you anywhere. The two had started their travels in London
and soon found themselves in Bonn, Germany. They wanted to see France
but, because of international tensions at the time, travelers needed
a visa to enter the country. The problem? They didn’t have visas. Strom was ready to change the itinerary but Stowman
wanted to keep trying. The next thing Strom recalls is the two of
them standing outside the French embassy in So Stowman decided to get some attention. He grabbed
hold of the gate and started rattling it until he got a response.
The response he remembers getting included armed guards. Strom, for
his part, recalls a very annoyed Embassy staffer who refused to speak
English to the pair. “The French speak French,” Strom recalls him
sniffing with disdain. “Only Americans speak English.” So, did they get to see MAN OF MANY FACES - A QUIZ The amazing thing about MSBA presidents is the range
of skills and experiences they bring to the position. David Stowman
is no exception. Underneath his gray suit beats the heart of a ...
barefoot water skier? Okay, we gave that one to you. The following list
contains 30 different personae adopted by Mr. Stowman over the years,
as well as three total fabrications. Can you tell which three things
the incoming president
has not done or been in his lifetime? 1. Decorated Vietnam War veteran Want to know how you did? Here are the answers. David
Stowman is not a cousin of Clint Eastwood (you knew that, right?);
he was never president of the Pontoon Owners of America (we just made
that organization up); and he has not written a mystery novel - yet. So, if those were the fabrications, that means that
Stowman has flown an airplane, has skied the Alps, has eaten Ted Koppel’s
groceries, has been a buccaneer pirate, has rattled the French embassy
gate in Bonn, Germany, and has played the leading man in a community
theater production. Want to know the story behind those stories? You’ll
have to come to an MSBA event and ask him for yourself. |
