WILLIAM S. GREEN retired this month after an illustrious 53-year career as one of the state’s top business attorneys and a distinguished philanthropist and community leader.

Green said health problems persuaded him that it was time for him and his wife, Joan, to leave the state and its harsh winters to move to a senior community in Naples, Florida. Speaking from his office at the firm he helped build into one of the state’s top law firms, Sheehan Phinney Bass + Green, the 82-year-old attorney said parting from his hometown of Manchester was “bittersweet.”

“It’s a wrench to leave your friends and colleagues that you’ve practiced with for so many years. Practicing law in New Hampshire has been a wonderful experience for me,” he said, although he acknowledged that he is troubled by what he sees as a “commercial flavor” in some elements of law practice today.

Green quickly made a name for himself prosecuting high-profile cases when he served in the attorney general’s office from 1949 to 1951, but he soon moved into business law and negotiation at the law firm that would eventually bear his name. One of his current partners, Alan Reische, said Green could have been a great litigator, but instead employed his talents in the business field.

“His focus wasn’t on the technical things. He had an enormous strategic sense — he could divine where the client needed to be, what the client was willing to do and he could size up the other side in a negotiation. He was a very tough negotiator. He knew how to get to where people live, to reach to their deepest concerns. He had a trial lawyer’s instinct for the jugular.”

Green’s tenacity and intelligence won loyalty from clients — and offered them inspiration, too. The son of one of his business clients in Nashua, Warren Rudman, followed Green’s advice and went to law school, eventually gaining renown of his own.

Although he was born in Maine, Green considered himself a Manchester native. His family moved to Manchester from Presque Isle, Maine, in 1919 and his father opened a men’s clothing store in downtown Manchester. Green graduated from Manchester Central High School and earned a degree at Dartmouth College, where he was classmates with several other men who went on to become major figures in New Hampshire’s legal community — Stanley Brown, George Hanna and Fred Upton.

After one year working as a bookkeeper for the Tobacco Tax Division of the State of New Hampshire, Green enrolled at Harvard Law School, but World War II interrupted his studies. He entered the US Marine Corps in 1942, where he served with distinction in the invasion of the Marshall Islands. After his discharge, he resumed his legal education, graduating in 1947, when he was admitted to the Bar. After two years at the law firm of Orr & Reno, Green joined the attorney general’s office, becoming the first deputy attorney general before leaving for private practice.

At the attorney general’s office, which had only two attorneys at the time, Green was involved in all aspects of litigation – from representing all departments of state government in civil matters to serving as prosecutor in homicide cases, including a euthanasia case that drew reporters and newsreel cameras from around the world. In 1951, Green followed his former boss, Bill Phinney, who was forming a new law firm in Manchester with Jack Sheehan, Perkins Bass and Fred Branch. “We got busy very quickly,” said Green.

Green never took a front-seat role in politics, but was a respected community leader who became identified with such institutions as the Community Chest (now the United Way), Elliot Hospital, his synagogue, the NH State Board of Education and NH College, for which he served as interim chancellor during a key transition period.

Green’s longtime friend, Fred Upton, is particularly saddened by Green’s departure from New Hampshire. The two have known each other since their college and law school days and later in life vacationed in Europe together with their wives. Upton said Green’s circle of friends ranged widely beyond Manchester — he became a friend of late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun and had met several times with Anwar Sadat, the peace-making president of Egypt.

Reische said Green was a leading member of a special generation of lawyers. “He is a very formidable person. He is one of those lawyers from that generation who had a very clear view of themselves and their abilities,” said Reische.

Scenes from a Storied Career

The following are excerpts from an interview conducted for the New Hampshire Bar Foundation’s Oral History Project. Attorney Green was interviewed by his former partner, Kimon Zachos.

On why he became a lawyer:

Really it’s almost by the process of osmosis. I grew up in a neighborhood where there was a tremendous presence of lawyers and judges. We lived on Clarke Street — two doors away lived Alan Wilson, who was one of the partners in what was then Warren, Wilson, Bingham & McLaughlin, which is the forerunner of Wiggin & Nourie. Right next to us was Louis E. Wyman — [Judge] Louis C. Wyman’s father, a former judge and congressman. Up the street, on Chestnut Street — living across the street from each other — were John R. McLane and Ralph W. Davis, who were the forerunners of McLane, Davis, Carleton — the McLane firm as we know it today. Right behind us — the house right behind us — was George H. Bingham of the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, a very, very imposing figure who used to walk — I think — and take the train back and forth from Boston, almost daily, in a wing collar, and he had a cane, and he was a pretty impressive guy. And up the street the other way there was Judge Nathan P. Hunt, who I think was Judge of Probate. I also had a good friend whose father was the judge of the Municipal Court — Judge Perkins — who I had a lot of exposure [to] — and I respected and admired all these people — and as I think back on it, I don’t know how early I started thinking about being a lawyer, but I can’t remember really any time when I was thinking about anything else.

On a brief job interview:

So, I met Dick [Upton, then Speaker of the House] in the office, and we walked in to meet Governor Adams, who had never spent a lot of time talking about too much, and Richard introduced me and said, “This is Bill Green and he’s interested in becoming assistant attorney general — he’s had somewhat limited experience, but he’s got some maturity because of a late start,” and he said, “I’ve had a number of dealings with him, and I think he has the competence and the capability to do the job...” So, the governor looked at me, and said, “You got a temper?” and I said, “Yes, I do,” and he said, “Well, can you keep it?” And I said, “Well, I proceed on the theory that lawyers don’t get paid to lose their tempers, but I’m afraid on occasion I perhaps lose it, but I try not to.” He said, “Thank you very much for coming by and I’ll give this consideration.” That was the end of the interview.

On prosecuting a murder case:

Ralph Jennings was the defendant’s name. That was a blood-curdling experience, because I think he was the — not the last — the next to last man who was sentenced to hang in New Hampshire. The case was significant for me, not only because it was my first real courtroom appearance in the attorney general’s office, but also it was the first time I ever put in evidence in a courtroom or examined a witness. I never told [his boss, Attorney General] Bill Phinney that I’d never done it because I was afraid that he wouldn’t let me do it if I told him that I hadn’t had any experience, so I just said nothing, and went ahead and did it.

But Ralph Jennings was sentenced to hang...Your blood runs cold to sit in a courtroom and look over at a human being who five minutes before that was a free person, and hear a judge say that “At such and such a time, you will be taken to the state’s prison, and there between such and such dates at 11:00 in the morning, you will be taken into the courtyard thereof and there hanged by the neck until dead.” And I tell you, that’s a pretty chilling — I’ve heard judges talk about what their reaction is when they have to rule on capital cases, and it’s a really testing moment.

There was an odd twist to that case — Ralph Jennings hung himself in the state’s prison. He was cut down and declared dead by my cousin Morris, who was the acting medical examiner in Merrimack County — the Greens did a number on Ralph Jennings, I’m afraid.

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