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Bar News - June 21, 2002 50-Year Veterans of the Bar to be Honored EACH YEAR, THE New Hampshire Bar Association recognizes those among its members who have achieved the milestone of a half-decade of service as members of the legal profession, regardless of where they were first admitted to practice. According to bar records, there are 14 surviving admittees, of whom eight were first admitted in New Hampshire. Brief profiles and interviews with the 14 will appear in this and subsequent issues of Bar News, and the honorees - who are granted honorary Bar member status - are to be recognized at the NHBA Annual Meeting Banquet on Friday, June 21. Samuel A. Alter, Jr. Although he practiced in Florida for most of his legal career, Samuel A. Alter, Jr., worked as an assistant city attorney for Concord in the 1970s. Alter, now on inactive status and living in Florida, jokes that he entered law school because "it was better than repossessing cars." It wasn't a higher calling or family history that brought Alter into the practice of law, but poor post-graduation employment prospects during his senior year at the University of Miami in 1950. Rather than taking a dead-end job as a repo man after graduation, Alter got an after-school job his senior year, earned a scholarship and entered the University of Miami Law School, from which he graduated with a law degree in 1952. Alter was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1952 and got his first job working in the State Attorney's Office in Dade County, Fla. He later joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, where he worked until the mid-'70s. An assignment for the Dept. of Justice brought Alter to NH and he immediately grew fond of the state. He ended up buying a house in NH, then passed the NH Bar exam and in 1976 began working as assistant city attorney for the City of Concord and as a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney for the District of NH. He worked in NH until 1979, when he returned to Florida and took a job as assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pensacola. He worked there until his retirement in 1989. Throughout his career, he worked mainly on criminal cases. Alter said that his 50-year legal career is "all kind of a blur;" he couldn't single out any particularly memorable cases or moments. "I survived. I won more cases than I lost," he said, in summing up his career. Alter and his wife, Patricia, reside in Pensacola. The couple has five grown children and a number of grandchildren. Because of deteriorating health, Alter spends most of his time at home with his wife. "One thing I've learned is that I'm extremely good at doing nothing," Alter joked. Robert P. Bass A founder of the Cleveland, Waters & Bass law firm in Concord over 40 years ago, Robert P. Bass continues to practice in the firm, doing trust and estate administration and real estate transfers. He said that he is "semi-retired" from the practice of law; he now takes only a few specialized cases. Much of Bass' time is spent as a volunteer on the boards of numerous organizations. "'Extra-curricular activities' have been an important part of my professional and personal lives. I've always enjoyed volunteer work," he said. He has been involved in politics, as chair of the Republican Party of NH and as a member of the Republican National Committee, but never ran for office. Among the organizations on whose boards he has served: the NH Charitable Foundation (as board member and chair); NH Commission on the Arts; NH Public Television; Currier Gallery of Art; Franklin Pierce Law Center; NH Civil Liberties Union; NH Community Loan Fund; and the Society for the Protection of NH Forests. He was also a founding member of the New Hampshire Bar Foundation. Although he has practiced law for 50 years, Bass said that one of the achievements he is proudest of is his service on the board of the NH Charitable Foundation. He joined the board in 1964, when the organization had assets of less than $1 million, Bass said, and he has been involved with NHCF since. The organization now has about $230 million in assets, according to Bass. Bass served in the U.S. Army during World War II, as a 1st lieutenant in a field artillery unit from 1942 to 1946. Following his military service, he attended Harvard, where he earned his undergraduate degree in 1948. He earned his law degree from Harvard Law in 1951, having decided to go into law because "it seemed to offer a variety of possible activities in both private practice and public service." After graduating from law school, Bass was admitted to the Washington, DC Bar in 1952. He went to work for the Central Intelligence Agency for three years as part of a "psychological warfare" effort during the height of the Cold War. Through that effort, the CIA "got out the story of American democracy," said Bass, by operating Radio Free Europe, organizing tours of American cultural events and supporting non-Communist groups around the world. A stint working on a legal project for the New York Bar leadership followed, then Bass moved to New Hampshire, where he was admitted to the NH Bar and joined the Sulloway & Hollis firm in Concord in 1956. There he was in general practice, until 1959, when he formed Cleveland & Bass with Jim Cleveland. When Cleveland became a congressman, the firm added partner Warren Waters to form Cleveland, Waters & Bass. Bass continued in general practice until recent years, when he began to specialize more in estate and trust planning and "inter-generational real estate transfers" - transferring property among family members. He said that having never worked as a trial attorney, his successes as a lawyer have been smaller, quieter ones, rather than extraordinary cases. "Because of the nature of my practice, a success is managing to help a client keep a lovely piece of property in the family," he said. Bass said he has seen the practice of law become more complex and specialized over his 50-year career. "It requires more discipline, more work. Everything happens faster," he said. He also said that the old sense of loyalty between clients and lawyers has "substantially decreased." Bass has been married to his wife, Sallie, for 14 years. He has two grown children from a previous marriage, including Timothy Bass, a NH and Mass. Bar member currently practicing in Mass. He also has 5 grandchildren. He said he currently has no plans to retire fully from his law practice. Peter Makris For Laconia lawyer Peter Makris, retiring from legal practice 15 years ago only meant he was giving up one of his two full-time careers, thus allowing him to concentrate on his other career as co-owner, with his wife, Hope, of the Naswa Resort at Weirs Beach. The 77-year-old Makris, with a ready laugh and an accent that betrays his upbringing in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, revels in the informality and sometimes hectic nature of his life as operator of a hotel. Its location at the Weirs puts Makris "right in the middle" of Bike Week, an event he considers one of the highlights of the year. In fact, he has his own Harley-Davidson motorcycle that he enjoys riding around the Lakes Region. But underlying that informal, genial facade is a hard worker and savvy businessman eager to share the credit with his wife, whose family started the hotel in the 1930s. During the years Peter and Hope have run it, the Naswa Resort has expanded from a collection of cottages to become a multi-faceted, year-round hospitality property composed of two restaurants, two motels and a number of cottages and efficiency apartments that accommodates up to 85 guests and employs up to 125 people. The Makris's daughter, Cynthia, is the resort's general manager. For the most part, Makris said, his two careers have meshed well, with the legal work slacking off in the summer when the hotel business is at its height. Inevitably, though, there were conflicts. He recalls once trying a case before a jury. During a break in the trial, the bailiff handed him a note that said, "Hurry home, the toilets are plugged." Makris hurried back to the hotel, changed into overalls and took care of the plumbing problem, then hastily changed back into his suit and tie to return to court in the afternoon. Makris did not go to college until after completing service in World War II, during which he served with the Marines from 1943 to 1945. He admits that in the Marines, he missed out on a chance for a promotion to lieutenant because he lacked a high school diploma. After his military service, he went on to obtain an undergraduate degree from Suffolk University and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School. While studying for the Massachusetts Bar exam, Makris was hired as a Boston police officer. "I served on the Boston Police Department from January to September - I learned a lot on that job, but after I passed the Bar, I was glad to be done with it." His brief law-enforcement experience stayed with him forever, though. "I respected the work of the police. I always sympathized with the police while I was an attorney," he said. Makris agreed to relocate to the Lakes Region to help his wife's family with the hotel business and establish a law practice in Laconia, with the assistance of the dean of the Belknap County Bar, the late Hon. Frederick W. Fowler, formerly justice of the Laconia Municipal Court. "Judge Fowler took me under his wing," Makris recalled with a chuckle. "He had an office on Main Street above a department store - it was a traditional office with the roll-top desk and all. He gave me his office, and always told me he was sorry he didn't have any clients to give me because he had buried them all. He was more than 90 years old, yet he came up those stairs and into the office every day to tell me stories." Judge Fowler died in 1954 at the age of 94. Makris said that at one point, his law practice had expanded to the extent that he had a couple of associates, but he was not interested in operating a large law firm. Makris also served on the Laconia City Council, as tax assessor, and as Belknap County Attorney in the 1970s. Locally, he helped establish the Taxiarchi Greek Orthodox Church and is active in a Greek Orthodox church at his winter home in Boca Raton, Fla.
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