Los Angeles County
Biographies
NORMAN A.
BAILIE
When it is taken into consideration that the great majority of people never rise above the ordinary, but live out their lives in obscurity, and dying, are forgotten, all the more credit is accorded those who have enriched their communities, benefited(sic) their associates, raised a higher standard for the generations to come and demonstrated the worth of individual endeavor. The courageous, public-spirited men of any state plan for the future as well as the present and so shape the coming history of the commonwealth.
Norman A. Bailie has long been associated as a leader in the Los Angeles Bar Association as well as the State Bar of California. Through the year 1930, the presidency of the Los Angeles Bar Association was given Mr. Bailie after serving on the Board of Trustees. The distinguished service given that association placed his name on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of California, from which body he was elected to the presidency of the State Bar of California on September 21st, 1934. The membership of the State Bar of California is one of the largest and strongest in the United States, consisting of nearly thirteen thousand members.
Mr. Bailie was born on a farm in the Province of Ontario, Canada January 2, 1877, son of John Bailie and Margaret Taylor Bailie. His early education was obtained from the schools of that section, and later he graduated from the Goderich Collegiate Institute, in Ontario. When a young man of eighteen, he came to California, and unable to obtain other employment at the time he labored during 1895-6 with the pick and shovel brigade of the Los Angeles Pacific Railway. During this time he studied to take the examination to teach in the public schools. He passed the examination and became a teacher in the Etiwanda School in the little San Bernardino county town. The only teacher, he had charge of eight grades. He was here was two years, but in 1898 was made principal of Rialto school in the orange-growing district of San Bernardino county, where he served one year.
From 1899-1907 he was a teacher in the San Bernardino high school. During his period as a school teacher he also had been studying law. His studies were under the late Henry Goodcell, father of Rex Goodcell, under the now Associate Justice Jesse W. Curtis of the Stat Supreme Court, and under Henry Conner, all then San Bernardino attorneys.
He was admitted to the California Bar in 1905 before the District Court of Appeals, entering as a member of the first class to be admitted before that court, then just created.
He came to Los Angeles in 1907, entering the law offices of J. H. Shankland and Jefferson P. Chandler. He was later with Gray, Barker & Bowen, which later became Flint, Gray & Barker, associating with them until 1913. From that time until 1915 he was assistant attorney for the Los Angeles Wholesalers Board of Trade.
He opened his own office in January, 1915, and in 1916 he formed a partnership with William A. Bowen, his former employer, under the name of Bowen and Bailie. On January 1, 1924, he organized the law firm of Bailie, Turney & Lake, of which he is still the senior member. His associates are Richard A. Turner and Frederick W. Lake.
Mr. Bailie was married September 20, 1900, to Charlotte Farner of San Bernardino. There are two children, Margaret Bailie Leppo of Burlingame and Dorothy Bailie. He is a past exalted ruler of Los Angeles Lodge of Elks, No. 99; a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner; and a member of the American Bar Association.
His admiration and respect for the leadership of those who upheld the high traditions of the bar is clearly shown by quoting in part a recent address before the San Francisco Bar: “Our profession, above all others, is taught to respect the wisdom of those who have gone before, and blazed the way. We must, while keeping pace with changing times and conditions, ever and anon look backward to see what wise men thought and did under like conditions in the past, and steer our course by the polar star of experience.”
As has been said by one specially familiar with his career: “In light of what he ultimately accomplished, the record of his early career is most interesting and significant, for never was a man’s success due more to his perseverance and less to outward circumstances. He reaped only what he sowed, and the harvest, with his valued aftermath, came to him through energy and industry alone. He reached his high position in his profession and community through no favor of influential friends, but worked his way up by sheer pluck and ability, and his achievement is therefore all the more praiseworthy.”
Transcribed
1-19-13 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: California
of the South Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages
595-597, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2013 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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BIOGRAPHIES