This week brought the sad news that our friend, mentor, and property-rights spiritual godfather, R. Charles Bocken, has moved on to that great plot of land in the sky.
A man of seemingly infinite talents and biography (WWII B-24 crewman, Chief Judge Advocate for the Pacific Air Forces, SCOTUS litigator (and winner, more on that below), and steady even-handed problem-solver), Charlie Bocken never raised his voice or had a bad word about anyone. From his Nebraska roots, to heady times in D.C., then finally to our shores and a named partner of the firm, he'd seen a lot, done a lot. You'd never know it from meeting him because Charlie Bocken (he would insist he was "just Charlie") remained a humble person of good humor, even though he was a dynamite lawyer with keen practical insight.
No better example of that than his challenging established law and eventually winning in the U.S. Supreme Court the (now) well-known and oft-cited case, Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164 (1979). This was a time before the rise of the specialized SCOTUS Bar and the Court's shrinking docket, where even lawyers from small firms in small markets could get cases up to the big boys (and yes, back then, the Justices were all men). Not deterred by stacks of seemingly-contrary precedent, he and Diane Hastert pushed and pushed back against the feds, and after a lot of hard work and deep thinking, got the Court to take the case. Unfazed by the surroundings, he argued on opening day, October 1, 1979. More on that here. Thanks to technology, you can listen to his rebuttal argument (with questioning by Chief Justice Berger and Justice Marshall) on Oyez.
But Charlie Bocken was much more than this case, and much more than just a great lawyer. A mentor who never once acted like you were infringing on his time, and a partner that gave you a lot of leeway, he was also a real family person. You could see why they were close. Oh, and did I mention he was a squared-away dude, who even sent his aloha shirts out to be pressed?
Charlie, you didn't quite make it to the century mark as many of us hoped. But you came darn close, and in the time we shared, you brought many of us along on your coattails. We're all going to miss you. Aloha ʻOe, Charlie B.
