Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

only met for six months every other year. That meant eighteen months that
you would be home practicing law as a private practitioner.
When I first went, you could take your two-year salary at once, so I took
the two-year salary because I figured that I would make less money practicing
law the first year than the second year, for two reasons. One, I would only
be out a year, or a half a year, really. The other being that, the second
year, I would have a full year uninterrupted with the legislature to practice
law. So, for tax purposes, I thought it might sort of balance out better that
way. So it did and so I did that for a number of years. I would practice law
and was in the legislature. You have got to remember that in those days in
the legislature, you would go down two or three days a week for, well, I'll
say from January up until about April, you were never down there but one or
twa days a week. You were home doing your regular practice the rest of the
time.
Q: Now, let's see, you initially practiced with Mr. Clayton. Was there a
change or did you still work with his firm?
A: No, I came out. I opened my own business.
Q: Oh, you did?
A: Yes. Mr. Clayton passed just before I got out of the state" attorney's
office. He had passed.
Q: So you opened up your own office. Where was it located?
A: At 100 North ZaSalle Street. I went in with a fellow by the name of Louis
Leider, Jewish fellow.
Q: (pause) How long did that partnership extend?
A: It wasn't a partnership. I worked out of that office as an associate.
Well, I was there a couple of years and then I moved down to another suite in
the building with a fellow named Sidney Jones who is now a judge. And I
practiced there for . . . well, let's see. I was in that building from 1957
until 1977, twenty years, and then we moved over to 1 North LaSalle.
developed my own firm of Partee and Green.
Q: You say that would last until 1977?
A: Well, no, we still practice under the name of Partee and Green but we're
individual practitioners for the reason that I came to other places, he went
to represent an insurance company and he is now general counsel of that
insurance company, so we don't have a partnership, but we do have an associat
ion.
Q: When you first started out, it was still in the Kelly-Nash era, wasn't it?
A: No, no.
I