Newcomer Mayo A. Shattuck leads MBA's rebirth

After the stock market crash plunged the nation into the Great Depression, the Massachusetts Bar Association fell into a period of malaise as well. Membership had dwindled, and in 1940, the MBA did not have enough people to hold its annual meeting.

To the rescue came Mayo A. Shattuck, a new member of the MBA who served as president from 1941-44.

As described in Fiat Justitia, A History of the Massachusetts Bar Association 1910-1985, Shattuck, from Hingham, cut quite the image.

"In 1941, Mayo Shattuck, who had been a member less than a month, became the MBA's new president and, armed with a three-year term, so completely mobilized the Association that it seemed like a 'dashing hero saves the day' movie plot. In fact, Shattuck, with his Clark Gablesque mustache, possessed a courage and a fighting spirit to match the movie metaphor."

Shattuck had made a splash - as reported on the front page of the Boston Herald's Jan. 16, 1941 issue - for enduring the boos and shouts of hundreds of people at a public debate, to argue that the United States should aid Britain in World War II (The bombing of Pearl Harbor that December would settle the debate). These were turbulent times, for the association and the nation.

Upon taking office, he immediately created a committee to "study the deficiencies or our organization and make recommendations."

One of the first recommendations was to restart the annual meeting, but adding both a social element and legal education offerings to the standard MBA business, a tradition that carries through to today. Indeed, MBA members had complained about the lack of any formal educational programs since at least 1931. The success of those offerings led to what became continuing legal education in Massachusetts.

Shattuck also oversaw the hiring of the MBA's first executive secretary, set the stage for encouraging greater participation in the Massachusetts Law Quarterly (before it became the Massachusetts Law Review), and the creation of its Junior Bar for younger bar members that would eventually be known as Young Lawyers.

But perhaps his greatest accomplishment was reviving the MBA's membership, which had sunk to as little as 600 members. Shattuck appointed groups in 62 cities and towns across the state to actively recruit other lawyers to join the MBA.

The effort was a success. Hundreds more had joined by the end of Shattuck's term, and membership continued increasing in the years and decades after him.