In Memory of

Magistrate Paul J. Cleary

Paul J. Cleary has served as U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma since 2002. Judge Cleary is a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and the University of Tulsa College of Law. He served as a law clerk for U. S. District Judge Thomas R. Brett, and, in a previous life, was a reporter and editorial writer for the Tulsa World.

Judge Daman Cantrell

Judge Daman Cantrell, the son of a welder and a homemaker, was the first college graduate in his family. He is a lifetime Oklahoman, graduating from Mustang High School in 1978 as a State Debate Champion his senior year. Judge Cantrell was granted a full scholarship for the debate team from the University of Central Oklahoma, recruited by the iconic UCO Coach Douglas Duke. He graduated in 1982, with a Bachelor’s degree in Business, and from the University Of Oklahoma College Of Law in 1985. Judge Cantrell began practice as an Assistant Oklahoma Attorney General, under Oklahoma Attorney General Michael C. Turpen and Robert H. Henry. He then served as a federal law clerk in the United States District Court of the Western District of Oklahoma, for the Honorable Doyle W. Argo, Federal Magistrate Judge, and as an Assistant Public Defender in both Oklahoma and Tulsa counties, during which time he was lead counsel in over 60 felony jury trials. In 1999, Judge Cantrell was appointed by the District Judges of Tulsa County as a Special District Judge, and served in this capacity on numerous dockets until his election as District Judge in 2006. He has presided over 100 major civil jury trials and hundreds of nonjury matters in this time. Judge Cantrell received the prestigious Alma Wilson Award in 2006 from the Oklahoma Bar Association for his work on his docket saving the Family Drug Court from elimination, allowing it to flourish and become a model court in the nation for families with children removed from the home because of substance abuse from the parents. The judge also received the President’s Award from the Tulsa County Bar Association in both 2007 and 2009 for his work with the Tulsa County’s Lakeside Group Home, for troubled youths. (see below). In 2016 he received the James C. Lang mentoring award for his work with law students all over the state in establishing “virtual internships,” as well as his 33 year involvement with the Oklahoma Mock Trial program, his lifelong volunteer passion in the law.

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Reflection on a True Tulsa Lawyer & Gentleman Jack Freese

John Markham “Jack” Freese, Sr. passed away peacefully surrounded by his family November 20, 2021. Jack was born February 12, 1928. He was a third generation Tulsan, sonofDorothyMarkhamFreeseandManuelLloydFreese. After graduating from Cascia Hall in 1944, he attended Notre Dame University for two years, then transferred to Williams College, then to the University of Oklahoma where he graduated with a degree in English followed by his Bachelor of Law degree. He joined the firm of Bradford, March & Trippett at the very young age of 20, where he worked for five years before starting his own law firm. He practiced law for nearly 75 years. Ed Lindsey recalled, “I was Jack’s law clerk during my third year of law school in 1991. For all the years I knew Jack, he always had a young law student or lawyer in his employ as either a law clerk or an associate. He was a great teacher and his mentoring was like a good coach – he was tough, thorough and did not accept anything but the best of his apprentices.” His advocacy would take difficult stands and often would compel him to say “find me the case” justifying his legal positions,explainedLindsey.“Hepursuedtheexceptionto the exception to the exception. Then he would instruct me to study all the contrary, critical and supporting authority. After that I was to peruse the legal encyclopedias.” This was a time before LexisNexis and Westlaw. “Jack had a fully stocked law library” said Lindsey. “There were many late nights and Saturday mornings I spent there. I didn’t always appreciate that time then but, nonetheless, now I consider it time well spent as I learned more law in that year than in the three years at law school.” When Lindsey worked for Jack, he remarked that “I knew him as ‘Mr. Freese’. Like a parent of a contemporary, there was no question how I would address him. After I passed the bar and started practicing, I ran into him at the courthouse. I said, ‘Hello, Mr. Freese’, and he responded ‘Oh no, you can call me Jack. You’re a member of the club now.’" Lindsey recalled working with him from time to time over the past thirty years and, he still expressed trepidation about how to address this lion of the bar, saying “truth be told, I was never comfortable calling him ‘Jack’. He was always ‘Mr. Freese’ to me. He never stopped teaching and mentoring me. This past summer he sponsored my admission to the United States Supreme Court which is a license I will treasure for my remaining years in practice.” Jack also taught that client representation was personal. He would ferociously protect his clients and often was paternal and friendly with them outside of the practice. Their cause was his cause and he devoted himself to them. Perhaps this is the reason he practiced law well into his nineties and within weeks of his passing to the next life. Woefully, Lindsey reflected on his recent experience with his mentor. “I met with him just after he learned he did not have long to live. He was tired and he was very ill but Jack was more concerned about his clients and how they would fare in their cases than he was about his own situation. Jack was forever the exemplary attorney.” Freese has been described by several as the consummate gentleman in spite of his formidable client advocacy and dynamic spirit. “I never heard Jack say a disparaging word toward or about opposing counsel. He took collegiality in the bar very seriously and I believed he loved this profession and his fellow lawyers” said Lindsey.