Attorney Byron M. Eiseman, Jr. was featured in Sunday's High Profile section of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. High Profile Editor, Rachel O'Neal, wrote the story that focused on Byron's family, his career as an attorney with the firm and the 50 years he spent teaching tax law at UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law.
Excerpt from Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:
Byron Eiseman's career path to Little Rock started with a practical joke played on him by a law school professor and legendary Arkansas lawyer William Bowen. Eiseman was working on completing a degree at New York University School of Law when he wrote a letter to the Little Rock firm of Smith, Williams, Friday and Bowen asking about a position. Bowen called him and said he would travel to New York to meet him.
On the date of Bowen's arrival in the Big Apple, Eiseman had a 6 p.m. corporate tax class with NYU professor Gerald Wallace. "I was sitting there in the classroom -- I sat on the front row -- and I saw Wallace come to class and there is some guy with him and he says 'Eiseman get over here.'"
Wallace introduced him to Bowen and mentioned that the two "threw down a couple of drinks" before class.
Bowen then told Eiseman he would see him after class, but Wallace stopped him. "No. You go sit in the back of the class. You might learn something."
"So Bowen goes to the back of the class and sits down and about two minutes into the class, Wallace starts calling on me and it's 50 minutes before the break and I was his victim for almost 50 minutes," Eiseman recalls.
"At the break, I look back and there is no Bowen and I ask one of my friends who was sitting in the back of the classroom 'Where did that guy go?' And he says 'He sat there about two minutes and he got up and left through the back door.'"
"Wallace knew that I didn't know that and I was sweating it out big time," Eiseman says with a laugh.
Eiseman graduated from NYU in 1964 with a master's degree in taxation and Bowen offered him a job and became his mentor. (Wallace died in 1991 at the age of 90. Bowen died in 2014 at the age of 91.) In what can only be described as a perfect turn of fate, after 50 years Eiseman retired this spring as an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen Law School. And, yes, the school was named after Bill Bowen.
Eiseman continues practicing at what is now known as Friday, Eldredge & Clark. The former managing partner, Eiseman now concentrates on mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; estate planning, probate and estate administration, and taxation.
"He was someone that Hershel Friday and Buddy Sutton trusted to handle financial and tax issues for the firm," current Managing Partner Shep Russell says of two key attorneys of the Friday firm. "No decisions were made on these types of matters without running them by Byron and having him weigh in."
Eiseman and his younger brother, Quillen, are the only children of Mary and Byron Eiseman Sr. The Eisemans raised their boys in Morristown, Tenn., about 40 miles east of Knoxville. The senior Eiseman sold movie advertising film for the Alexander Film Co. until he got tired of traveling and he and a friend opened a drive-in movie theater.
"When I was a teenager, I worked in the concession stand and saw a lot of movies," Eiseman says. It was a family affair. Quillen also worked in the concession stand and their mother sold tickets.
After graduating from Morristown High School, Eiseman went to nearby Carson Newman College, now known as Carson Newman University, in Jefferson City, Tenn.
He earned his law degree from the University of Tennessee in 1960. After graduation, he decided he wanted to go into the U.S. Air Force judge advocate general (JAG) program. But it required 20/20 vision and he was disqualified.
He thought teaching might be fun so he took a job at East Carolina College -- now East Carolina University -- teaching commercial law and corporate finance.
Eiseman met his future wife, Carol -- a business professor -- at a faculty party. The day after they met, Eiseman agreed to chaperone a Sigma Nu fraternity party. He invited Carol to be his date.
"And the rest is history," Eiseman says. "It was 55 years ago."
Read full story here.