Memorial Minute

On October 19 the Council adopted the following Minute in Remembrance of Sherwin P. Simmons by Council member George H.T. Dudley:

Sherwin Palmer Simmons

January 19, 1931 – May 24, 2006

Some people of superior intelligence and achievement display their ability and success like a suit of highly polished armor. So hard, so bright that you have difficulty getting to know the individual behind the glare. Others, a gifted few, wear their genius like a favored comfortable coat. You see the person first and only after you get close do you appreciate the quality of the garment, the depth of the intellect you have encountered. Sherwin Simmons was the epitome of the latter. He had a folksy demeanor, quick wit, and engaging personality to which you could not help but be attracted. That drew you in.

That personality served Sherwin well because for many in the legal profession, especially the tax bar, Sherwin Simmons was an Olympian force.

Sherwin Palmer Simmons was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on January 19, 1931 to Carl and Helen Simmons. Sherwin’s father was a chiropractor who had been trained at the Palmer School of Chiropractic Medicine. The school’s founder, Dr. Daniel David Palmer, was one of the nation’s first proponents of Chiropractic Medicine, and it was after Dr. Palmer that Sherwin was given his middle name by his father Carl.

Sherwin was the eldest of three children. He had two younger sisters but when his mother was pregnant with what was to become Sherwin’s second sister, Sherwin told Helen, his mother, that he wanted a younger brother. When Helen brought home Sherwin’s newest sister Martha from the hospital, Sherwin promptly named her "Butch" and kept calling her by that name, so that to this day everyone knows Sherwin’s youngest sister as "Butch" and to her nieces and nephews she is "Aunt Butch."

That same persistence carried Sherwin through his academic career. He finished high school at age 17. He earned a scholarship to attend Columbia University and started law school during his senior year in college. Sherwin received his A.B. from Columbia in 1952 and his law degree in 1954, graduating as the law school’s Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.

Sherwin’s professional career started in Washington, D.C., as an Attorney–Advisor in the United States Tax Court. In 1956, he moved to Florida, joining and then quickly becoming a partner in the Fowler White law firm in Tampa, Florida. In 1970, Sherwin took a leap of faith and with four close colleagues founded the firm of Trenam, Simmons, Kemker, Scharf & Barkin. In 1994, Sherwin left his own successful firm to accept what Sherwin himself described as the, "proverbial offer I could not refuse," and moved to Miami to become a partner in, and Chair of the Tax Group of, Steel Hector & Davis, LLP. In early 2005, Sherwin moved again, joining the Miami office of the law firm Buchanan Ingersoll.

At Sherwin’s funeral, the managing partner of Buchanan’s Miami office described his first meeting with Sherwin. He stated that sitting in his office in front of him was the nation’s leading tax lawyer. He knew that Sherwin was considering leaving Steel Hector and had come to learn more about Buchanan Ingersoll. He said that Sherwin began the meeting by asking him to describe the firm’s retirement policy. The managing partner was unsure how to answer, so he replied that he was not certain about the firm’s policy and asked Sherwin what would he like it to be. Sherwin’s immediate response was, "Good! I don’t plan to retire." That was an objective Sherwin accomplished by practicing literally from his hospital bed until the day before he died.

We all know the mission statement of the Institute:

to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to encourage and carry on scholarly and scientific legal work.

But how many of us can say that we live that statement as a part of our professional lives? Such could be said about Sherwin. He spent hundreds of hours traveling around the United States and, sometimes, other parts of the world lecturing; teaching other lawyers, especially young lawyers, and CPAs about many and varied aspects of tax law, estate planning, and compensation. An adjunct professor in tax law at two law schools and a guest lecturer at more than a dozen other schools, Sherwin was the author of more than 800 articles and books on tax-related subjects. He was a tax practitioner who had served as a Chair of the Section of Taxation of the American Bar Association and as Chair of the American College of Tax Counsel—the head of both of the nation’s national organizations devoted to tax law and tax practitioners. Sherwin was a founding trustee and a president of the American Tax Policy Institute. Among tax lawyers, Sherwin was acknowledged as the Dean of the nation’s tax bar.

Perhaps Sherwin’s singular contribution to our profession was his service as Chair of the ABA’s Commission on Multidisciplinary Practice. For almost three years, from 1998 to 2000, Sherwin traversed the nation as a principal architect and moderator of the national debate on one of the most important issues to face a generation of lawyers: the conflation between the practice of law and the work of other disciplines and the resulting evolution of the relationship between lawyers and law firms with professionals in related fields. Guiding that debate was a daunting task that Sherwin discharged with the same easy going and folksy persistence that sustained him throughout his legal career.

With all of this success and his devotion to the law you might get the impression that Sherwin was one-dimensional. That impression would be mistaken. Sherwin was a person with a variety of interests and several passions. He enjoyed good wine and fine dining. Sherwin and his wife Mary Anne, together with a couple of close friends, traveled the world exploring, with Sherwin taking pictures everywhere they went. Sherwin and my wife Susan shared a passion for genealogy and the search for ancestors. They both were gadgeteers and computer geeks. At more than one meeting of the Council, Sherwin’s first question upon seeing me was not to inquire after my well-being but to inquire whether Susan had accompanied me to New York or Philadelphia or wherever we were meeting. Sherwin had achieved a breakthrough in his genealogy research or had acquired some new gadget or software that he wanted to share with Susan.

Sherwin’s greatest passion was his 32-year love affair with his wife Mary Anne, whom he married on Christmas Day in 1974, and their shared devotion to their children, stepson Stephen Andrew Leal and Sherwin Palmer II (both successful lawyers practicing in Florida) and their families. Sadly, Sherwin learned about but did not live to see the birth of his second grandson, who was to be named Sherwin Palmer III by his parents, not after his father but after his grandfather.

Sherwin was elected to The American Law Institute in 1966 and to the Council in 1985. He twice served on the Executive Committee from 1994 to 1997 and again from 1999 until this past May. For nine years, from 1997 to May of this year, Sherwin was a member of the Institute’s Membership Committee, serving as Chair of the Committee from 1999 until being replaced by me at the last Annual Meeting.

After Sherwin was diagnosed with leukemia in the summer of 2005, true to his lifelong persistent nature, Sherwin was determined not to let the disease slow him down. He shared the fact of his illness with a very limited number of persons and only on the condition that we not disclose his illness to anyone else. During his treatment for the disease, Sherwin continued an almost full workload and when the leukemia went into remission briefly this past winter, Sherwin promptly returned to the office. Unfortunately, the remission lasted only a short while and when the disease returned aggressively, nevertheless, Sherwin continued to battle his illness and to work from his home and later from the hospital.

Sherwin reviewed his last set of candidates proposed for election to the ALI and sent his last ballot on those candidates by e-mail from his hospital bed.

Finally, this past April, Sherwin sent his last e-mail to Mike Traynor in which he only would acknowledge that, "my illness is back and the future uncertain." In the concluding paragraph of that e-mail, Sherwin said, "As to the future, I do not want to take emeritus status as I love the ALI; but I do think you should not reappoint me to the Executive Committee or as chair of membership."

That e-mail encapsulated Sherwin Simmons: his sense of professional responsibility compelled him to relinquish his duties as a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of Membership; his persistence had him looking only to the future, not contemplating his demise; and his love of this Institute would not let him seek emeritus status and relax his ties to the organization.

One month after that e-mail, Sherwin passed away. He is survived by his wife, Mary Anne; his two sons, Sherwin II and Stephen; their wives, Amie and Lisa; his grandsons, William Leal and Sherwin Palmer III—who was born 13 days ago, October 6, 2006—and by his sister, Butch.

"I do not want to take emeritus status as I love the ALI." Sherwin . . . dear friend . . . the feeling very much was mutual.