Page 41 - Coffee County

Clarkie Leverette. They are the owner and operator of Hour Glass Farm Partnership, a family farm enterprise. They have two children, Farah and Lisa. Farah Smith is a registered nurse and resides in Lax, GA with her husband, Hugh and their two boys. Lisa Leverette-Lott and her husband Morgan Lott, reside in Ambrose, Georgia. Curtis has two children, Brent Farrar and Kirk Farrar. Brent graduated with degrees in teaching and history and attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he graduated with a Master’s degree in Divinity. Brent is now a pastor in North Carolina where he lives with his wife and child. Continuing the tradition set before him, Kirk, a graduate of Kennesaw State, attended John Marshall Law School. Just as his father and grandfather had done, Kirk earned his law degree, passed the bar, and headed to practice law. He lives in Douglas with his wife and three children where he specializes in worker’s compensation claims and personal injury law at the frm.

Curtis was not the only one to have one of his children go into law. Dinah’s daughter, Lisa, took an interest in the profession. Lisa is the owner and operator of Leverette Law Firm, a real estate and general civil practice frm, and South Georgia Title & Abstract. She was the third generation to graduate from Walter F. George School of Law Mercer University.

Arthur Farrar laid the path for his family and employees in ways he never even realized. Barbara Dockery has worked for the Farrar family since 1975. She has been in the law offce for all three generations of Farrar men. The senior Farrar was the true epitome of a Southern lawyer. She recalls that he always wore a suit, a white pressed shirt, and a tie. He was a very dapper gentleman. It did not matter what the temperature was he had on his suit. He

to trial.

Curtis was a young lawyer in those days and he learned a great deal from his father. It was more of watching him work and knowing how he treated people. Arthur would not tell Curtis what to do about a case. He would only say, “Be prepared.” He let Curtis handle the case, supporting him and believing in him. That meant a great deal to Curtis. As much as he learned through the law practice, Curtis and the rest of the family and employees learned much more about life from Arthur. He was a man that would not only be a lawyer to the people who came through the doors he was also a friend. Many people would come into the offce just to talk. That was another thing that was different back then. As Curtis points out, “When I frst started practicing law, a person could call a lawyer’s offce and talk directly to the lawyer. Now you have to talk with the assistant or the paralegal. Some of the personal contact has been lost.” In the day when Arthur practiced law, many of his clients would come to him needing help but not having the money to pay for the services. He would trade shotguns, vegetables, and even pigs for the payment. One client remembers using the restroom on one of her visits to the frm. The tub was flled with collard greens. When asking why, she was told that was the only way a client could pay so he accepted it.

Arthur had a big heart and deeply cared for others. That could be one of the reasons he was elected as mayor in 1967. He would drive around town with the Elect Farrar sign mounted to the top of his Lincoln. People knew him and knew what he stood for. Two of the many projects he worked on were Coffee County’s frst industrial park and General Coffee State Park. He wanted Douglas and Coffee County to be recognized in the state. He would

had grown up not having much, so he considered it an honor to be in a position where he could dress as a professional. He came in at 8 in the morning, went to lunch from 12 – 1, and then left again at 5. As many businesses did in that era, he closed the offce at lunch on Wednesday. He knew to be a success at work; he had to be happy outside of work as well. He loved to farm, grow vegetables and to fsh. He was one of the only lawyers in town that had hooks on the side of his Lincoln Town car to hold his cane poles. Practicing law was quite different then than it is today. Just the mechanics of it is hard to imagine in our technological age. Dockery remembers answering calls on her rotary dial phone and typing contracts and offcial papers on her manual typewriter To make it even more diffcult, the paper in the typewriter had to be regular paper, a layer of carbon paper, a layer of onion skin paper and then more layers for as many copies as were needed. The lawyers had to sit for hours in a law library researching cases. Kirk remembers going in to see Gramps as he was sitting in his recliner at home and fnding fve or six thick books sitting on the foor next to him. This was all a necessary part of practicing law as precedent setting cases had to be researched and reviewed. Not only were the procedures different, the way cases were tried was different. In the 1950’s and 60’s, trials were done by what was called trials by ambush. There was no discovery phase. Trials could be brought before a jury and neither side would know the evidence or the witnesses that would be entered by the opposing side. This changed in the 1970’s soon after Curtis joined the law frm due to a new act in Georgia. An attorney can now fnd out the name of the witnesses and any documents or evidence that will be presented in court before the case comes