John W. Dunn: a Profile of the New Cba President
| Publication year | 1993 |
| Pages | 1431 |
1993, July, Pg. 1431. John W. Dunn: A Profile of The New CBA President
John Dunn, neat as a pin, sits in his Vail law office doing business as the county attorney for Lake County, as he has for many years. Who'd guess he's a party animal?
The new president of the Colorado Bar Association disguises himself in a reserved suit, tie and quiet demeanor, but beneath that muted exterior dwells a person who loves to dance, laugh, ski and party. He does have a certain tendency toward regimen.
"Once he had M&Ms on Friday afternoon; now every Friday afternoon he has M&Ms," says his wife/helper/paralegal Karen.
The frivolous side of John was a long time coming.
"I was a perfect child," he says seriously.
Raised in Illinois, an only child with a lawyer-father, he studied a lot. "I can't think of anything interesting in my childhood," he says helpfully.
His conversion began his senior year in high school when his parents bought him a sports car. Complete with sporty hat and scarf, John began to raise hell. "It made my senior year a little more interesting." He went on to Wabash College, a men's school of 600, and joined the Fiji's (Phi Gamma Delta) (party, party).
"You can say that a small midwestern college is the epitome of boring and dull. We were totally shielded from the changes in society that were beginning" (read: he didn't grow a ponytail).
John decided a "cold jump in the water" was what he needed, so he went to Scotland for a year (he attended the University of Edinburgh and studied Latin). "Gary Powers was shot down just as I was going," he complained. "There I was having to defend an administration (Eisenhower) I never had great affection for."
He learned a lot there: "I joined a debating society. I remember telling someone the U.S. Constitution was the oldest in the world. They told me the constitution of that debating society was older than ours!"
The next step was NYU Law School, which was "terminally boring and I did poorly toward the end." The most exciting thing was his being involved in the Root-Tilden Scholarship Program, a program to promote public service by lawyers, which had interesting people like Paul Tagliabue in it. "They tried to point us toward making a contribution in the community, and toward practicing law with a high...
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