December 2002. Downs No Title.

Vermont Bar Journal

2002.

December 2002.

Downs No Title

YANKEE JUSTICE - THE LIGHTER SIDE OF VERMONT LAW

Luke Cripse - Champion of Causes

Virginia C. Downs

"Luke Crispe was the consummate trial lawyer. He was especially good when a litigant sought a champion to battle with the opponents. He was a great champion of causes and the underdog." These words of Brattleboro attorney Jack Burgess in a 1992 Brattleboro Reformer article at the time of Crispe's death summed up the admiration Burgess had for the man who was his mentor when he joined the firm of Gibson, Gibson and Crispe. (The Gibsons were Ernest and his brother, Preston. Ernest Gibson served Vermont as governor and was a Federal District Court judge.) Brattleboro had lost a citizen who had given generously to community as well as state and national causes. He had practiced law there for almost fifty years.

"The first day I worked for Luke, he took me out to Marlboro where there was a sale of a schoolhouse," Burgess related. "The whole town was there, and there was some controversy about the sale. On the way back I commented to him, 'Mr. Crispe, you talk without much of a Vermont accent, but then when you were speaking with those people you had a typical, heavy Vermont accent.'

"He said every lawyer has to have a little bit of the ham and the actor in him."

Burgess added that Crispe "was active in dramatics locally in Brattleboro, but he was best at acting when he was cross-examining an opposition witness and especially when he was addressing a jury. He was full of fire, vim and common sense." "He was a fine but subtle mentor. He gave confidence and some wisdom to the younger lawyers and he was free with guidance."

In the same newspaper article, another Brattleboro attorney, David Gibson, son of Ernest Gibson, shared his recollections of Crispe "Luke was in a law partnership with my father and uncle and later with my uncle for quite a few years after my father became governor. He was fond of telling a story of a case in Newfane at the county court. In the course of the questioning of the witness, Luke was doing the questioning and my father was sitting at the table next to him. My father was telling him to ask this and ask that, and finally Luke turned to my father and said, 'Why don't you ask the damn questions?'" Gibson said his father was quiet after that. Gibson added that his father and Crispe had "an unusual and close relationship that continued with myself and my two brothers, Ernest and Bob." Crispe, he said, "was entertaining and outspoken, but had a deep compassion for people."

Crispe grew up in the small town of Red Bank, New Jersey. To help with expenses at Newark Prep just after the crash of 1929, he worked at the Bank of New York in Newark. He graduated from the University of Louisville and...