Memorials

• Publication year: 2017
• Pages: 0072

MEMORIALS
Vol. 78 No. 1 Pg. 72
The Alabama Lawyer
January, 2017

▲ Ralph Irving Knowles, Jr.

▲ Mitchell Alan spears

Ralph Irving Knowles, Jr.

My lifetime friend and former law partner, Ralph Knowles, died May 17, 2016 in Atlanta. Ralph practiced law in Tuscaloosa, from 1970 until 1977, and again from 1978 through 1990. In those years, Ralph helped bring about extraordinary changes in Alabama's legal and political systems and his life profoundly affected the entire state.

I am going to focus here only on what Ralph did while he lived in Alabama. I should, however, briefly acknowledge that he accomplished much while living in Washington, DC and in Atlanta. As a lawyer for the National Prison Project of the ACLU, he was lead counsel in litigation which reformed the entire prison systems in Colorado and New Mexico. In Atlanta, while a partner at Doffermyre, Shields, Canfield & Knowles, he served as plaintiffs' co-lead counsel in the multi-district litigation styled In re Breast Implant Litigation. Also in Atlanta, he was inducted into membership of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

After Ralph and I graduated from the University of Alabama Law School, we both served as staff counsel at the Selma Inter-Religious Project, a civil rights organization. A few years later we formed our law firm, but continued our civil rights work.

While with the Selma Project, we provided legal services to a variety of organizations in the Black Belt, including groups like the Freedom Quilting Bee in Wilcox County and the Orville Day Care Center in Dallas County. In Greene County, we incorporated the Greene County Housing Authority and provided its early legal representation. We also served as lawyers for various candidates and political organizations in Greene County and other Black Belt counties. Many of the people we worked with throughout the Black Belt went on to become county commissioners, probate judges, sheriffs, county administrators and executives.

Ralph participated in several landmark lawsuits in Alabama, including:

• Wyatt v Stickney¹ held that persons involuntarily committed to mental institutions had a constitutional right to receive adequate treatment. The standards ordered to be implemented to ensure adequate treatment have been described by courts and historians as the model for the Americans with Disabilities Act legislation, as well as for legislation passed by numerous states and standards

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