Never Give Up!
Maxcy D. Filer, a former African American attorney and civic leader in Compton, California who gained nationwide headlines when he passed the State Bar examination after 48 tries, died yesterday at his Compton home.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kelvin Filer said his father, 80 years of age, died in his sleep around 8:30 a.m. The cause of death was not determined, but the elder Filer had been in ill health for a few years, the judge said.
Maxcy Filer was a councilman there from 1976 to 1991, having previously served as a planning commissioner.
Kelvin Filer was in third grade when his father, who attended law school at Van Norman University at night while working by day, made his first stab at the bar examination. By the time he passed the test in 1991, Kelvin and his brother Anthony Filer—now an attorney at Community Legal Services in Norwalk—were both lawyers.
Born in Mariana, Ark., according to an online biography, Filer served in the U.S. Navy from 1946 to 1949 before attending Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical & Normal College, now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
He later moved to Indiana where he married Blondell Burson of Elkhart. He and his wife were activists in the civil rights movement, initiating voter registration drives and later serving as president of the Compton NAACP during the events of 1965 that became known as the Watts Rebellion.
But he will always be remembered, his son said, as the man who would never give up trying to become a licensed attorney.
Kelvin Flier explained:
“He always said: ‘In order to become a lawyer, you have to pass the California bar examination. In order to pass the California bar examination, you have to take the California bar examination.’”
The judge said he hopes to pass to his own children and grandchildren the lesson that “you never give up pursuing your dream.”
Choking back tears, the judge said his greatest memory of his father, who worked for his sons as a paralegal before being admitted himself, will be of “watching him walk across the street to the courthouse with his briefcase in order to practice law.”
Maxcy Filer was sworn in to the State Bar on June 6, 1991 at a new admittee ceremony that included the presentation of a special pin by then-Board of Governors member—now State Bar Court Judge—Robert M. Talcott. In a speech to the new members on behalf of the State Bar, Talcott identified the qualities a lawyer must have.
He then went on to say:
“Three of these characteristics are personified by Maxcy Filer—persistence, persistence, and persistence.”
His story has been included in books and magazine articles and was profiled in People magazine. He practiced with Kelvin Filer in Compton until his son was named a commissioner of the now-defunct Compton Municipal Court.
Filer stayed on as a sole practitioner until a few years ago, when he began having health problems that prevented him from fulfilling his responsibilities, Kelvin Filer said. He accepted probation in 2005 for failing to perform competently in a dissolution case and ceased his practice when was suspended in 2007 for failing to pass the professional ethics examination.
Besides his wife Blondell Filer and sons Kelvin and Anthony Filer, he is survived by daughters Maxine McFarland, Stephanie Hoxey, and Tracy Filer and sons Duane and Dennis Filer, along with 14 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
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