David Bagwell is a 78-year old retired lawyer who grew up in Montgomery where he attended the public schools.
He graduated from Vanderbilt fifty-six years ago in 1968, LAST time the Democratic National Convention blew up in Chicago.
He immediately got a one-year draft deferment to travel around the world to study international business in 35 countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
As soon as he got home he joined the Army National Guard and went to Army boot camp in Fort Polk, Louisiana in July and August. David says he is grateful that the Army taught him the two most useful skills a lawyer can have: how to type and how to bayonet people. His most fun unit was a two-man military history detachment.
David clerked for a famous federal judge, Judge Frank Johnson, an Eisenhower appointee, although the current chief justice foolishly says it does not matter who appointed a judge.
After that, David practiced law for half a century. He was in two rival big firms and a medium firm in Mobile, and for the last seventeen years practiced by himself in Fairhope, Alabama and was his own secretary. He says that this was the only time he liked all of his partners. David mostly handled admiralty and antitrust matters.
Between the ages of 35 and 40, David did a term as U.S. Magistrate for the Southern District of Alabama. He ran for Federal Judge three times and each time, lost by only three votes: the President and both Senators from Alabama.
David was president of this club 32 years ago in 1992, president of the bar association of Baldwin County, president of the school board of St. Ignatius Parish, and is active in his church and the community. He is an honorary member of the Point Clear Rotary Club now.
In retirement he says he “is in the seafood processing business”, meaning that he tries to catch fish in Mobile Bay and puts the carcasses in the five crab traps he maintains on his “wharf”, as Mobilians call a dock or pier. He says life is good.