My BarStory S02E08 - Carmina Mares, Kay Niehaus, Liz Niehaus and Elaine Pryatel

“We were the helpers, now our daughters are now the professionals.”

You might not remember the CMBA Auxiliary, which dissolved in 2000, but the legacy of that organization lives today in Mock Trial, the 3Rs and our Stokes Scholars program among others. Both in their 90’s, Kay Niehaus and Elaine Pryatel are reunited for this special BarStory podcast. They share stories about how the auxiliary started as a way for wives of lawyers to support the Bar, and became a force of its own. They are joined by Liz Niehaus, also a former auxiliary member, and moderator Carmina Mares, Esq. Learn why it’s risky to bring teenagers into the jail for field trips, and much more!

Transcript

Becky Ruppert McMahon (00:05):
Hello, I'm Becky Rupert McMahon, CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. Welcome to a new season of my Bar Story podcast. We began this project to create an oral history of the bar for our 150th birthday in 2023. The response has been tremendous. We've got many more great bar stories to share this year and beyond. So let's get started with another My bar story.

Carmina Mares (00:31):
Hello everybody. My name is Carmina Meez, and I'm here with my guests to celebrate an old program at the Bar Association. But first, let's introduce ourselves, please.

Elaine Pryatel (00:43):
I am Elaine Ell, and I came to the bar Auxiliary, I guess as a real newcomer in 1990. After spending 30 years at Soland High School as a teacher, counselor and vice principal, I was introduced to a wonderful group of women who did a number of community service events. And I'll let you talk about them. And

Carmina Mares (01:12):
One of those women is here with us. Please introduce yourself.

Kay Neihaus (01:17):
Well, I'm Kay Lee House, and I've been, well, I joined the auxiliary many years ago, and I was president of the auxiliary from 1988 to 2000. And I just love being with all these great women who volunteered their time and energy. We also became very close friends.

Carmina Mares (01:45):
Wonderful to have you both here. We also have another guest.

Liz Niehaus (01:49):
My name is Liz Nehouse, and I was a newcomer to the organization in the early nineties. Can't remember the exact year. I happened to be Kay's daughter-in-Law. And when her son and I came back to Cleveland after Jim was finished with law school she tried very hard to get me to be part of the auxiliary, and I had small children and just did, could not figure out a way to put it in until a a year in the early nineties when she asked me if I could just help this once with this one project. And that help once with the One project, which was the high school mock trial competition. Then ended up into many, many years of being involved with that program.

Carmina Mares (02:34):
Excellent. Thank you all for being here. I would like to introduce myself briefly. I'm Carmina Mes. I'm a current member of the Bar Association. I serve on the health law section as the chair of programming. I'm also a member of the Bar Missions committee, and I have been involved in this auxiliary project for one year now along with Mary Growth as part of the Bar Association's hundred and 50th anniversary celebration last year. We're looking back at the bar's history of service to the profession and the community, including in our bar journal historical features. We recognized the auxiliary for being a strong partner in public law related education for 28 years, from 1972 to 2000. We, we would love now to start this conversation by talking a little bit about this program's focus.

Elaine Pryatel (03:26):
Well, the auxiliary was new to me since I was active for 30 years in my own profession at teach in education. So the idea of the court tours seemed immediately inviting because they brought the opportunity for teenagers to see the inside working of what happens in the courtrooms of our country. Hopefully it would bring to these students the understanding that our country is a country of laws and that discussing and making decisions regarding laws take place in a very sacred place. The courtroom,

Carmina Mares (04:11):
Was this your very first involvement?

Elaine Pryatel (04:13):
Yes, it was. Was it based on your I came as a newcomer in 1990. I didn't even know about the court tours for students and the public really, or the moot court or the other services that this wonderful group provided for our community. So it was an introduction to me personally.

Carmina Mares (04:33):
How did you both meet?

Kay Neihaus (04:35):
Well, we met as being members of the Bar Association.

Carmina Mares (04:41):
So that was the condition for you, for Aary to become part of this? Yeah.

Kay Neihaus (04:44):
Okay. The auxiliary, and I, I have a note here. It said that we took first place award for 1989 for Law day program. So that was, we received honors many times for our involvement in programs for young people.

Carmina Mares (05:09):
Aside of you being promoters of this, how large was the group of the original? Were you leaders, were you organizers? Were you both? What was exactly your role in this initial collaboration?

Kay Neihaus (05:23):
Well, when I became a member, I then did the tours and I became very active. I came maybe once or twice a week and took a group of young people and I did take the time to take pictures. I was able to promote this program with schools. I could inform them that this was available and they could bring a class down and we would organize the day. Some of 'em came for a half a day and some came and had lunch, and then went, we took 'em over to the police department or we took them into the holy area.

Carmina Mares (06:12):
Liz, you have mentioned to me that you, you have done a lot of volunteering for the bar involving legal education. You had supported competitions, law school competitions. Would you please tell, tell us something about your own experience in regards to this past efforts of teaching the students how the chord functions like a past and present kind of compare and contrast?

Liz Niehaus (06:40):
Well, I was involved earlier on in that for my mother-in-Law, she would have her slides Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, and then she would have me type up for her the list of how the slides went when she presented them to the students. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So that was really my first, I really was contact with us. Yes, my first contact with the students, but I, I really was focused on the high school mock trial competition. And like I said, I, it was early nineties, I don't remember what year in particular, but Kay asked me if I would please, please, please just help this one woman, her name was Dorothy Valerian, if I would help her, because no one was available to help her. It was just gonna be this one time. And I remember then meeting with Dorothy and her thanking me profusely for taking on this project.

Liz Niehaus (07:25):
And I'm like, well, wait a minute. I just thought I was gonna do it once <laugh>. But I can tell you that that one time that I did it, and we had four courtrooms running at the Justice Center, which meant eight high school teams. I had the opportunity to sit and watch one of the trials, and I was literally blown away at, at the, at these, these kids, these high school kids who had the composure and the poise of standing up and presenting their case and asking questions and, you know, figuring follow up questions to ask. And I remember at the end of that trial Frank Celese was the judge who was presiding over that trial. And after the panel discussed how they felt, everyone went and they came back to talk to the students. The very first thing he said from the bench was, I need to tell you students, if half of the lawyers who came and presented in front of me were as well prepared as you were today, my job would be easy. And that kind of, that's cemented in my mind that this was something that I would like to do. And so I continued to be the chairperson of the mock trial project until the bar disbanded, or the auxiliary, excuse me, not the bar, the auxiliary disbanded. And then after that, I became, I just worked with the bar with Mary Growth on putting the thing together.

Carmina Mares (08:49):
That's wonderful. So we have a timeline here. You can see where your efforts are now being translated into a different format, but the basics are the same. You wanna introduce the students to the workings of the court. What are your feelings about this, listening to these telling us? Well,

Elaine Pryatel (09:06):
I see the court tours providing for the mass of students who are not as polished or well prepared as your boot trial kids, right. Who really work on it with supervision and instruction from their classroom teachers. The court tours provided for the teenagers whom I took around on the tours, a realistic insight into what goes on in a normal courtroom. The law is a noble profession, and we mustn't lose sight of that. What takes place in the courtroom, I don't wanna get dramatic, but it, it's sacred. I used to tell the, the young people, when you come to court next to your house of worship, this is a very serious and sacred place. Dress accordingly, behave accordingly, and listen to what's going on. It's not the way television and the movies, Perry Mason and the rest of them tell you that's exciting and everything takes place and it's, the problem is solved within 30 minutes. That isn't the way it worked, but respect for what takes place and how it takes place is important. My court tour experience was a realistic insight for me too, and I'm a classroom teacher.

Carmina Mares (10:31):
That's

Elaine Pryatel (10:31):
A wonderful ation. So they were exciting, but very, very personally rewarding.

Kay Neihaus (10:35):
Well, I, I can add a little humor because when we got the program going into full, full force, you know, groups came down almost every day of the week. We had from various schools and what have you, and sometimes we would take them over to the holding cells. Were prisoners were

Carmina Mares (11:03):
You are nodding. So you're talking, you're, you know exactly what she,

Kay Neihaus (11:06):
She means,

Elaine Pryatel (11:07):
Right? Yes, indeed.

Kay Neihaus (11:08):
Absolutely. Right. And, you know, we would give them the opportunity to see, and one day I had a group of girls and their teachers and we went over in the police area and there were quite a few men that were incarcerated there, <laugh>. And they dropped their pads. And that was a real <laugh>.

Carmina Mares (11:35):
Our jaws are just dropping right now. Right on

Kay Neihaus (11:37):
<Laugh>. I know. It was quite an experience, so I had to be very careful when I was scheduling these groups coming.

Carmina Mares (11:50):
That's just one of the types of programs that you have been involved because you were involved in organizing annual forums at the former Higbee Auditorium. Right. And those brought hundreds of attendees, and there were topics such as surviving spouse forum, divorce forum panels of judges and lawyers along, along with this kind of thing. You also had this, this the People's Law School events Saturday morning se series of law classes for the public held at the Cleveland Bar Association Cleveland Center. So it was like the law school for the public with lawyers and judges and related legal professions as the faculty. We need to give a shout out to the auxiliary member, Caroline Vic, who was pivotal in developing this program. So what are the other programs makes you think that you were proud of being part of that effort? Just a little bit of going down the the, the, the memory lane, but

Elaine Pryatel (12:50):
<Crosstalk>, well, the auxiliary was a a community service organization. The exciting part, of course is always in the courtroom as we perceive it, but these forums provided for the general public and acquaintanceship and understanding of services provided, not just by lawyers in the courtroom, in litigation and otherwise, but also by the social security people Medicare and all the accompanying programs that go with getting to be old at age 65. You don't need a lawyer, although you should have your living will and that sort of thing. But these forums often attended by over 200 people were the conduit to give the general public that sort of information on a one to one basis with the experts and the recipients.

Carmina Mares (13:46):
Can you give us a little bit about the social aspect of being member of such a prestigious group back then? What does it, what did it mean for you?

Kay Neihaus (13:54):
Well, you know, I think having special outings, because I, I was looking at some of my pictures and I know one time we went down on the bus down to Kent State and, and it was to see they had a new program down there where women were making their own clothes or they were purchasing. And so we, we tried to add things that were kind of just for the, the group.

Carmina Mares (14:29):
Just for the group. Yeah.

Kay Neihaus (14:30):
And it was luncheons where, you know, the ladies all came and we had those that were dressing with beautiful clothes and walking around and kind

Carmina Mares (14:45):
Of, you mentioned interacting with the judges. Tell me more about your role in continuing a judge's education around you. Were also coming from households where judges Right. Were present. Tell me more about this. How come that, you know, judge, you, you knew judges so well?

Elaine Pryatel (15:03):
Well, I was married to Judge Prieto for 36 years. So

Carmina Mares (15:07):
You were married with a judge? Yes, I did. How about you?

Kay Neihaus (15:10):
Well, you know, I, when the, I came down and I would call their bailiffs to see if I could bring a group Mm-Hmm. Of students in, I became to know who would be more willing to take care of this group that I'm bringing in. And so you, you kind of learn,

Carmina Mares (15:36):
Learn how to do this. Yeah.

Kay Neihaus (15:38):
Uhhuh <affirmative>.

Elaine Pryatel (15:38):
Well, I remember we always asked who's in thus and thus office. And the exciting trials were the murder trials and that kind of thing, <laugh>. So as the court tour guy, we always wanna go into the exciting places, and often you found a little bit of conflict arising between prosecutor who and defendant <laugh>. But that's part of the process too. It wasn't all tears and punishment, but often humorous things occurred.

Carmina Mares (16:10):
What happened in 2000? Why did you decide to disband this wonderful program?

Kay Neihaus (16:15):
Well, because no one would take on the organizational part of this program. It

Carmina Mares (16:25):
Was a lot of work to do.

Kay Neihaus (16:26):
It was a lot of work, and I felt that I had done it for like 20 years or so. It, it was very difficult and no one would step in knife shoes and offer to do it.

Elaine Pryatel (16:46):
We were an auxiliary, an auxiliary, the helpers. And Liz, I can publicly thank you for your leadership and effort and energy that you put into it. Well, we did open it

Liz Niehaus (16:56):
Up to sp I mean, we were basically spouses of attorneys and judges. We are not attorneys ourselves,

Elaine Pryatel (17:02):
But the whole thing is our daughters became the attorneys. That's correct. Hence, it wasn't for the spouses anymore. They were the the leaders. And that's the progress of society, I guess, and


Elaine Pryatel (17:31):
Yes. Well, I guess we reflect the march of time here. We do. We were the helpers and now our daughters are the professionals.

Carmina Mares (17:39):
And I think the bar needs all the help. It can get from various supporters, stakeholders as we call them. So I think it's a beautiful tradition. Tell me more, something about how you worked among yourselves. How did you delegate roles? I imagine the whole machinery of running such large scale projects was difficult to handle by just one or two people.

Elaine Pryatel (18:03):
Well, it was because of the leadership of people like Kay and others and the trustees that we, yeah. We met monthly, did we? Not at the bar. 

Kay Neihaus (18:10):
We, we did. And, and it got to the point where fewer people, well, I think some became older, and to have to come down and take a group of teenagers

Carmina Mares (18:27):
Became a little bit of a problem, a

Kay Neihaus (18:29):
Little bit of a problem, because many of the teenagers were maybe a little more difficult to handle. They, a lot of 'em were great and we enjoyed doing it because we could communicate with them and they had to see what was happening down at the justice center. And then if I would take them over to the police department, they could see the scientific lab and working that way, or if I took them into the jail, which we had to be very considered to do that after my bad experience of the group of men.

Carmina Mares (19:16):
Why red auxiliary? Why did you use red? The color Red. Tell me the story of your coats for your jackets. Yeah, your jackets, your red coats.

Kay Neihaus (19:28):
Well,

Elaine Pryatel (19:28):
Couldn't exciting but colors for choosing red. No, I, I don't recall because I, I'm the newcomer. Kay. Will answer that question.

Kay Neihaus (19:36):
Not really, because when I became a member and we were doing the tours, we all ended up, it

Elaine Pryatel (19:45):
Had been established.

Kay Neihaus (19:46):
Yeah. We

Elaine Pryatel (19:47):
All, I liked them. They were just fine. Yeah. And you could be noticed. You'll not miss a red coat in a crowd.

Kay Neihaus (19:53):
Yeah. Right.

Carmina Mares (19:54):
What kind of thoughts do you have now that we are approaching the end of this conversation? Something that you'd love to share? Because this is a good moment to do it right here, right now.

Elaine Pryatel (20:03):
Well, I have a story. I hope it'll be appropriate. We always asked where's the exciting one taking place, and I can't remember who the judge was, but there was a very exciting criminal attorney. His name was Shaughnessy. Oh yeah. Exciting. And very dramatic in the courtroom. So it was kind of fun to go in and watch Mr. Shaughnessy and the young people that I was with behaved sat and listen. And the defendant was explaining how this victim leaned forward and hid his knife that I think generated a few Snickers. But nonetheless, Shaughnessy began to shout at him and tell him, don't interrupt and tell me what the reason was. At any rate the judge calmed him down. And we listened. And I went home and told my husband about it. He said, well, Shauna was trying to get sympathy for his defendant, <laugh> by berating the defendant. So it was kind of a humorous thing, but exciting nonetheless, because shouting was something we were not accustomed to.

Carmina Mares (21:18):
Thank you very much for sharing that story. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, how about you? Okay.

Kay Neihaus (21:21):
Well, it was interesting. I, I would really check with the bailiff to see if it, the case was appropriate for whatever group I had. You know, I might have seniors in high school and I wouldn't have been, you know, I I I, I probably would take them into most of the trials, but we, we had to really kind of consider what type of a group we had and what we could expose them to. I think most of them were very accepted, but every so often you kind of knew. And I always checked if it would be appropriate for whatever group I had.

Carmina Mares (22:16):
As you could see, things are still being done at the bar, and we are here to celebrate the Cleveland Bar Auxiliary. This has been a pleasure for me personally, to have a chance to reach out to you. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> to come to visit you, to reunite two old friends after how many years now?

Kay Neihaus (22:34):
Well, a long time, 30 years

Elaine Pryatel (22:36):
Ago, <laugh>, I can't imagine that.

Carmina Mares (22:39):
So 30 years

Elaine Pryatel (22:40):
In the making. But I see the whole system as being so perversely changed. We used to be able to walk into the courthouse and have ready access to whatever room behaving appropriately. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> we could go into. Now we're searched. You go through metal doors. It's a sad comment on our society, I think. Yet we cannot lose sight of our American system of jurisprudence and the fact that the law is a noble profession, and we have to respect the courtroom for what it gives to us as Americans. Amen. I'll tell you, it's a different world.

Carmina Mares (23:27):
Time ha. Time times have changed. The message, however, remains the same education. I have to thank you all for putting time aside to come to the Bar Association to share your stories. I appreciate Liz's support. I truly thank Mary Groth for initiating this project from A to Z. We're sorry she's not able to join us today, but you have her. Thanks as well, I'm sure. And I'm looking forward to staying in touch with both of you for the next 20 years or so, <laugh>, or 30 years or so. Thank you much. Thank you.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (24:04):
Thank you for joining us for another My Bar story. You can still sign up to record your own bar story@cmetrobar.org slash podcast. Watch your podcast feed for a new episode coming soon. Have a great week.