I'm sure you've all heard about the fictitious law firm of Dewey, Screwem, and Howe. But in real life there existed a law firm which was, without a doubt, the most crooked and corrupt law firm of all time. The name of the law firm was Howe and Hummel (William Howe and Abraham Hummel). These two shyster lawyers were the main players in a sleazy law firm, founded in 1870, of which New York City District Attorney William Travers Jerome said in 1890, "For more than 20 years, Howe and Hummel have been a menace to this community."
The founding member of the law firm was William Howe. Howe was an extremely large man, over 6 feet tall and weighing as much as 325 pounds. Howe had wavy gray hair, a large walrus mustache, and he dressed loudly, with baggy pantaloons, and diamonds, which he wore on his fingers, on his watch chains, as shirt studs, and as cuff buttons. The only time Howe wore a tie was at funerals. At trials, or anytime he was seen in public, instead of a tie, Howe wore diamond clusters, of which he owned many.
Fight Game
A New York lawyer, who was acquainted with Howe, said Howe derived tremendous enjoyment from cheating jewelers out of their payments for his many diamond purchases. "I don't think he ever paid full price for those diamonds of his," the lawyer said. "He never bought two at the same jewelers. When he got one, he would make a small down payment, and then when he had been dunned two or three times for the balance, he would assign one of his young assistant shysters to fight the claim. Of course, he had enough money to pay, but he got a kick out of not paying."
Howe's background before he arrived in New York City is quite dubious. What is known, is that Howe was born across the pond in England. Howe arrived in New York City in the early 1850's as a ticket-of -leave man, or in common terms, a paroled convict. No one ever knew, nor did Howe ever divulge, what his crime had been in England. However, it was often said that Howe had been a doctor in London and had lost his license, and was incarcerated, as a result of some criminal act. Yet, Howe insisted that while he was in England he was not a doctor, but in fact, an assistant to the noted barrister George Waugh. Yet, Howe's explanation of who we was, and what he did in England, could not be confirmed.
In 1874, Howe and Hummel were being sued by William and Adelaide Beaumont, who were former clients of the two lawyers, and were claiming they had been cheated by them. Howe was on the witness stand being interrogated by the Beaumont's attorney Thomas Dunphy, who asked Howe if he was the same William Frederick Howe who was wanted for murder in England. Howe insisted that he was not. Dunphy then asked Howe if he was the same William Frederick Howe had been convicted of forgery in Brooklyn a few years earlier. Howe again denied he was that person. Yet, no definite determination could ever be made whether Howe was indeed telling the truth.
Rumor had it, before Howe set down stakes in New York City, he had worked in other American cities as a "confidence man." Other crooks said that Howe was the inventor of the "sick engineer" game, which was one of the most successful sucker traps of that time. In 1859, when he arrived in New York City, Howe immediately transitioned from criminal into criminal attorney, which in those days most people considered to be the same thing.
In the mid-1800s, it was easy to get a license to practice law, and background checks on the integrity of law license applicants were nonexistent. Famed lawyer George W. Alger once wrote, "In those days there were practically no ethics at all in criminal law and none too much in the other branches of the profession. The grievance committee of the Bar Association was not functioning and a lawyer could do pretty much anything he wanted. And most of them did."
In 1862, "Howe the Lawyer," as he came to be known, suddenly appeared as a practicing attorney in New York City. However, there is no concrete evidence on how Howe actually became admitted to the New York Bar. In 1963, Howe was listed in the City Directory as an attorney in private practice. In those days, almost anyone could call themselves a lawyer. The courts were filled with lawyers who had absolutely no legal training. They were called "Poughkeepsie Lawyers."
Howe began building up his clientele in the period immediately after the Civil War. Howe had the reputation of being a "pettifogger," which is defined as a lawyer with no scruples, and who would use any method, legal or illegal, to serve his clients. Howe became known as "Habeas Corpus Howe," because of his success in getting soldiers, who didn't want to be in the service, out of the service. Howe would bring his dispirited soldiers into court, where they would testify that they were either drunk when they enlisted, which made their enlistment illegal, or that they had a circumstance in their lives at the time they were drafted, that may have made their draft contrary to the law. In a magazine article published in 1873, it said, "During the war, Mr. Howe at one time secured the release of an entire company of soldiers, some 70 strong."
Howe also had as his clients scores of members of the street gangs who instigated the monstrous "1863 Civil War Riots." Reports were that Howe, using illegal and immoral defense efforts, was able to have men, who committed murders during those riots, acquitted of all charges. As a result of his dubious successes, by the late 1860s Howe was considered the most successful lawyer in New York City. One highly complementary magazine article written about Howe was entitled "William F. Howe: The Celebrated Criminal Lawyer."
In 1863, Howe hired a 13-year-old office boy named Abraham Hummel. At the time, Howe had just opened his new office, a gigantic storefront at 89 Centre Street, directly opposite The Tombs Prison. Hummel was the exact opposite in appearance of Howe. "Little Abey" was under 5-foot-tall, with thin spindly legs, and a huge, egg-shaped bald head. Hummel walked slightly bent over, and some people mistook him for a hunchback. Hummel wore a black mustache, and had shifty eyes, that always seem to be darting about and taking in the entire scene. While Howe was loud and bombastic, Hummel was quiet and reserved.
However, Hummel was sly and much more quick-witted than Howe. Where Howe dressed outlandishly, Hummel's attire consisted of plain expensive black suits, and pointed patent leather shoes: "toothpick shoes," as they were called at the time. Hummel's shoes were installed with inserts, a precursor to Adler-elevated shoes, which gave Hummel a few extra inches in height, putting him just over the 5-foot mark. Hummel considered himself neat and fast cash, Hummel would provide his legal adversary with fine liquor, and the best Cuban cigars. Then Hummel, in plain view of the other attorney, would make a big show of going to his desk, where he removed all copies of the affidavits, and handed them to the victim's lawyer, so that the lawyer could verify them as the proper documents. After the verification was done, the victim's lawyer had a choice of bringing the documents to his client, or have them burned in the stove right in the middle of Hummel's office. Almost always the latter course of action was chosen. After the affidavits were destroyed, Hummel and the other attorney would kick back their feet, toast themselves with the finest liquor, and spend the next hour, or so, laughing about lawyerly schemes.
Yet Hummel, in certain ways, was a man of principle. Hummel made sure that none of his blackmail victims were ever troubled again by the same girl who had scammed them in the past. Hummel once explained how he did this to George Alger, a partner in the law firm of Alger, Peck, Andrew, & Rohlfs.
"Before I hand over the girls share," Hummel told Alger, "the girl and I have a little talk. She listens to me dictate an affidavit saying that she has deceived me, as a lawyer, into believing that a criminal conversation (what they called an act of adultery in those days) had taken place, that in fact nothing at all between her and the man involved ever took place, that she was thoroughly repentant over her conduct in the case, and that but for the fact that the money had already been spent, she would wish to return it. Then I'd make her sign this affidavit; then I gave her the money. Whenever they'd start up something a second time, I just called them and read them the affidavit. That always did the trick."
So much money was coming into the law firm of Howe and Hummel, it is extraordinary that neither of the two lawyers kept any financial records at all. At the end of the day, both lawyers, and their junior associates, would meet in Hummel's office. There they would all empty their pockets of cash onto the table. When the money was finished being counted, each man would take out his share of the money in accordance with the proportion of his share in the business. As time went on, this procedure was changed to take place on Friday nights only.
In 1900, Howe and Hummel were forced from their offices at 89 Center Street (the city needed the site for a public building). They relocated to the basement of New York Life Insurance Building at 346 Broadway. Soon after they moved, Howe became sick; then incapacitated. Howe stopped coming into the office, and instead stood feebly at his home at Boston Road in the Bronx. Howe was said to be a heavy drinker, and this had affected his liver. Howe suffered several heart attacks, before he died in his sleep, on September 2, 1902.
After Howe's death, Hummel muddled on, as he had before, handling all the civil cases, and an occasional criminal case. However, the bulk of the trial work Hummel designated to two of his former assistants: David May and Issac Jacobson.
Hummel was 53 years old at the time of Howe's death. He must have figured he had a good 10 to 15 more years to accumulate more wealth. However, New York City District Attorney William Travers Jerome had other ideas. It was the Dodge-Morse divorce case that was Hummel's undoing. For years, Hummel had skirted around the law, and sometimes, in fact, broke the law, but there was never enough evidence to indict him. However, this time Hummel went too far. The Dodge-Morse divorce case dragged out for almost 5 years (Hummel was able to finagle delay after delay, using his thorough understanding of the procedures of the law), but in the end, District Attorney Jerome was able to get an indictment against Hummel for conspiracy and suborning perjury.
Hummel went on trial in January of 1905. The trial lasted only two days, and Hummel was found guilty. Still, Hummel was able to avoid jail for another two years. He hired the best lawyers available, hoping they could find some loophole in the law, or some technicality, that would keep Hummel from going to prison. But nothing could be done, and on March 8, 1907, Abraham Hummel was imprisoned at Blackwell's Island, the same island, where in 1872, Hummel was able to have 240 prisoners released on a technicality.
Hummel left prison after serving only one year of his two-year sentence. Upon his release, Hummel traveled to Europe, and spent the rest of his life there, mostly living in France. Hummel, as far as it can be determined, never returned to his former stomping grounds in New York City.
After Hummel's conviction, he was also disbarred. Furthermore, in 1908, the law firm of Howe and Hummel was enjoined by law from further practice, thus ending an era of lawless lawyering that has never been duplicated. Howe and Hummel are accurately portrayed in the annals of American crime, as the most law-breaking law firm of all time.
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