Creditors Bar Association of Oklahoma

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Thoughts of Our Friend

     On Tuesday, May 3, we lost an exceptional, unique person, Rick Robinson.
He leaves behind a loving family, an outstanding law practice and many hundreds
of friends. His passing leaves a void in our lives which time will not fill.

 

     Rick Robinson was a lawyer’s lawyer. He loved the law and constantly
strived to make it better. I knew Rick for many, many years, and for the last
quarter century, I knew him as a judge, a fellow lawyer, and as a friend. I pen
these few words within that fabric.

 

     Rick appeared in my court at least hundreds of times. Probably more than a
thousand times, in fact. In all of those times, he exhibited the best qualities of a
lawyer: He was knowledgeable. He was prepared. He was patient with his
opposition. He was strictly and exactly honest. He represented his client’s best
interest at all times. He never misrepresented, by commission or omission, the
facts of the case. When he appeared on my docket, I knew I could count on him to
be all of these things.

 

     Rick infected those around him, both in his firm and in his fellow lawyers,
with the same qualities he brought to the courtroom. He was constantly trying to
improve the law, the collection law process, himself and his fellow lawyers. This
eagerness to improve his area of the law and those who practice in that area
continued, literally, until he was taken from us. In fact, many of his fellow
commercial lawyers gathered with him just days before his passing to form a
statewide commercial lawyers’ organization.

 

     It would be excusable for one to think that the law consumed Rick. That
would be especially true if one were to have called him at ten o’clock in the
evening only to find that he was back at the office, going over pleadings and cases.
But being a lawyer was only part of his life. His interests went far afield of the
law. He was an encyclopedia of movie information, carrying his avidness to the
extent of being on the board of the film festival. Going to a little-known movie
with him was an adventure–one in which he might look at you with dead
seriousness and ask, “Don’t you remember [insert unknown actor] when she
appeared in [insert unknown film]?”

 

     It would probably be less than accurate to say that Rick loved to travel.
Actually, I believe he hated to travel, but he did love his many destinations once
he arrived. And he and Linna and Keiko reached many destinations on this and
other continents. Once there, he would savor the region and its people, and he
would sample the wines, for Rick was also a oenophile. Also, in a past time, he
was a magician. And, as we all know, Rick was a raconteur of the first order.
Over a glass or bottle of an exceptional wine, he could regale his listeners with
stories of the law, stories of his years at Yale, of movies, of OU football, and of
the perils of air travel.

 

     I could go on and on about the loss we suffer because Rick has been taken
from us. But, I am preaching to the choir. And the choir tires of listening. Rick
did not believe in the afterlife. In this, he and I differed. I believe he is with the
angels, and they are enriched by his presence. And, although he is not with us in
body, he is with us in his love of the law, devotion to honesty, quickness of mind
and wit, and his love of his family. We will cherish his memory and memories.

          Rick Robinson was a gentleman and a gentle man.

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                                                                   Judge James B. Croy, Retired