Roscoe Trimmier Jr. (1944–2015) was an American trial lawyer who became the first African-American partner at the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray. Admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1974, he practiced at the firm for 35 years, led its litigation department, and became known as a mentor to younger lawyers.
Background
Roscoe Trimmier Jr. was born on July 22, 1944, in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Susie and Roscoe Trimmier Sr. He grew up in the segregated South, attending segregated schools in Charlotte, where he was an outstanding student. Schools in Charlotte during his youth remained separate by race, and Southern school districts were slow to desegregate after the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
Family and teachers shaped his path toward higher education. His father could take apart and repair almost anything and passed a can-do confidence on to his son. A math teacher at West Charlotte High School wanted him to apply to Harvard, and with the encouragement of a mentor he did so. His brother, Donald, has said that Roscoe stressed the importance of education to him while they were growing up.
Education
Trimmier attended West Charlotte High School, where he received the All Star Scholars Award. His secondary schooling took place in a segregated public system in Charlotte, and he moved from that environment to Harvard, a university that was far removed from it in academic tradition and student body.
He was admitted to Harvard College in the class of 1966. Harvard was established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Initially majoring in engineering, he found Harvard's academics challenging after his public education in the segregated South. He also earned money by fixing televisions and giving haircuts in the dormitories.
His studies were interrupted by military service. He was drafted in the mid-1960s and served as a lieutenant in the United States Army from 1965 to 1968, and while stationed in West Germany he assisted with military judicial proceedings, which prompted him to pursue a legal career. Obituaries describe him as a Vietnam veteran. After returning to Cambridge, he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971 and entered Harvard Law School. Founded in 1817, the law school is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States, and he received his Juris Doctor in 1974.
Career
Trimmier joined Ropes & Gray in Boston in 1974, the year he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. The firm was founded in Boston in 1865 by John Codman Ropes and John Chipman Gray, both Harvard Law School graduates, and it had operated under other names in earlier decades, including Ropes, Gray, Best, Coolidge & Rugg in 1940. By the 1960s the firm had grown to nearly seventy-five attorneys.
He rose through the firm's ranks and became its first African-American partner in 1983, at a time when few African-American lawyers had reached partnership at Boston law firms. As a partner he practiced litigation for corporate clients, utilities, high-technology companies, and governmental authorities in state and federal courts. He served as chair of the litigation department and as head of the environmental practice group, and he sat on the firm's hiring and associates committees.
Colleagues knew him as a mentor who took young attorneys under his wing and helped recruit and retain lawyers from groups underrepresented in large firms. The firm's Roscoe Trimmier Jr. Diversity Scholarship, created in his honor in 2015, provides awards of $25,000 to help law students with the cost of their legal education, and the recipients join the firm as summer associates.
Trimmier retired from Ropes & Gray in 2009 after about thirty-five years with the firm. He later moved to Miami, and he died of cancer on July 30, 2015, while in hospice care in Needham, Massachusetts. He was 71 years old.
Achievements
Became the first African-American partner at Ropes & Gray in 1983, at a time when few African-American lawyers held partnerships at Boston law firms.
Membership
Trimmier's professional affiliations centered on the trial bar. The American College of Trial Lawyers, founded in 1950, is an invitation-only fellowship of trial lawyers from the United States and Canada, and it admits lawyers only after careful investigation and at least fifteen years of experience. The College seeks to improve the standards of trial practice, the administration of justice, and the ethics of the profession, and Trimmier was a Fellow.
He also belonged to Massachusetts and Boston legal organizations. He was a member of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association and the Boston Bar Association, and he was one of the founders of the Boston Lawyers Group. At the national level, he chaired the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary of the American Bar Association.
His service extended to medicine and health care. He served as vice chair of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, which licenses physicians in the Commonwealth, and as an overseer of N.E. Medical Center Hospitals, the Boston hospital network that includes New England Medical Center.
Fellow
American College of Trial Lawyers
,
United States
Member
Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association
,
United States
Member
Boston Bar Association
,
United States
Chair, Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary
American Bar Association
,
United States
Vice Chair
Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine
,
United States
Overseer
N.E. Medical Center Hospitals
,
United States
Founder
Boston Lawyers Group
,
United States
Personality
Colleagues described him as a mentor who took young attorneys under his wing and who helped elevate the careers of women, minorities, and lawyers from less affluent backgrounds.
Quotes from others about the person
Wayne Budd, the first African-American U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, described Trimmier as a truly outstanding litigator who was highly respected by the bar and who served as a mentor and door-opener to many young lawyers.
Connections
Trimmier and his wife welcomed their daughter, Leigh Snowden Trimmier, during his final year of law school. He was survived by his former wife, Gail Snowden, as well as his mother, Susie Trimmier, his brother, Donald, and Donald's wife, Linda.
His son-in-law, Ishmail Merritt, survived him, and his companion of about thirty years, Donna Zerwitz of Brookline, was also among those who survived him.
Father:
Roscoe Trimmier Sr.
Mother:
Susie Trimmier
Survived him at his death in 2015.
Brother:
Donald Trimmier
Survived him at his death in 2015.
Daughter:
Leigh Snowden Trimmier
Born during her father's final year at Harvard Law School.
Roscoe Trimmier Obituary (The Boston Globe, via Legacy.com)
Family obituary documenting his birth in Charlotte, North Carolina, his Army service from 1965 to 1968, his Harvard degrees, his bar and firm career, and his professional and civic memberships.
