Holton attorney Lake looking forward to retirement

Holton attorney J. Richard “Dick” Lake isn’t taking on any new cases, stating that he wants to let his current caseload wind down — which he expects to happen in mid-December — rather than handing them off to another lawyer.

“I don’t think it’s fair to shove off my caseload on somebody else who might not have the rapport I have with my clients,” said Lake, who’s been practicing law for more than half a century, the vast majority of that time representing Holton and Jackson County.

Lake says he’s not entirely done with providing people in this area with legal assistance, saying that after his retirement next month, he might still be found in his office providing local folks with legal help and referrals to other attorneys, and he’ll continue to be a presence in Jackson County.

“Everything they say about this community is true,” he said. “It’s like I said when I accepted the Chamber Hall of Fame honor (in 2012), Holton is a four-letter word — home.”

It’s been Lake’s home since 1978, after he was invited by the late Tracy Klinginsmith, former Jackson County Attorney and Jackson County District Court Judge, to bring his law practice north after Klinginsmith was appointed to the bench.

At that time, Lake was working in Topeka, where he spent his formative years thinking he would follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and work for the Santa Fe Railroad. That changed after he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and got his first legal experiences, defending sailors in “captain’s masts,” disciplinary proceedings where commanding officers address offenses without resorting to court martials.

“I got a feel for how badly people were represented, both in the Navy and in civilian life,” Lake said. “I learned a lot about people.”

After his service in the Navy from 1961 to 1965, Lake returned to Topeka and enrolled in Washburn University’s School of Law, graduating with his juris doctorate in 1968. After graduation, he worked as a law clerk for the Topeka law firm of Dickinson, Aiken, Crow, Skoog and Honeyman, where one of his attorneys, Sam Crow, served as his mentor.

“Sam’s driving force was the same as mine… We both had an emphasis in criminal law,” Lake said of Crow.

Researching cases for the law firm spurred Lake’s desire to be a better attorney.

“I was coming up with a lot of things that they weren’t aware of,” he said. “It just made me want to work harder.”

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