Page 30 - Delaware Lawyer - Spring 2019

FEATURE
Heather Richards Evans
OF COUNSEL: Charles F. Richards, Jr.
During my childhood, I had only a passing understanding of my father’s career. I gained a much
better appreciation after seeing his name throughout the core courses I read for Corporations while a law student in the late 1980s. Practi- tioners and scholars continue to study those cases.
Within the past year, the Dela-
ware Corporation Law Resource
Center at the University of Penn-
sylvania Law School has inter-
viewed Dad on three separate
occasions for its oral history pro-
gram. While he was delighted to
revisit some of his professional
highlights, it has been equally fun
for me to get an online glimpse of
my father, Charles F. Richards, Jr., as the corporate litigator in his heyday.
Dad loved practicing law, a passion that was matched by his interest in many other pursuits, though exceeded by his com- mitment to family. Dad consciously and proactively worked to achieve balance in his life long before balance became a buzz- word. Beginning in the early 1970s, and before he made part- ner, my father took our family to Northeast Harbor, Maine for a month in the summer. We hiked the trails of Acadia National Park, discovered endless popovers at the Jordan Pond House, played tennis and learned to sail; just as he had done during his childhood.
Dad is an experienced off-shore sailor and competed many times in the biennial Newport-Bermuda Race, a 635-mile ocean race held almost entirely out of sight of land. Though certainly valuable on a large yacht racing for days directly across the Gulf Stream, Dad’s nautical expertise and sheer size (he is 6’ 8”) had a proportionally greater impact on the success of our entries in the Northeast Harbor Fleet Parent-Child race series. We might finish in the top two places on high wind and rough water days, but when the wind died, our 18-foot Mercury suddenly became a very small place to spend a becalmed afternoon.
Dad’s conviction that special experiences would enrich and inform our lives meant that a month in Maine might alternate the following summer with a month in Europe. Family trips to Europe were shaped by staying in regions steeped in beauty, great food and culture. Days at a time would be devoted to epic quests to see as many works as possible by a favorite artist of Dad’s,
such as Fra Filippo Lippi. Often, these quests were combined with side trips to view a noted garden. Family lore is replete with stories about outrageous bets between my parents, both knowledgeable and keen gardeners, over the exact identification of an unusual plant specimen. The bets were serious and, on at least one occasion in the pre-internet days, meant a race to the reference books as soon as we returned home.
28 DELAWARE LAWYER SPRING 2019
My father and mother continue to enjoy touring gardens through- out the United States and abroad. Their homes in the vastly different climates of Wilmington, Aspen and John’s Island, Florida boast carefully maintained gardens that
thoughtfully developed and
have themselves become destinations for garden clubs. Dad and Mom have filled each of their homes with an eclectic combina- tion of contemporary and indigenous art as well as carefully se- lected artifacts; reflecting not only their travels but also their in- terest in history, artistic expression and storytelling in a variety of forms. Dad spearheaded Richards, Layton & Finger’s large contemporary art collection. He also chaired the Art Commit- tee for the Leonard L. Williams Justice Center (formerly the New Castle County Courthouse), which notably secured ma- jor commissions by the sculptors Brower Hatcher and Robert Goodnough.
Dad’s affinity for indigenous art is expressed in his collection of African tribal objects. Dad and Mom have traveled to several countries in Africa, but Dad has a deep, personal connection to Tanzania. Shortly after graduating from Yale Law School in 1962, Dad accepted a Ford fellowship to teach law in Dar es Salaam while Tanzania was transitioning from British colo- nial rule to independence. At the age of 63, my father climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain on the African con- tinent. At 70, he took the family to Tanzania for an extended tented safari. As a member of Nurturing Minds’ Board of Ad- visors, Dad supports the SEGA Girls’ School in fulfilling its mission to educate and empower poor, marginalized and at-risk Tanzanian girls. He is looking forward to returning to Tanzania in the near future to check on the school’s progress and in the meantime will brush up on his Swahili.
See OF COUNSEL continued on page 27