Robert C. Friese, 1943-2021

As a rule, lawyers can't help but let their personalities interfere with their practice. For Robert Friese, that was a main reason for his success.

On a warm San Francisco day in June 1975, before the two-lawyer partnership Friese co-founded evolved into an elite 66-lawyer litigation and transactional powerhouse, he and fellow co-founder Art Shartsis were opening an office and struggling to raise startup capital.

"The first day we're there, I walk out the front door of the firm and there on the floor in front of the door is a banana peel, with Bob Friese's business card. That summed up Bob. It was cleverness and irreverence," Shartsis remembers.

Decency and goodness were two other words used to sum up Friese, who died May 13 at his Sonoma home from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was 78.

"He epitomized the best in our profession, and what it means to be a good man," said lawyer and novelist Richard North Patterson, who worked with Friese as co-counsel on a large class action in the 1980s.

"Bob was one of the most truly decent people I've ever known. ... The first thing I remember ... was going to the SEC, telling the receptionist who I was, and her stopping to say: 'Do you work with Bob Friese? He is just the nicest man.' It was striking that an office employee at some government agency had that impression and reaction to the name of a founding partner," Shartsis Friese LLP partner Frank A. Cialone recalled.

Retired personal injury lawyer Fernando R. Zazueta also remembers first meeting Friese at the SEC when Zazueta was a law student:

"Bob was my supervising attorney and I said, 'I'm a UC Davis student and I'm here to learn from you this summer.' And Bob said, 'Great, tell me about yourself.' [Later that day] Bob said, 'Listen you don't have to go out and find a hotel or motel. You're welcome to stay with me.' He saved me having to spend money when money was tight. And he generously took me in and introduced me to his friends."

Friese's circle of friends was large, and extended well beyond the elites of the city. At his office building at One Maritime Plaza, all the employees, from the parking attendants to the security guards, knew him. And Friese knew all of them; not just their names and interests, but the names and interests of their families, too.

"My joke for the first 20 years of the practice was that everyone knew me as Bob Friese's partner. And that was true. Everyone knew Bob because he was such an engaging person," Shartsis said.

But anyone who mistook Bob's congeniality for weakness, did so at their peril. His firm had a saying: 'If you ever had a hopeless case, you gave it to Bob Friese.'

"Bob was a terrific lawyer -- smart, eloquent, and honest. People trusted him, whether they were his co-counsel, his opponent, or the judge before whom he was appearing," Patterson said. "No one worked harder, or loved every aspect of practice more than Bob. Because he cared about others, he brought a unique spirit of generosity and collegiality to each new case or legal challenge. He was just a really good man, which helped."

Zazueta first watched Friese litigating the Dare to Be Great pyramid scheme case, which eventually saw the founder of the scheme sentenced to seven years in prison.

"He and the [opposing] lawyer would go at it hammer and tong. And then afterwards, they'd get together for beers. I said, 'I don't understand, Bob. You and this guy were at each other's throats.' And Bob said, 'That's just law. When the case is done you go back to your private life; that's who you are.' I gained a lot of insight into my role as a lawyer from Bob."

Robert Charles Friese was born in Chicago on April 9, 1943. He graduated from Stanford University in 1964 and earned a law degree from Northwestern University in 1970. He joined the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he pioneered work on battling pyramid schemes. For the rest of his career, his primary practice area remained securities law and he took immense pride in being a president of the Association of SEC Alumni, even though he was on the West Coast, ordinarily a non-starter for the position.

In the mid-1970s, after a mutual acquaintance introduced Friese to Shartsis, they quickly decided, with less than a decade of legal experience between them, to start their own firm. Their youthful naiveté turned into income and the firm enjoyed almost immediate success, which has compounded over the years. Even rarer is that it has both an elite litigation practice and transactional practice.

Friese retired in 2017. But his legal reach extended well beyond the success of his own firm. He was chair of the Business Litigation Committee and the State Court Civil Litigation Committee. He was also co-chair of the SEC Enforcement Subcommittee of the American Bar Association's Litigation Section. And he coordinated a multiyear study of the increasing criminalization of securities law.

Friese was also an idealist. "He was an incredibly generous person, who never met a cause or person he wouldn't support if it was worthwhile," Shartsis said.

Close to Friese's heart was the charity he led for over a decade: San Francisco Beautiful, which advocates for civic beauty, neighborhood character and accessible public art in San Francisco. Friese's fingerprints are on community gardens, public art spaces and playgrounds throughout the city.

At a celebration on Oct. 3, 2019, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, along with former Mayor Willie Brown, declared "Bob Friese Day." Brown said he uniquely enjoyed Friese's visits because he never wanted anything for himself; he only was interested in the public good.

Friese also loved the arts, particularly opera, and the outdoors. He could often be found on his Sonoma property chopping wood and figuring out how to make cider.

He was a regular at the Presidio YMCA, where he played pickup basketball well into his 70s, and was well known at the open gyms for his patented sky hook shot and ferocious take-no-prisoners style of defense against players less than half his age.

Friese is survived by his wife, Chandra, sons Mark and Matt, and daughter Laura.

"He was really a family guy. We used to talk a lot about raising our kids ... and how to raise kids of relative privilege to understand what their privilege was and not have their version of reality be distorted," Patterson recalled.

"He was always positive and always undaunted," Shartsis said. "When things would go bad, Bob had a wonderful saying: 'I'm frightened, but not terrified.'"