Feldman, Stanley

Part 1 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on October 25th, 2017. It covers the following themes:

  • Family history, migration from Europe to New York. Move to Tucson at 5 years of age in 1938.

  • Tucson’s Jewish community in the early 1940s. Difficulty in finding kosher food. Attending the conservative synagogue.

  • Early years in Tucson, father’s employment, housing, school, movies, and time at the library.

  • Role of walking, safety. Unemployment during the depression.

  • Family’s move to Colonia Solana during the depression; anti-Semitic deed restrictions.

  • Outbreak of World War II and life during wartime. Family conversations about anti-Semitism in Europe and experiences with anti-Semitism in Tucson.

  • Reading during elementary school.

  • Middle school: poker, basketball, and poetry.

  • High school experience, L&L Drive In, movies, basketball.

  • College at UCLA and University of Arizona in the early 1950s and amateur basketball league.


Part 2 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on November 20th, 2017. It covers the following themes:

  • Law school at the University of Arizona. Other activities during law school, dating, and marriage.

  • Graduation in 1956 and Stanley’s inability to find work because of his Jewish surname.

  • Joining Students for Democratic Action and an experience with McCarthyism.

  • Description of Tucson law firms in the mid-1950s.

  • Starting individual practice and launching a career.

  • Early cases and move from a legal generalist to a specialist in insurance law.

  • Meeting Stewart and Morris Udall.

  • Hank Oyama case.


Part 3 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on November 30th, 2017. It covers the following themes:

  • Tucson during the long 1960s.

  • The local Civil Rights movement.

  • Pressuring the Tucson Country Club to grant membership to all Tucsonans.

  • Using law for reform.

  • Hippie culture in the 1960s and drug prosecution.

  • The Vietnam War.

  • Important cases of the 1960s and 1970s, including:

  • A pre-Roe v. Wade lawsuit to allow medical exceptions for abortion in Arizona.

  • The first birth control case in Arizona.

  • A product liability case against Merck.

  • Suit against Monsanto for a dangerous product.

  • Several medical malpractice cases which set precedents about the relationship between hospitals, doctors, and corporate subsidiaries and their respective obligations to patients.

  • A case against Ramada Inns of North Denver, which made parent companies legally responsible for their franchises.


Part 4 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on December 11th, 2017. It covers the following themes:

  • Formation of Miller, Pitt, and Feldman. Building a law office on the former site of Art’s Hot Dogs.

  • Acting as Special Council for the City of Tucson during Urban Renewal. Supervision of condemnation work.

  • Previous eminent domain work for the City during a Broadway widening project between Randolph and Country Club.

  • A description of downtown Tucson south of Broadway prior to Urban Renewal.

  • Eminent domain cases on behalf of the state for the expansion of Interstates 10 and 8. Suits over location and value of offramps.

  • Donald Pitt and the formation of the Phoenix Suns.

  • Cultural shifts after the sixties: Goldwater movement and the increasing rift between American liberals and conservatives, decreasing bipartisanship in state politics.

  • The Groundwater Act of 1980 and Bruce Babbit.

  • How Bruce Babbit became Governor.

  • Stanley’s appointment to the Arizona Supreme Court in 1982. Interview by the State Bar Commission and Bruce Babbit.

  • Impressions of the Arizona Supreme Court in the early 1980s.

  • Swearing-in ceremony of Evan Mecham.

  • Meeting Babbit years later when he was head of Bill Clinton's Interior Department.


Part 5 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on December 20th, 2017. It covers the following themes:

  • Pima and Maricopa county’s switch from judicial elections to merit selection in the mid-1970s.

  • Description of the Arizona Supreme Court prior to the 1980s.

  • Motivation to serve on the Supreme Court.

  • Stanley’s first case on the Court and work to developing “reasonable expectations” of consumers in business contracts.

  • Development of Arizona’s dram shop laws.

  • Conversation and persuasion among justices of different political opinions.

  • Rising use of statistics and specialist testimony to inform judges and juries.

  • Wagenseller v. Scottsdale Memorial Hospital and lawsuits about wrongful termination.

  • The Arizona Constitution and public school financing.

  • Complications surrounding Arizona’s 19th-century groundwater law and the tension between science and precedent.

  • Changes in jury instruction, rights, and selection.

  • Work as Chief Justice, starting in 1992.

  • Changes in Arizona judicial policy: compulsory education for elected justices without law degrees and creating a disciplinary process for judges themselves.


Part 6 of 6 was recorded at Stanley Feldman’s office in Tucson, Arizona on January 4th, 2018. It covers the following themes:

  • The Fife Symington scandal and the legal precedents it set.

  • Two cases that illustrate different interpretations of duty and obligation in civil law.

  • Transformation of the Arizona Supreme Court from 1982 to 2002: changes in court rules, new frameworks for expedited cases.

  • The court increasing assertiveness, diversity, and standards for research.

  • Stanley’s departure from the Court and return to legal work.

  • Cases that interested Stanley after his experience on the court.

  • The increasing role of the Arizona State Constitution in trials.

  • Reflections on changes in judiciary over Stanley’s lifetime: the rise of so-called “original intent” interpretations of the Constitution and increasing partisanship.

  • Changes in Tucson’s Jewish community over Stanley’s life.

  • Growth in metropolitan Tucson.