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November 2017 Cover Story - A Fine Man: John A. Bergen

by Richard W. Millar, Jr.

Like me, John Bergen has been a practicing lawyer for fifty years. (I can’t speak for John, but I have a hard time believing it for myself.)

I had lunch with John the other day so I could mine for reportorial tidbits. As we reminisced over lawyers, famous and infamous, who had washed through Orange County or eddied in its legal waters in the last half century, I had this recurring image that to others in the surrounding booths we probably looked like two geezers in a New Yorker cartoon, sitting in rocking chairs on the stoop of a dilapidated nursing home talking about our medical problems.

Writing a profile of someone you like and admire is not easy since, when all is said and done, all I am doing is placing words on paper, and words are ultimately inadequate to describe someone’s humanity. I finally settled on this: John is a fine man. I could make that a longer sentence. I could add rosy and effusive adjectives but those would actually distract and John would never describe, or even think of himself, in flashy or overblown terms. But I think those five short words portray his essence.

John grew up in Wasco, which is a town, not a wholesale warehouse, somewhat north of Bakersfield. Although they lived in town, his father was a farmer, growing cotton, alfalfa, and potatoes. When John left home at age eighteen to attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, he was clear on one thing—he didn’t want to be a farmer. So while most who attended Cal Poly in those days were agricultural majors, John opted for what was then a new and emerging major: business.

John believes in serendipity, which I probably couldn’t write if it were not for spellcheck. He did not know what he was going to do upon graduation, but he had seen the movie Anatomy of a Murder, and that in combination with a Marine Corps program, which, if he got a good LSAT score, would allow him to go to law school and then enter the Corps as a Second Lieutenant, convinced him to go into law.

And so with the help of a scholarship, off to Chicago and Northwestern he went. There he fell in love with law and Lois, and they (he and Lois) were married while he was in law school.

He spent three years as a Captain, Judge Advocate in the Marine Corps, first at Camp Pendleton and then at Da Nang in Vietnam. As a military prosecutor, he tried numerous and varied cases involving anything that errant Marines engaged in, including a variety of crimes, drugs, and even alleged massacres. He became well trained in how to try cases.

After leaving active duty in the Marines, they moved to Orange County where John had spent several summers while growing up. John became affiliated with several small firms over the years and since roughly 1977, he has been a solo practitioner in Santa Ana, Orange, and now Fullerton where, semi-retired, he works from home. For several years, he shared space with the late, elegant Pat O’Keefe and the late, irrepressible Grace Emory, both of whom coincidently also received the Scoville Award. He keeps good company.

Over the years, John’s practice has included real estate and business trials and appeals and particularly title and title insurance matters such as easements, as well as construction litigation, partnership dissolutions, contract disputes, professional errors and omissions, and the like. He was both trial and appellate counsel for Transamerica Title in Jarchow v. Transamerica Title Ins. Co., a case well known to those of us who toil in the title insurance vineyards. He was also appellate counsel in the reported case of Gem Developers v. Hallcraft Homes of San Diego.

John has been a stalwart in our bar. He was a director from 1978 to 1981. He chaired the Solo and Small Practice Section in 2002. He is a longtime member of the Business Litigation Section and served as its chair in 2004. For thirty years (1975-2005) he was a member of the Client Relations (ethics) Committee, which deals with highly sensitive matters requiring discretion and tact, and was its chair from 1978-1980. For as long as I can remember, I have seen him at meetings of the Real Estate Section, which he, again, chaired in 2008-2009, and currently serves on its executive committee. He has been a longtime active member of the Elliott Inn of Court, which was originally focused on bankruptcy law but now prides itself on mentoring all kinds of new attorneys. In short, a long history of quiet leadership.

John has two children. His son, Stephen Bergen, is a lawyer and lives in Newport Beach. His daughter, Sandra Bergen May is a schoolteacher living in Placentia. John has two granddaughters from Sandra and her husband, ages thirteen and eight. His wife, Lois, passed away about five-and-a-half years ago.

Recently, he was on a cruise ship when his phone chirped with an incoming call from Ashley Aitken. While he knew who she was, he couldn’t fathom why she would be calling him, much less while he was on a cruise. After answering querulously, he learned, much to his surprise, that he was receiving the Scoville Award. He was, he said, “blown away.”

When talking about his life, John describes himself as consciously self-deprecating, not one to “toot his own horn,” and a strong believer in service to the bar. It was never his priority to win awards, which was one reason he was so surprised by Ashley’s call. He is always well-mannered and his goal is to be courteous to all. He is an adherent to the old but valuable saying that “you get more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

Interestingly, others see John as he sees himself, which is not always the case with people. As former Bankruptcy Judge and longtime friend, Jim Barr, also a Scoville Award recipient, put it: “John never takes himself too seriously. . . . He does not demand attention to or agreement with his views, but he subtly commands attention when expressing them.” Comments from others included: “He has always conducted himself with the utmost honesty and has preached for civility”; “John has been a tireless worker, behind the scenes, for the good of the bar and his colleagues”; he has “the right mix of humility, integrity, and dedication to the profession”; “His dedication to knowledge and the profession . . . is outstanding”; “They don’t come any better than John Bergen”; “He has exceptional leadership and personal skills”; “John’s . . . efforts . . . reflect his dedication to the profession that has dominated his work life”; he has a “long tenure as one of the most admired attorneys in our bar”; and “He is devoted to increasing ethics, professionalism, and civility in the practice of law,” among other encomiums.

All descriptions good and true, and so I circle back to my beginning:

John Bergen is a fine man, and a worthy recipient of the Scoville Award.

Richard W. Millar, Jr. is Of Counsel with the firm of Friedman Stroffe & Gerard in Irvine. He can be reached at rmillar@fsglawyers.com.

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