[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 149 (Tuesday, November 27, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S6942]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO DUANE BEESON

 Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I would like to take this 
opportunity to commend the renowned attorney Duane Beeson, who is being 
honored this year with the Peggy Browning Fund Award in recognition of 
his tireless efforts and outstanding achievements on behalf of working 
men and women in the San Francisco Bay area.
  As senior partner in the law firm of Beeson, Tayer & Bodine, Duane 
Beeson is one of the Nation's leading practitioners of public and 
private sector labor law, including representation of employee benefit 
plans. He is a member of the California State Bar, the Supreme Court of 
the United States Bar, and several United States District Courts and 
Courts of Appeal Bars.
  Duane Beeson was born in Berkeley, CA in 1922 and graduated from 
Berkeley High School, where he met his future wife, Coni. After serving 
in the U.S. Army in the European theater in World War II, Duane 
graduated summa cum laude from Lafayette College and earned his LL.B. 
at Harvard Law School in 1948.
  Following law school, Mr. Beeson served as clerk for Judge William E. 
Orr at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was 
an instructor at the University of San Francisco Law School. As a 
leading expert on labor law, he has also taught at Hastings College of 
the Law, George Washington Law School, the University of California 
Extension, and the University of San Francisco Labor Management School.
  In 1950, Mr. Beeson moved to Washington, DC, where he worked for 11 
years as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, handling 
appellate and Supreme Court litigation. In 1961, the Beesons had the 
opportunity to return to their beloved California when Duane was hired 
by Joseph Grodin, the great labor lawyer and later California Supreme 
Court Justice, to represent teachers unions in the Bay area. Mr. Beeson 
became a partner in the firm, which was then known as Brundage Neyhart 
Grodin & Beeson and is now Beeson, Tayer & Bodine.
  In the 1970s and 80s, Joe Grodin and Duane Beeson led their firm into 
the areas of employment benefits covered by ERISA and related fields in 
which labor organizations are involved. More recently, the firm has 
become active in employment law of all kinds--including mediation and 
negotiation-facilitation services along with representation of 
individual employees in wage and hour, discrimination, harassment, and 
other types of cases--and has also developed a specialty in education 
law as an outgrowth of representing teacher unions.
  I have known and respected Duane Beeson for many years, since my 
husband Stewart went to work at Duane's firm as a young attorney. As 
Duane turns 90 and is honored with the Peggy Browning Fund Award, it is 
my pleasure to salute and celebrate his long and distinguished career 
representing the working people of California. He is truly one of a 
kind.

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