Our History

1847
Clement Vallandigham arrives in Dayton and reads the law under Judge Joseph H. Crane.

1849
Vallandigham opens his law practice.

1852
Vallandigham's nephew, John A. McMahon, arrives in Dayton and reads the law in his uncle's office.

1854
The firm of Vallandigham and McMahon (predecessor Bieser, Greer & Landis) is formed.

1863
Edward Everett Hale was inspired by the life of Clement L. Vallandigham, a congressman from Ohio who bitterly opposed the civil war and as a result was deported from the U.S. by President Lincoln. Hale wrote "The Man Without a Country" soley as a means of defeating Vallandigham in his absentee campaign to be elected Govenor of Ohio.

1871
The Attorney Whose Defense Was Too Perfect
(as published in Ripley's Believe It or Not)

Clement Vallandigham (1820-1871) defending an accused murderer in Lebanon, Ohio pledged in his opening statement to the jury that he would prove that if his client had handled the gun in the manner charged he would have killed himself! Practicing with a loaded revolver in front of a mirror on the eve of his summation address, Vallandigham accidentally killed himself.

1876
McMahon serves as prosecutor in the impeachment trial of General Belknap, the Secretary of War in the Grant administration, and later becomes one of the dissenters in the electoral college vote that passed the Presidency of the United States from Samuel Tilden to Rutherford B. Hayes.

1887
McMahon serves as President of the Ohio State Bar Association and incorporates the People's Railway (predecessor to the City Transit Company and the Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority).

1891
The firm becomes known as McMahon & McMahon with the arrival of McMahon's son, J. Sprigg McMahon. Five years later they are joined by another lawyer, H. L. Ferneding. Previous associates of John A. McMahon in the practice include George W. Houk (a. 1847) and John McMahon Sprigg (a. 1865).

1903-05
Partner Robert J.Corwin is President of the Dayton Bar Association.

1914
Following the Great Dayton Flood of 1913, John A. McMahon drafts the Miami Conservancy Act to form the first consortium of governmental entities for a conservation project. He will spend the rest of his life defending the Act in court. The Act itself will serve as a model for the TVA and other New Deal legislation.

1923
John A. McMahon dies after 69 years of active legal practice, leaving the firm in the hands of his son and the triumvirate of Robert G. Corwin (a. 1901), Robert K. Landis (a. 1911), and Samuel S. Markham (a. 1919). The name of the firm is changed from McMahon & McMahon to McMahon, Corwin, Landis & Markham.

1938-39
Robert K. Landis, Sr. is President of the Dayton Bar Association.

1941
The firm changes its name to Landis, Ferguson, Bieser & Greer. It is the biggest law firm in Dayton at the time, having weathered the Depression by filing foreclosure actions for Gem Savings Association, the city's largest building and loan, and by defending court cases for the City Transit Company, one of the few solvent potential defendants in the City. Robert K. Landis is the only survivor of the 1923 name change. The other partners are Warren K. Ferguson (a. 1924), Irvin G. Bieser (a. 1927), Rowan A. Greer, Jr. (a. 1930), and Robert K. Landis, Jr. (a.1939).

1948
The firm handles the estate of Orville Wright and is instrumental in negotiations for the return of the first Wright Flyer from England to the U.S., where it will reside in the Smithsonian, recognizing it as the first successful airplane.

1950-51
Rowan A. Greer, Jr. is President of the Dayton Bar Association.

1957-58
Irvin G. Bieser is President of the Dayton Bar Association.

1961
The firm changes its name to Bieser, Greer & Landis. At that time the associates in the firm are Charles S. Bridge (a. 1948), Charles D. Shook (a. 1952), Douglas K. Ferguson (a. 1955), and Edward L. Shank (a. 1956). David C. Greer will join the firm in the following year.

1967-68
Robert K. Landis, Jr. is President of the Dayton Bar Association.

1972
The City Transit Company is sold to the Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority - yet the association with transit does not end, as the firm assumes partial representation of MVRTA in later years.

1976
David C. Greer and Leo F. Krebs argue the school desegregation case of Brinkman v. Gilligan before the United States Supreme Court.

1981-82
David C. Greer is President of the Dayton Bar Association.

1996
David C. Greer publishes Sluff of History's Boot Soles which chronicles Dayton's 200-year sweep of legal history against the background of the country's three revolutions during that period. Greer brings personalities to life - through drama or the telling of comic episodes.

2000-01
David P. Williamson is President of the Dayton Bar Association.

2007-08
Michael W. Krumholtz is President of the Dayton Bar Association

 

Presently
Bieser, Greer & Landis celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2004. Its current attorneys collectively have in excess of 350 years of legal practice with in-depth experience in all varieties of courtroom disputes. The firm's associates are the wave of its future. They are heirs to the character traits given the firm by its two founders - the personal courage that caused one to speak up with indifference to popularity or consequence and the personal dedication that caused the other to dedicate 69 years of life to the profession.