Dutys (Duthies) have been lawyers since the 15th century in Aberdeen, Scotland, where they still operate firms today. One Duty attorney became a Solicitor General for King Charles II of England and is buried in honor in Oxford, England. So it was no great stretch for Dutys to continue the family profession after emigrating to America in the late 1600s.
The modern Duty family’s patriarch was John Randolph Duty (known to everyone as “John R.”). He was born in 1882 in Doddridge County, West Virginia. In 1901 when he was a teenager, his family moved to Pea Ridge (Benton County) in the northwest corner of Arkansas. After graduating from the Pea Ridge Academy, John R. began his career as a teacher in the small rural town of Garfield, near the border with Missouri. By 1908, he had earned such an excellent reputation that he was appointed Superintendent of Schools, requiring his young family to move 24 miles south to Springdale.
Around this time, his uncle Michael Duty (8 Dec 1855- 20 Jun 1926) visited the Arkansas branch of the family from his home in Parkersburg, West Virginia, where he owned a venerable law firm and served as mayor for many years. During the visit, he persuaded his nephews John R. and Claude to become attorneys.
John R. began “reading law” at the McGill-Lindsey law offices in Bentonville over summer vacations between school terms and Claude studied law with the Seamster law firm also in Bentonville. In 1910, they both passed the Arkansas Bar. At the end of the school term, John R. moved his family back to Garfield to open his own firm. He soon built such a strong practice in trial law that he was prompted to move his growing family and business thirteen miles south to the larger town of Rogers by the following year.
In 1911, John R. and Claude established the law firm of Duty & Duty, Attorneys at Law, in Rogers, Arkansas. As their families grew, the firm also prospered. John R. was hired to represent the Frisco Railroads, establishing the firm as one of the premier law firms in the area and a leading light at the Arkansas Bar. Before long, the name Duty & Duty became nearly synonymous in the area with the practice of law.
John R. had such an impressive persona that everyone who spoke of him, especially his own family, referred to him with awe. To this day, the younger generation refers to him as “the late, great John R.” with great respect. He became one of the foremost constitutional lawyers in the region and took a lively interest in public affairs and politics. Consequently, he was elected to the Arkansas Senate in 1915. He was also admitted to the Arkansas Supreme Court that year and the US Supreme Court two years later in 1917.
As the firm continued to thrive during the 1920s, Claude became known as a “fixer” — someone who could solve problems no matter what it took. He was appointed Arkansas state Insurance Commissioner and was a pillar of the First Methodist Church in Rogers. It was his conviction that many disputes could be worked out between the parties without having to resort to the courts.
In 1930, John R.’s eldest son Jeff graduated from the Cumberland School of Law in Cumberland, Tennessee, passed the Bar, and was invited to join the firm as a Partner. Later, John R.’s second son Ralph graduated from the University of Arkansas Law School and also joined the firm.
The firm survived the stock market crash in 1929 and was able to buy used brick from a local abandoned roundhouse through John R.’s connections with the Frisco Railroad. In 1935, with this brick and architectural plans from Williamsburg, VA, the firm completed constructed on a new office building at 206 South Second Street on the corner of Elm and Second Street in Rogers.
Learn more about Duty & Duty’s original office building
During the early 1930’s, John R.’s encouraged his cousin Ollie Collins, who had previously worked as their secretary, to study law at the University of Arkansas Law School. After passing the bar, she moved to Washington, DC, to work as an attorney with the US Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division, spending most of her career addressing restitutions and settlements for Japanese-Americans immorally incarcerated during WWII.
On May 1, 1936, John R. died suddenly and unexpectedly of a ruptured pulmonary aneurysm at the City Hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas, just six days short of his 54th birthday.
Jeff continued to practice with his uncle Claude and brother Ralph until 1941 when he was elected Prosecuting Attorney for the Third Judicial District of Arkansas. Not long after World War II began, Ralph left to join the Marine Corps. After his return from the war, Ralph settled in Clovis, New Mexico, where he was elected Municipal Judge in which capacity he served until his death in 1981.
In 1962, Claude died and Jeff’s son, Jeff Davis Duty, Jr. (known as “Davis Duty”), who had been employed at the US Department of Justice, returned to Rogers to join Jeff in the family business. They continued to practice together until Davis left to accept an appointment as an Administrative Law Judge with the United States Social Security Administration in 1975.
From 1975 until 1997, Jeff practiced law alone and was known affectionately as “The Old Master.” In April 1993, the Bar Association of Northwest Arkansas held a dinner where Jeff was honored as the oldest practicing attorney in the state. Upon his retirement at the age of 91, Jeff passed the firm on to his son Davis, who had moved to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and established a law practice there, which became the new Duty & Duty law firm. In 1998, Davis developed his own building for the firm based on the old Williamsburg blueprints of the original office building in Rogers. Jeff died in 1999, but the name of the firm and its legal tradition and proud heritage are upheld in his honor by his son, Davis Duty.
