Rowe Stayton’s law firm on 405 East Third Street South in Prescott occupies a stately house built in 1895 that has gone under a couple different names, the Wren house, the Martin house and, in the 80s and 90s, the Dougan house. Before Stayton bought it, a beauty salon operated there.
“This house was for sale,” Stayton said. “And in Colorado [where Stayton had a legal practice beginning in 1984] many of the lawyers, especially near the downtown area, would buy those Victorian homes to practice in. I bought this, and it's just a great place to practice law. It's just wonderful.” Stayton said he and the other members of Stayton & Associates hope to take care of the house so that it will last yet another 13 decades.
Just as the story of the house is worth telling, that of the law firm’s founder is as well. Indeed, none other than the New York Times found Rowe Stayton’s experiences so unique that it dispatched then war correspondent Eric Schmitt to find Stayton and several of his colleagues to interview. The story, from November 7. 2004, is in a framed picture in the conference room of Stayton’s firm.
Stayton’s got the Times’ attention not just because after the 9/11 attacks, he decided to enlist in the Army National Guard while middle aged, but that he did so after having already served in the Air National Guard and retiring as a major 17 years before. But it was not easy for a man of his age to join up.
After trying to join in Colorado, he went to a recruitment office in south central Arkansas near where he had a hunting and fishing cabin and in the state his parents were from. “I walked into the armory in Arkadelphia, and there was a sergeant who, when I came to the door, he says, ‘Sir, are you here about your son?’ No, I want to join. And I remember his comment. He says, ‘Dude, you're kind of old.’ I said, 'Yeah, but I think I'm eligible. I think I can pass the physical.' And I did.” Stayton served two tours in Iraq.
Schmitt, who met Stayton on his first tour, found Stayton more likely to praise his fellow soldiers than to talk about himself but did get this explanation from Stayton of his choice to serve in an active war zone in Baghdad in his early 50s: “This country has been so good to me. … I just have so many things to be grateful for. It's an honor to be here.”
After his second tour ended in 2008, Stayton decided to move from Colorado to Prescott, Arkansas, filing his petition for admittance to the Arkansas bar and receiving that admittance in July, 2009. (He taught as a substitute at Prescott Public Schools while waiting for it.) After a period of commuting to Denver twice a month for a few days at a time, he finished his last case there in 2014.
In 2018, his son James Stayton was admitted to the Arkansas bar, having graduated from Prescott High and from University of Arkansas-Fayetteville with a B.A. in political science and then a law degree. “My son, James, he's a part-time public defender, and he is a very bright lawyer. I'm saying that out of pride and actually being objective. He understands criminal law better than I do, and he's got a very good knack for writing and speaking, so together, that's how we practice this,” Rowe Stayton said.
Rowe said he recognized when he moved to Prescott he and his firm would need to pursue a broader line of work than in Colorado. “When we got to Prescott, it became obvious to me, and I knew this, that we could not specialize in criminal law. Thankfully, Prescott doesn't have the number of criminals in it to support a firm full time. And so we learned other things,” he said. These include four areas of general law: “criminal law, domestic relations, probate, and then contract law and juvenile law, those kinds of cases.”
The firm also considers serving the community part of its role and this extends to how approachable its attorneys and staff want to be for prospective clients. They will see you if you have a legal problem, even if you come to their offices without an appointment, and they try to keep your costs low.
“That's the fundamental, most important aspect about the firm, that if we can actually help you, we would like to try to help you … There are people around in the state of Arkansas that charge fees on certain kinds of cases that I couldn't pay If I can't pay them, how can any person in this community pay them? I just don't understand it. So we try to set a fair fee,” Rowe Stayton said.
Stayton adds that the firm also enjoys good relationships with the local officials it communicates with. “We're lucky in Hempstead County and Nevada County, because [of] what I've called our accountability team we have here. We have the prosecutor. We have law enforcement. We have people who are dedicated professionals. They're not trying to humiliate or embarrass. They're trying to make sure that this area is a safe place for the community to live,” he said.
Rowe Stayton also said he wants members of the community to know one important thing. “If anyone's got a question, we're not going to charge them to ask questions. If someone's got a problem, we'll always give them some time free, always. I don't want people to come in and have to pay to find out some general information. So they can come in and then in the right cases we will do for free too, because it's our duty as officers of the court, and we will do that.”
Rowe said that at age 74 he is giving more responsibility to James Stayton, who is the firm’s manager but he still helps out. The firm also has an experienced paralegal and office manager in Ambree Reed and two legal assistants, Sharon Robinson and Cynthia Thomas.
Above photo: Paralegal and office manager Ambree Reed (left) with attorney Rowe Stayton (right).
