Category: Dick Cates

Whenever I get too discouraged by the state of affairs in America, I think of men like Dick Cates and say a small prayer of gratitude that the country raises up men like him in times of crisis. Cates, who died last week at age 85, was a Madison trial attorney. He’s probably best known […]

Bill Kraus said it well. One of the stories comes from Bill Dixon, an old friend who was on the Rodino staff. As I was preparing remarks for Cates’ service I called Bill. He gave this gem. Rodino needed a trial lawyer and Bob Kastenmeier recommended Cates. Dixon reports that when Dick Cates came in […]

Richard Cates ’47, a trial lawyer who was instrumental in the Watergate inquiry that led to former President Richard Nixon’s resignation, died Wednesday at age 85. Cates died of natural causes in his home in Madison, Wis. “He was probably the most magnificent trial lawyer, at least in the state of Wisconsin, during the time […]

Richard Cates, a Madison trial lawyer who historians credit with playing a critical role in the Watergate inquiry that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, died Wednesday at age 85. Cates was already a distinguished Wisconsin lawyer with more than two decades of experience as a Dane County Assistant district attorney, Wisconsin state […]

The last time I was in a Dane County courtroom in the City-County Building was in late October, and former state Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala was pleading guilty to two felonies. As I sat in the spectator seats in Judge David Flanagan’s small courtroom, it dawned on me it might be my last time […]

Richard Lyman Cates Sr. died surrounded by family of natural causes Wednesday morning, Aug 3, 2011, in Madison, finishing his 85-year adventure that began on Nov. 22, 1925, in New York City. He was an only child, who lived almost four of his first nine years in an orphanage and spent his depression boyhood playing […]