Kline Strong – Death of a Legal Pioneer

Few lawyers in Canada – I except the wonderful Milt Zwicker – will remember the name of Kline D. Strong who died at the weekend. But he transformed the practice of law in North America.

Kline Duncan Strong 1927 ~ 2007 Kline was born January 23, 1927, in Driggs, Idaho He tried to impress upon his family that you’ve never really experienced work until you’ve hoed sugar beets. His professional education included a CPA/MBA from Northwestern University, a law degree from the University of Colorado and he was the first person to obtain a Ph.D in law office management. He created Sans Copy … the first time/management system for lawyers. Among the first ABA projects was economic help for lawyers. The first result of these efforts was publication of “The 1958 Lawyer and His 1938 Dollar”. With Lee Turner, Kline wrote extensively about ‘legal assistants’ now commonly called ‘paralegals’. Another request was to study the practices/procedures of successful small firms nationwide which formed the basis for Kline’s PhD. During his life, Kline was an attorney, law professor, baseball coach, scoutmaster, handball and squash player, inventor and history buff.