When attorney Ken Canfield was organizing the Atlanta firm that would become Doffermyre Shields Canfield & Knowles, he called U.S. Circuit Judge Frank Johnson and asked what Johnson thought of Alabama lawyer Ralph Knowles.
Canfield had clerked for Johnson, who was revered for his civil rights rulings, both as a district court judge in Alabama and on the Eleventh Circuit. Canfield knew his former boss to be sparing in his praise but willing to offer a candid—and blunt—assessment. Knowles, then a partner at a Tuscaloosa law firm, had argued cases in front of Johnson, and Canfield wanted to know whether his budding firm should offer Knowles a spot.
