Announcements

Mobile lawyer Jack Miller dies

[Mobile Register, McElroy, 7/13/09]

Former state Democratic chairman called author of 'String of Pearls' redevelopment program

Attorney Jack Miller, described by former Mayor Mike Dow as the "author" of downtown Mobile's "String of Pearls" redevelopment program and whose tough but centrist political instincts helped put Democrats in the governor's mansion in Montgomery, has died.

Friends said Miller, 65, succumbed Saturday to a lengthy illness while surrounded by family at his Dog River home. He had returned to Mobile in recent weeks from another home in the Virgin Islands, law partner Palmer Hamilton said.

A Duke University graduate who earned his law degree from the University of Alabama, Miller was described Sunday by another partner, Ron Snider, as "a visionary in everything he touched."

Miller, Hamilton, Snider and Odom was established in 1979 out of Miller's vision of a law firm specializing in representing financial institutions, Snider said. He said Miller was a founding director of Colonial Bank, whose assets grew from nearly $100 million to more than $26 billion.

Miller's law group merged last year with the New Orleans firm of Jones Walker.

Among other achievements, Miller was a longtime trustee at Auburn University. Recently, a writing center there was named in his honor.

In the political world, he served as chairman of the state's Demo cratic Party, and was credited with playing a major role in putting Fob James and later Don Siegelman into the governor's mansion.

"Jack was engaged with public life and public service," partner Matt McDonald said. "He was partisan, very partisan, but also very open to other opinions."

Miller once said: "Democrats are a majority (in Alabama) if they go vote."

Over the years, he has been described as a driven, life-loving man of exceptional organizing skills who knew how to win elections.

He was tireless, blunt, meticulous, demanding and "ruthlessly efficient," one political associate said in a previous Press-Register story about Miller.

Miller's activist ethic came early.

He once recalled serving as a campaign coordinator for U.S. Sen. John Sparkman while still in law school at the University of Alabama.

In 1966, on a trip back to Tuscaloosa following a campaign rally, Miller said, he found himself in the backseat while someone else drove and while he studied a volume of the Federalist Papers by flashlight, preparing for a class.

Years later, he joined Dow in creating the city's famous "String of Pearls," a series of projects and innovations that one local pundit said changed downtown Mobile from a "ghost town" to the dynamic center it became under the auspices of the Miller-led Downtown Redevelopment Commission.

"Jack's passing was a painful loss," Dow said Sunday. " He was a personal friend."

Dow described Miller as the "inspiration and organizer of downtown development -- with a passion."

Miller spent thousands of hours without financial compensation, Dow said, in his efforts at revitalizing downtown.

"Jack was the author of the concept of the string of pearls," Dow said.

Consequently, Dow said, "When I walk around downtown in future years and see how strong and beautiful it is, I will think of Jack, and I will miss him."