Description:

Alaska had yet to become a state when Don Burr and George Boney formed a law partnership in 1957 and began providing legal services to the residents of the territory and to pioneering businesses based outside of Alaska. Burr and Boney were joined in 1961 by Ted Pease, Jr., a Harvard law school graduate and former state prosecutor. Burr, Boney & Pease practiced out of a small office on Third Avenue offering a wide range of general legal services to a state still in its infancy. With statehood came an increasing interest in Alaska as a place to live and do business. As the state and its economy grew so, inevitably, did the legal needs of its residents. Burr, Boney & Pease grew with the state.

In anticipation of future growth, Burr, Boney & Pease hired Jerry Kurtz who had been editor of the Stanford Law Review before coming to Alaska in 1959. Shortly thereafter, the firm began the construction of a new office building a few blocks from their existing office. The building was completed in early 1964. On Good Friday, as the young attorneys were literally moving into their new building, the 1964 earthquake collapsed their new building. Homeless but undaunted, the lawyers set about building a new office building which was completed in 1965.