David L. Hubert, 95, Lawyer, Judge, Shoe Salesman

By: Betty Barnacle, Mercury News

One evening, David L. Hubert’s three sons found him eating ice cream and asked him why he was doing that when dinner was about to be served. 

“Because I can eat ice cream,” he said, neatly summing up his positive outlook throughout a life that saw him complete just about anything he wanted to do.

He seemed to have time for everything - from collecting scrap metal in his native New Jersey to hearing cases as a small claims judge in Los Gatos - because he lived so many years.

Mr. Hubert was 95 when he died Saturday of congestive heart failure complicated by a red blood cell disorder.  A San Josean for nearly 60 years, he was a precious 20 years when he graduated from law school at Rutgers University.  A year later he opened his first firm, Hubert and Heller, in Paterson, NJ.

Because it was during the Great Depression, his son James said, he operated a scrap metal and fuel -oil business at the same time.  A few years later, the Army had something else for him to do in World War II.  He was a aircraft mechanic.

In 1943, he married Evlyn Asher, whom he met at a Paterson synagogue five years earlier, and moved with her to San Jose after the war.

He opened a shoe store in then thriving downtown San Jose at First and Julian streets, naming the place Asher Shoe Co. in honor of his bride.  The shop moved around downtown several times, to San Fernando Street and later to 79 S. First St., according to Mr. Hubert’s wife.  But when downtown business began moving into outlying shopping centers, Mr. Hubert built his own store on Stevens Creek Boulevard.  His two oldest sons, Steven and Peter, helped him. 

Although Mr. Hubert did well, when discount shops opened outlets in the valley, he closed his business and instead became a commercial real estate salesman for James Clayton and Co. on West Santa Clara Street near Market Street.  Again he did well, although he was more of a listener than a talker, a trait he took with him into community volunteerism where he was always an unidentified background worker.

When Steven and Peter Hubert became lawyers and later his youngest, James, entered the paralegal field, Mr. Hubert realized how much he missed practicing law.  At 65, when most people retire, he returned to the legal system. He passed the California State Bar exam although he last practiced law in his 30's.  He spent the next 20 years as a family law attorney and became a familiar figure in his custom suits and fedoras.

Often he helped needy clients without charging them, his son James said. Much of his time was spent doing pro bono or volunteer work for Santa Clara County, judging cases in small claims court.  Although all attorneys are asked to take turns doing such work, Mr. Hubert truly enjoyed it, his son Peter said.  He willingly filled in for other lawyers who couldn’t make their scheduled assignment and accepted any request to put on the black robes for his last five years of practice.

His favorite courtroom was Department 6 in Los Gatos, where instead of taking cases under submission for study, Mr. Hubert had a reputation for giving verdicts immediately.

Those who frequent Department 6 might be relieved to hear Mr. Hubert’s dreams didn’t all come true.  His sons said he wanted very much to die while hearing cases in his beloved courtroom.
Published San Jose Mercury News, Section B, The Valley, page 7B, Thursday, March 17, 2005.

I had the pleasure of working with, and practicing law with my father, David L. Hubert, from the day he was admitted to the California Bar as an attorney at law on November 29, 1978, until his retirement approximately 20 years later.  After his retirement, and until the last weeks of his life, I would speak to him about my cases.  He enjoyed to hear about what I was doing, and I never tired from asking him for his advice and input, on both my professional as well as my personal life.  Even now, many years after he last practiced and now after his death, I am often reminded by my fellow attorneys how much they admired my father and how much they respected him.  I shall forever cherish my father for his wisdom, his wit, and his social conscience.  I try to emulate these traits of his, and to remember that each person must be treated with kindness, genuineness, and respect, be he or she a banker or a baker.  

Peter R. Hubert