Ewing Rabb Emison

Ewing Rabb Emison was a Hoosier, through and through. Emison was born in Vincennes on February 2, 1925, into a family with roots dating back to Knox County pioneers who arrived a dozen years before statehood. The Emison family law firm, established in 1819, is the 4th oldest continuous law firm in the United States and is today known as Kolb Roellgen & Kirchoff LLP. Rabb graduated from Vincennes’ Lincoln High School in 1942 and enrolled at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. He joined the U.S. Navy and continued his education through the Navy College Training Program, taking classes at the University of South Carolina, Murray State Teacher’s College, and Northwestern University. He returned to Greencastle in 1946 and received his A.B. degree in December 1947. After DePauw, Emison enrolled at the Indiana University School of Law, receiving his LL.B. degree in 1950. He then joined his father in practice, in Vincennes, and remained at the firm for the next fifty years. Over those years, he became known as a tenacious trial attorney and public servant. He worked with the Indiana Legislature on matters important to the public at large and to the law profession. In particular, he worked for several years on interstate compacts between Indiana and Illinois. Emison served as President of the Indiana State Bar Association in 1986-87 and worked for years to establish the association’s Committee on Opportunities for Minorities. He also worked to establish the bar’s Committee on Minorities. The ISBA later created the Rabb Emison Award, granted to a lawyer who best served the goal of assistance to the minority lawyer. At the age of 78, in 2003, the American Bar Association presented Emison with its Inspirational Spirit of Excellence Award. Ewing Rabb Emison was inducted into the Indiana University Academy of Law Alumni Fellows in 1993. Emison died September 1, 2010, appropriately in his beloved hometown of Vincennes.https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/notablealumni/1120/thumbnail.jp