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Georgia legal community mourns loss of Bill Ide III
Jul 31, 2025, 11:42
by
Ashley Stollar
Daily Report
To the Editor:
On behalf of the State Bar of Georgia, I am writing to extend condolences to the family, colleagues and many friends of longtime Atlanta attorney R. William “Bill” Ide III, the 1993-94 president of the American Bar Association (ABA), on his passing at the age of 85.
A Georgia Bar member since 1966, Mr. Ide began his legal career as a clerk for then-Judge Griffin Bell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. After serving in the Air National Guard, he joined King & Spalding, attended night school to earn a master’s in business administration from Georgia State University and co-founded Georgia Legal Services. He then joined the firm of Huie & Harland, which represented the transit planning authority that would eventually become MARTA.
Ide later co-founded the firm of Huie, Brown & Ide, one of the first Atlanta firms to hire female and minority lawyers. He then moved to Kutak Rock and finally Long Aldridge (Dentons), where he spent the bulk of his career. He served as general counsel and chair of the Executive Committee of the EastWest Institute and as general counsel of Monsanto.
He was a member of the ABA Board of Governors from 1987 to 1990 and served in the ABA House of Delegates and chaired the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative. During his term as ABA president, Ide focused on strengthening judicial integrity, expanding legal access and reforming legal ethics to ensure the legal system served the public and not political or financial interests. One of his core missions was ensuring that the judiciary remained independent. During his leadership, the ABA launched initiatives to protect judges from political pressure and judicial interference, and he advocated for transparent and fair legal processes to maintain public confidence in the courts. In recent years, he helped create the ABA Task Force for American Democracy, a group of nonpartisan legal, business and civic leaders that is mobilizing lawyers around the country to rise and honor their obligation to preserve, protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law.
Ide served his community and profession as a founding board member of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, as counsel to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, senior fellow and co-founder of Emory University’s Directors Institute, trustee of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and on the Board of Trustees for Clark Atlanta University.
Bill Ide III will be missed and fondly remembered by his fellow members of Georgia’s legal community. We appreciate his dedication and the many contributions he made through his service to the public and the justice system.
Sincerely,
Christopher P. Twyman
President, State Bar of Georgia
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