Arizona Attorney Mark Hummels Known For Helping Others

By Catherine Reagor and Ryan Randazzo, AZCentral.com 

Rich Robertson received a phone call from Mark Hummels at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Hummels wanted a favor. He was calling to ask Robertson, a private investigator, to assist one of Hummels’ former clients, for whom he had provided free legal aid. Hummels was concerned the person needed more help, Robertson said.

“Mark was always willing to help,” Robertson said.

Although Hummels had been an attorney for less than 10 years, he was already the president of a federal Bar group, had spent hundreds of hours providing free legal aid and had garnered the respect of many of Arizona’s most prominent lawyers.

An hour later, at 9:30 a.m., Hummels was representing the chief executive of a call-center company at an arbitration meeting at a north-central Phoenix law office. Steven D. Singer, CEO of Fusion Contact Centers, was the defendant in a lawsuit. After the meeting broke up an hour later, both men were shot in front of the building. Singer died Wednesday.

Hummels, 43, was hit by bullets in the neck and back. He died Thursday night.

“We are devastated at this news about our beloved friend,” according to a statement from Osborn Maledon on Thursday.

Hummels was low-key, with a sense of humor. The judge for whom Hummels served as a law clerk remembered him as a gentle, decent person with a ferocious intellect and a “goofy” side.

Hummels had worked with Singer for several months. The shooter, Arthur Douglas Harmon, 70, had been in a nearly year-long legal battle with Singer over a business deal. Harmon was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday morning.

Praise and respect for Hummels came from every corner, from those who knew him in Arizona legal circles to those who remembered him fondly from years before.

“He wasn’t full of bluster. He would go out of his way for people,” Robertson said.

Hummels worked as a journalist before becoming a lawyer. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Colorado College, Hummels earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California-Berkeley in 1997. His first job was as a reporting — intern in Santa Fe for the New Mexican.

“The best thing about Mark was his attitude. He was a serious journalist but made what we do fun,” said Steve Terrell, a reporter with the paper. He and Hummels covered the New Mexico Capitol beat together. “When he became an attorney, we all teased Mark about how serious he looked in his work photo. We have a picture from his going-away party when he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, smoking a fake cigar and crossing his eyes.”

Terrell checked his e-mails Wednesday night after hearing about the shooting to see when he last connected with Hummels.

“It was in 2005, after the birth of one of his sons,” he said. “He was so happy to be father. He and (his wife) Dana were a great couple.”

Geoff Grammer, a sports reporter with the Albuquerque Journal, worked as an intern at the New Mexican when Hummels was there.

“Mark treated people, his sources, with respect. He made me want to become a reporter,” Grammer said.

Hummels left the New Mexican in 2001 to attend law school at the University of Arizona. He graduated summa cum laude in 2004 and earned the highest score on the Arizona Bar exam that year.
Judge Andrew Hurwitz of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave Hummels a job as a clerk when Hurwitz served on the Arizona Supreme Court in 2004.

“Everyone I know in Arizona told me I must hire him immediately because he was the smartest guy they had ever met,” Hurwitz said outside the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Phoenix on Thursday. “They were all right, but they also forgot to tell me he was also the nicest guy.” He said that he and Hummels “became fast and dear friends.”

“This is a day of unspeakable sorrow,” he said. “We all feel so helpless.”

Hurwitz described Hummels as a gentle, intelligent, decent person who was an avid swimmer and had a “goofy” side that included riding a unicycle.

After working for Hurwitz, Hummels joined Osborn Maledon in 2005. His practice focused on business disputes, real-estate litigation and legal-malpractice defense. He was arbitrating a business dispute with real-estate ties before he was shot.

“It was a catch for our firm to get someone like Mark Hummels to come and join us,” Bill Maledon said. “We are devastated by this senseless, tragic loss of our friend and partner. It is a tragic loss, not just for our firm but for our community.”

Hummels volunteered with the Arizona Justice Project, a group that helps inmates try to overturn wrongful convictions.

“Mark spent hours and hours preparing an educational presentation on the Ray Krone case,” said Lindsay Herf, DNA project manager for the legal non-profit. “We have used his work to educate hundreds of attorneys and law students.”

Ray Krone was convicted of murder in 1991 and spent a decade in prison. He was exonerated based on DNA evidence.

Hummels also served as president of the Phoenix chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

He lived with his wife and elementary school-age sons in Phoenix’s Arcadia neighborhood.