William A. Sutherland (California politician)

He worked first on Walter Maline Rose's 12-volume Notes on the United States Reports, or at least the supplements to this digest of U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

In 1903, Sutherland became a law partner with Joseph P. Bernhard, who had also worked on Rose's U.S. Notes in San Francisco.

Sutherland also authored a 973-page treatise, Notes on the Constitution of the United States, published by Bancroft-Whitney Company in 1904.

After his death in 1906, several industry groups tried unsuccessfully between 1907 and 1912 to follow the Kearney model of a capitalized raisin cooperative.

A group of prominent growers and Fresno businessmen, and Sutherland as their lawyer, formed the California Associated Raisin Company (later known as Sun-Maid).

Short became ill in 1917 and then spent considerable time in San Francisco receiving medical treatment and eventually died in June 1920.

[2] In 1913, Sutherland was the author of legislation that took an early step to California's community property law.

Sutherland's law gave fathers and mothers joint custody of their minor children and joint right to any services and earnings from those children; prior to the passage of Sutherland's law, these rights were the sole domain of fathers.

With the acquisition, Sutherland's title became Vice President of the Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank and Managing Director of the Fidelity Branch.

[7] Sutherland was instrumental in the planning and construction of the Pacific Southwest Building (later known as the Security Bank Building, then Fresno Pacific Towers, and finally by its address of 1060 Fulton Mall) at the southeast corner of Mariposa and Fulton in Fresno.

He was survived by his wife, Helen, and their adopted son, Keith D. Sutherland, who was a dentist in Fresno.

Combining the time between Sutherland, Dearing & Jertberg; Jertberg & Avery; and Baker, Manock & Jensen, these firms occupied the same space on the sixth floor of the old Pacific Southwest Building for 56 consecutive years before moving to another location seven miles north.

Keith testified at the trial that the second will had been torn on the day he found it, after his mother had died.

However, the holographic document was not admitted to probate, and the judge ruled Mrs. Sutherland died intestate.