It struck me that I have been a member of the title insurance industry for more than 50 years.I began my career in title insurance in 1973, a few months after graduating from Brooklyn Law School. I joined Chicago Title Insurance Company’s New York City office in September as a member of its attorney training program.
But how did that come about? A short story-
Preparing to graduate law school, take the New York State bar examination, and land a position as an attorney was on the minds of every third year student. I actually approached the end of the year a little freer of the pressure because I had a job lined up. In the summer of 1972 I worked for the U.S. Treasury’s Regional Administrator of National Banks as a bank examiner. I was part of a team that traveled in the greater NY area to examine trust account records. It was an interesting position and as I looked for a career path in the Spring of 1973, I said, “why not work for the government?” I applied, and received a job offer at a salary of about $8,500 per year. Not a financial homerun, but the worry about getting a position was gone and I was able to jump into my bar examination review studies; a tremendous relief.
One day in May 1973 I opened a copy of the Journal of the American Bar Association and as I browsed I came across a full page advertisement announcing Chicago Title Insurance Company’s hiring of attorneys to be trained in title insurance. I enjoyed real property law and practice classes at BLS, so why not look into it?
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I had two interviews at CTIC’s offices at the Woolworth Building in downtown Manhattan. And in the second week of June received an offer of employment at the grand, to me, salary of $11,000 per year.
It was CTIC’s goal to train us starting at the ground level. That meant being put under the wing of an experienced title abstractor and with him, on the first day of work, I headed to the New York City Register’s Office located in the Surrogate’s Courthouse on Chambers Street a few minutes’ walk from CTIC’s offices at the Woolworth Building.
“Let’s start with a contin,” my mentor said. And so there I was pulling massive books out of the racks and needing to use by body as leverage to get the book on the work table. When I returned home to my apartment in Brooklyn after a full day, my wife asked, “what did you do to your suit?” I looked down and saw that I had a reddish stain on my jacket; it was from the red leather faded bindings of the books I had been schlepping all afternoon. Needless to say, on the weekend I wound up buying an inexpensive sports jacket to wear to work. It had reddish and brownish hues to it so the stains I would get blended in quite nicely.
