Carey J. Messina (’78) smiling for his senior photo for law school
Sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day. But the late Carey Messina (’78) always made the most with his 24 hours, according to his wife Jolie Messina.
“Any time there was a knock on the door for help, the word ‘no’ never came up,” said Jolie, who was married to Carey for 37 years. “He always had time.”
Making time for others, whether it be his family, clients, or colleagues, was the crux of who Carey was. He donated his time to serving the Baton Rouge community. He never missed any of his four children’s recitals or games. And he was patient with his colleagues and clients, whom he saw as friends.
“He loved talking to people,” said Gary Bezet (’79), who started at Kean Miller around the same time as Carey and practiced there for 40 years. “He would spend hours with clients, just listening to them. And he didn’t need to know all those details in order to do his job. But Carey would just let them talk and give them space. They wanted to be heard.”
Carey was a founding member of Kean Miller, where he would spend nearly his entire legal career after graduating from LSU Law in 1978 with his J.D. and his LL.M. in Taxation from New York School of Law in 1979. Before heading to New York to obtain his Masters of Law degree, he returned to his hometown of Monroe to practice. But after completing his education in New York, he decided to branch out and travel more than 180 miles south to start his life in Baton Rouge.
Carey worked with thousands of people to create estate plans, establish wills, and handle succession matters. While estate matters can be complex, in more ways than one, he always had a way of putting the people he worked with at ease.
“Sometimes successions can get contentious, but he was a good mediator,” said Kevin Curry, who decided to practice at Kean Miller when he graduated law school to work with Carey.
Kevin followed a similar path to Carey’s. After he graduated from LSU Law in 1994, he also got his LL.M. in Taxation. In an article for the Baton Rouge Bar Association magazine, Kevin detailed the kind of mentor and attorney Carey was and the influence he had on Kevin’s own career.
“He took me under his wing and made me into the attorney that I am today,” said Kevin.
Kathy Blanchard, Carey’s paralegal for more than 30 years, says he was more like a brother than a boss.
“He could tell if something was wrong,” said Blanchard, who is now Kevin’s paralegal. “He’d sit down and talk to you. He was the ‘one and only.’”
As generous of a person as Carey was, he was just as humble of a man. He kept much of his philanthropy private, never one to seek credit for his actions. Carey selflessly gave his time and resources to the community with no expectation of receiving anything in return. His humility is one of many traits that his family misses about him.
A portrait of the late Carey J. Messina (’78) that sits in the kitchen of the home he shared with his wife Jolie.
Carey was also known for his tenacity. Take how he met Jolie, for example. At the encouragement of his best friend, Carey attended a barbeque event at St. Jude Catholic Church. At the encouragement of her mother, Jolie also attended the event but only for 10 minutes. On the ninth minute of her stay, she met Carey and recalls they had an instant connection.
“I was only going to be there for one more minute, so I gave him my first name and my work number,” Jolie said. “Two weeks later, he had called every department in the building I worked at looking for me. I found out later that after I left, he turned to his friend and said, ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry.’”
Their chance encounter is Jolie’s favorite memory of Carey.
For Gary, it’s hard to pinpoint one specific memory of Carey that he would consider a favorite. His best memories of Carey revolve around his sense of humor and trustworthiness.
“Everyone trusted Carey,” said Gary, who noted he was the first person to become managing partner of Kean Miller who wasn’t already a named partner of the firm. “He always had a good sense of what was best for the firm.”
Losing Carey was as hard on the firm and their clients as it was on his friends and families.
“To this day, I still have clients come in and say they miss Carey,” said Kevin.
But Carey’s memory lives on at Kean Miller. At Kean Miller’s Bluebonnet location (which Carey lobbied heavily for), his picture hangs near the front entrance of building so that he greets everyone who walks through the door.
And through the Carey J. Messina Memorial Endowed Scholarship, his memory will live on at the Law Center. His friends and family hope future scholarship recipients can appreciate Carey’s legacy. As Jolie says, “He was just the best.”
About the Scholarship:
Recipients of this scholarship must be full-time students at the Law Center.
