This week is Alisha's last week at my law firm. I hired her straight out of law school and, by my count, she has been with us for 16 years. If memory serves, she joined us shortly after we moved into the building we bought and renovated in downtown Franklin across from the Courthouse.
Alisha is not just our longest tenured employee - that's an easy one - but she's worked with us the longest of anyone we have ever had, staff or attorney. That's something because when I think about it, she's been with us more than one-half of the time we've been in business.
I can remember, like yesterday, Alisha's first small claims court trial in Maury County. I was there - for her or on another matter, I can't recall for sure - but she was almost in tears before it began because she was so nervous. I encouraged her and assured he she could do it and she did. I can't recall if she won or lost but all these years later, that doesn't matter.
I can recall when I was watching Kaitlyn play basketball over the holidays at Overton High School, I believe, when Alisha called me in a panic. The judge unexpectedly turned a 20-minute review into a full blown, eight hour hearing with no notice to us or our clients. I arranged for a court reporter and Alisha handled the hearing on her own. The result wasn't what we wanted and when she called me late that night, exhausted, I talked her off the ledge and reminded her that as family law attorneys, we don't make the facts in cases. We do the best we can with the facts our clients have made. It's as simple as that.
Alisha was the first person from the office to hold JP when he was a baby. I've got a photo of that somewhere. Alisha, at our old house on Elliott Avenue, sitting in the den, holding JP with a big smile on her face. I was beaming with pride. I can't recall, now, if she was in Nashville covering something in court for me or if she made a special trip to the house to see JP.
Everyone in the office attended Alisha's wedding reception when she married T. Jay because, well, she was family and we were honored to be there. It was around the corner from our office, in fact, in a building that, I think, currently houses the Franklin location of Biscuit Love.
I remember when Alisha and T. Jay bought their first house in Bellevue, as T. Jay struggled to figure out what he wanted to do and what kind of attorney he wanted to be. Ultimately, he got his JD/MBA in a weekend program at the University of Alabama and, later, found his niche in health care. He's built a nice career in that field and I'm proud of him.
When Alisha's son was born, there were complications, although he is fine, now. Later, after her daughter was born, I watched as Alisha grew into her role as a mother. I know it's been exceedingly hard fo her to find balance in her life - as it is for so many of us - between the demands of being the mother of two young children and a practicing attorney with needy clients and a boss - that's me - who expects a lot from himself first but also from those who work with him.
So many times, Alisha has been my sounding board. In her office, I've vented and blown off steam about staff, opposing attorneys in cases, and difficult clients. Her ability to listen to me and to add a reassuring or calming word here or there is perhaps the most valuable part of our professional relationship to me, I think. She knew when to let me blow off steam and when to pull aside a staff member and quietly and quickly correct whatever it was that I had a problem with, all behind the scenes.
She's been my confidant, my office consigliere. We've interviewed countless potential hires over the years. Together, we've made decisions to hire people and decisions to fire people.
I doubt she realizes this but when my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and during her three or four year decline - the long goodbye, as they say - Alisha was there for me with a sympathetic ear, again listening as sometimes railed against the unfairness of it all. That was of great comfort to me. I hope I did the same for Alisha when her mom died, although she's more reserved about those type of things than I am.
In many ways, Alisha has been the heart and soul of our office, at least as far as I am concerned. She's been a conduit between Mark, Chas, and me and the rest of the attorneys and staff. She's organized events -"girls' lunches," breakfasts, decorating the office for Christmas, etc. - and she's let me know when someone was unhappy or having problems at home. Many issues with staff, I know, she's quietly and discreetly handled without anything being brought to my attention.
If I have a regret, it's that over the past few years, there's been a drifting in our personal relationship. Many times, when I stopped by her office, two doors down from mine, just to chat, I felt like Alisha was waiting for me to leave rather than being engaged in the conversation. I felt like I was intruding, like she was worried that if she took 10 or 15 minutes to talk with me, she might not have time to get her work done. That bothered me to the point that, over time, I think I just quit stopping by her office to talk.
Instead, our relationship became more professional and much less personal, or at least that's the way it seemed to me. Maybe that's natural and maybe that's because a lot of the mentoring with Alisha, personally and professionally, had been done and she didn't need or want me to serve in that role any longer.
Part of the drift between us is natural, I think, as Alisha's family responsibilities, away from work, have increased. That's what happens, of course, with a growing young family, which means increased responsibilities away from work and less time to get it everything done at work and home.
As I think about it now, what I perceive as the change in our relationship seems to parallel the time period when our youngest attorney, Lee, joined our firm and began to grow into a young, responsible attorney. I've spent more time with him, particularly after work, mentoring, talking, and listening. He's come to me, during work, with questions - so many questions - and Alisha has done that type of thing less and less. That's natural, I suppose.
Alisha and I used to go out to lunch together, frequently and, later, occasionally, at least in my recollection. That stopped in later years, too. In truth, though, I rarely, if ever, leave the office for lunch. That's not necessarily a good habit but it's one I picked up when I changed my diet three or four years ago.
At any rate, if I'm being honest, I do find myself - here at the end - regretting that I didn't work harder maintain a closer, personal relationship with Alisha. My hope is that with her departure, we'll be able to develop a peer to peer friendship, one that will not be affected be her work responsibilities at our office.
Now, is that realistic? Almost certainly, no. In truth, Alisha will find and start a new job in a month or two. Between a new job and her family, I'll rarely hear from her. That's probably as it should be. Time to move on.
So, as I finish my coffee this Sunday morning, sitting at Dose, and prepare for a day of baseball with Joe in Mt. Juliet, I say goodbye to Alisha, my right hand at work for so long.
It's been quite a run. I appreciate everything she's done for our law firm. I'm going to miss her.
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