Three Decades of Law

It was a tough, draining week at work because of one case in particular.  After working as a lawyer for almost thirty years, I have a pretty good perspective on what I do for a living and the fact that client's lives aren't intertwined with mine.  

The hard part - for me, anyway - in practicing family law is that I care deeply about my clients and their families.  I want my clients to be healthy, to be successful and, above all else, to heal.  Still, I can't change the facts of a case and, sometimes, I have clients who won't or can't listen to the advice I give them.  As hard as I try to help them, they can't get out of their own way.  Those are the really challenging cases.

Mark and I will have had our firm in downtown Franklin, Tennessee, for 25 years this fall.  That, in and of itself, is hard to believe.  A quarter of a century working together, first as Puryear & Newman, later as Puryear, Newman & Morton after Chas joined us three years into our run.  That's a long time to do the same kind of work, at the same place, with the same partners.  As someone who doesn't like change, however, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that I've been doing the same thing with the same people for, well, forever.  There's also no end in sight, at least not for me.

I've been thinking a lot about our Bar in Franklin and Williamson County.  By bar, I mean all of the attorneys, past and present.  It's grown over the past 25 years, for sure, but it's still a collegial bar, by and large, with a small town feel to it.  The Davidson County Bar is different.  Not worse.  Different.  Less collegial, for sure, and a lot bigger. 

I've had so many cases with so many of our lawyers in Williamson County.  I've got colleagues and friends throughout the Bar and, to be fair, a few non-friends (though, thankfully, not many of those).  What we do - what I do - is by its very nature adversarial and, at times, confrontational.  It's competitive, too.  Perhaps why I like it and why I'm good at it is because none of those things scare me.  I'm okay being adversarial, confrontational, and competitive.  What keeps me sane, though, is that it's rarely personal as it relates to opposing attorneys.  As long as it's between the lines and there is no sneakiness or unethical behavior,  I'm good.  

I've also been thinking a lot about lawyers we've lost in Franklin.  Mark Hartzog.  Carter Conway.  Don Young.  Nick Shelton.  Ernie Williams.  Diane Livingston.  I had cases with every one of them and tried cases with some of them.  

Mark Hartzog - always full of wisdom and a true gentleman - once gave me advice I treasure to this day.  He told me I could live in Nashville, send my boys to private school, and work in Franklin, just like he did.  And that's what I've done. 

I had a divorce trial, years ago, with Carter Conway, who spoke with a deep, gravelly southern voice.  When I cross-examined his client, the husband, about Victoria's Secret purchases he had made on a credit card, he lamely stammered that he had made purchases for his wife - my client - on the off change they might get back together.  Judge Davies looked at him skeptically and said, "Mr. McClure, that's a little thin."  And it was.

Don Young was legendarily quick witted and always ready with a joke.  My old boss, Don Smith, told me that in college, at Vanderbilt, Don Young's nickname was "Weasel."  When I first started practicing law and I didn't know Don Young, he got me out of scrape and didn't charge me a thing, probably as a favor to my original mentor, Steve Cox.  Don also told me the smartest thing he ever did was only paying rent one. year of legal career.  Mark, Chas, and I took that advice when we bought our building.

I miss Nick Shelton terribly.  I rarely play golf but Nick is, by far, the best golfer with whom I ever played a round of golf.  He was in my foursome,  years ago, in the (now defunct) Williamson County Bar Association Golf Tournament.  He played gold in college and could absolutely smoke a golf ball.  In cases, Nick was a like a bull in a china shop, but he had a good heart.  He also was emotionally damaged and he took his own life, which makes me sad to this day.  

Ernie Williams was the U.S. Attorney for a brief period of time before he began practicing law in Franklin.  I remember talking with him when his son was accepted into the Naval Academy at Annapolis and played football for the Midshipmen.  Ernie was so proud of his son, just as I am of my boys today.

Diane Livingston was always, always laughing.  In the earliest years of our practice, she asked me to be co-counsel on a few workers' compensation, plaintiff's cases.  She was bilingual and often originated business from immigrants, documented and undocumented.  One time - in the late '90's when we in our first office on Church Street - Diane fell when she was crossing the street to drop something off for me.  She was tall and always wore a skirt or dress and heels.  She walked in to our office, laughing, and told Lisa Johnson about her fall and that it was a good thing Mark and I didn't see her, because she didn't have on underwear.  The perfect Diane Livingston story.

So many lawyers over almost 30 years of practicing law.  So many memories.