For me, the practice of law is not about billable hours or dollars and cents. Instead, it is about relationships and results. My practice has been informed by my father, who inspired me to be a lawyer; the attorneys and staff of Brooks Pierce, who have nurtured and supported me in my professional and personal development; the lawyers at other firms that I have worked with and in opposition to; and the judges, arbitrators, mediators and administrative officials that I have appeared before, from all of whom I have learned so much; and the clients that I have served now almost 35 years, who have trusted me with their problems, great and small, have shared with me their aspirations and goals and have offered me their friendship.
I know that I stand on the shoulders of giants. My father, who graduated from the UNC School of Law in 1950, practiced as a solo practitioner for more than 50 years in the rural Stokes and Rockingham Counties of North Carolina. In the summers of my youth, he carried me with him to search titles, to conduct estate and foreclosure sales and to try cases. While he never made a lot of money, he helped a lot of people. Most importantly, he taught me how to be both a zealous and an ethical advocate for my clients.
In my third year of law school, I had the good fortune to receive two offers of employment on the same day – the first as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable J. Dickson Phillips on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the second from Ted Leonard as an associate at Brooks Pierce. Being a judicial clerk gave me the opportunity to observe lawyers doing well and doing not so well, without having a client’s interest at stake. And Judge Phillips taught me as much about life as he did about the law.
When I came to Brooks Pierce a year later, I set out to be a corporate and transactional lawyer. I worked on mergers and acquisitions with Hugh Humphrey, who had a hand in every major takeover battle of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s in North Carolina, and Bill McNairy, who I heard a former Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service once remark knew more about the United States Tax Code than any person he had ever met. In commercial real estate, I got to build on the firm foundation left for me by my father with Edgar Fisher -- the most knowledgeable and unflappable real estate lawyer I have known.
Ted Leonard and Jim Williams, however, had other plans for my legal career. Jim Williams gave me my first litigation matter to handle (for a then brand new commercial real estate developer that I still represent today in all matters great and small). Ted and Jim gave me the opportunity to try cases with them, and I found that being on my feet in a courtroom was the most exhilarating thing I had done in the practice of law. Jim Williams taught me to always be better prepared than your opponent, that it is okay to be a little bit nervous going into the courtroom (else your adrenaline is not flowing and you have lost your competitive edge) and to inspire everyone in that courtroom to like and want to please you.
Thus, practicing law at Brooks Pierce has always been, and continues to be, for me both a privilege and a responsibility. It is a privilege to work with a firm with a more than 100 year tradition of excellence, to work in a collegial and intellectually challenging environment, and to assist my clients in the resolution of their complex business and professional problems. It is a responsibility to carry on that tradition, to represent my clients ably and to the highest standards of the profession, and to pass on that legacy to those who follow behind me.