WORDS FROM THE WISE
Perspectives on Small Firm Life
By Richard Caplan
LeClairRyan
[email protected]
L
aw is not a one-size-fits-all profession. Some
people thrive in firms with thousands of attorneys, but many others eschew big firm life
and either join a smaller firm or start their own. Some
would not have it any other way. Abraham Lincoln,
for example, told his long-time law partner that he
planned to return to Illinois after the Presidency, “and
then we will go right on practising law as if nothing
had ever happened.” Atlanta is fortunate to have a
number of small firms who have managed to accomplish many large things. I was able to ask key
figures at four of them—Louis Cohan (Cohan Law
Group), Matt Jordan (The Law Offices of Benjamin
Y. Gerber), Jeb Butler (Butler Tobin), and Cheryl
Legare (Legare, Attwood & Wolfe)—the same five
questions about their work. Their answers follow.
Tell me a little bit about your current
practice—how long have you been
there, how many (if any) other attorneys
do you work with, etc.
1
Louis Cohan: After nearly 20 years in a bigger firm, I
founded Cohan Law Group (CLG) five years ago with
my trusty paralegal, Shannon Clutter. Today, we are
located on the 25th floor of Tower Place. We have two
Associates, Of Counsel (Michael Dunham) and two
attorneys who share space in our offices. Shannon
is still here because she is not allowed to leave! Our
practices all intersect at business litigation. In addition, we have a heavy concentration in employment
litigation. Mike Dunham also works in the areas of
landlord/tenant and family law.
Matt Jordan: My current practice is primarily representing injured Georgia workers in pursuing
workers’compensation benefits. In that capacity, I
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work in a small office with two other lawyers. In addition, I serve as a pro tempore judge in the Municipal
Court of Athens, where I adjudicate Athens-Clarke
County ordinance violations, State of Georgia misdemeanor traffic violations, including DUI, and State
of Georgia misdemeanor crimes of Theft by Shoplifting, Possession of Less Than an Ounce of Marijuana,
and Underage Possession of Alcohol. I also work as a
private mediator in workers’ compensation disputes.
Jeb Butler: At Butler Tobin, we specialize in serious
personal injury and wrongful death cases. My law
partner, Darren Tobin, and I left our respective former
firms and started our own in June of 2014. The size of
Butler Tobin has varied some over our two years of existence, but right now we are sitting at two lawyers and
two paralegals, which is a good size for us. It enables
us to bounce ideas off each other and to make sure
that, if a bad tendency is born, there is someone else
around to correct it before it becomes habit. Having
two staff members allows us to cross-staff our cases,
so that neither Darren nor I work exclusively with
one person. It also makes us big enough to ‘muscle
up’ in the event that a corporate defendant foolishly
attempts to outwork us.
Cheryl Legare: My two law partners, Eleanor Atwood
and Steve Wolfe, and I founded our firm, Legare,
Attwood & Wolfe, in May 2015. We are an employment litigation boutique representing employees in
all aspects of employment law, including claims of
disability discrimination and retaliation, sexual harassment, FMLA interference and retaliation, gender,
pregnancy, race, religion, national origin, and age
discrimination, and wage and hour disputes. We also
represent individuals in contract negotiations and
employment separation negotiations.