| From: “Palmer, Charles F.” <[email protected]> Date: July 13, 2021 at 9:33:33 AM EDT To: ATL All <[email protected]> Subject: Back to the FutureAll,It was great to see so many of us in the office last Wednesday for the brunch celebrating the one-year anniversary of the merger. We have more and more people coming to the office, and it makes a difference. Many of my emails to the Atlanta office include discussion of the firm’s history. This one will be different – this one discusses the future.We had a call last week with the Delta Law Department’s senior leadership and our summer associates. (Yes, I know. Last week is not the future. Bear with me.) All of Delta’s Law Department is back in the office. Their GC Peter Carter spoke about the importance of his team being in the office because relationships and connectivity cannot truly be developed remotely. He said there is simply something missing when you see someone only on a video screen. We talk a lot about our firm’s culture – about how we like each other and care about one another. Of course that is a bit extreme. There are a few in our Atlanta office who are annoying to be around. They know who they are. But with those exceptions, I believe most of us enjoy seeing one another and working together. Furthermore, while perhaps some of our more experienced lawyers may be perfectly fine working remotely, I can’t imagine what it would have been like as an associate learning to be a lawyer from home. I don’t believe I could have done it. It’s not simply a function of being able to bill hours. There is more to being a lawyer than simply the capacity to bill 2,000 hours a year.
The future of our law firm is not the remote practice of law. I believe law firms that become too heavily remote will ultimately disappear or will lose clients to firms who are able to present a collegial and coordinated representation to those clients. Simply because technology allowed us to work remotely during a pandemic doesn’t mean human nature that evolved over thousands of years changed in a matter of months. Personal and in-person relationships matter. Unlike “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle” none of us are able to develop truly close relationships remotely. Those are movies. They aren’t real life. Tom Hanks doesn’t work here.
Chief Justice Harold Melton will be starting with us on Monday, July 19. His office will be on the 30th floor, and he was very interested in seeing where his office was going to be when he visited last week. His selection of our firm bodes well for our future. He saw our firm as the best place to spend his career after leaving the bench. He could have gone anywhere. But he chose to come here. He has been going into his chambers for months. We know he will be coming to this office regularly. If Chief Justice Melton thinks it is wise to come into the office, that says something. Particularly if I were a young litigator in our office, I’d be here with him every day that I could.
By the way, let me suggest we should call him Chief Justice Melton. There may be some who have longstanding relationships/friendships with him that permit you to call him Harold. But he earned the honor of being Chief Justice. We should recognize that. I called Governor Sanders just that, Governor Sanders, during the entire time I knew him. If Chief Justice Melton asks you to call him Harold, that’s different. But until he invites you to do so, he is Chief Justice Melton.
Please come to the office. Our future depends on it. Chuck
Charles F. Palmer Troutman Pepper is a 2020 Mansfield Certified Plus Firm |