61 AND COUNTING

As the firm celebrated its 61st birthday this September, I reflected once again on what makes our firm special and such a vibrant, exceptional place to practice law. It’s the people, of course. Our founding partners laid down the foundation on which the firm is built: excellence in lawyering; utmost dedication to clients and commitment to community. The first and second generations of Carr McClellan lawyers, including Albert Horn (54 years with the firm) and Norm Book (40 years with the firm) have successfully passed on the torch to others of us who have devoted our legal careers to Carr McClellan and its clients, including Mike Telleen (33 years), Lage Andersen (29 years), Keith Bartel (28 years), myself (27 years), Penny Greenberg (26 years), Ed Willig (22 years), Steve Anderson (18 years), Lisa Stalteri (17 years) and others.

The years of experience of our partners and their longevity with Carr McClellan reveals much about our firm. But most of all, it reveals that our clients are assured of receiving legal advice from a team of lawyers that will be solution focused. The more one practices law, the more one realizes that exceptional lawyering is most often the product of combining knowledge of the law with judgment that only comes from experience. The experience base of Carr McClellan’s lawyers directs us to focus on what matters most to our clients: legal advice and advocacy that takes into account the need to provide value. We know our clients well. Most are privately held businesses and individuals who rely on us to provide sophisticated but practical solutions to real problems, or to bring our knowledge and experience to help lead and guide them through opportunities or challenges presented to their businesses. Experience has no substitute.

We are fortunate to have added to the firm in recent years another generation of bright, dedicated, hard-working and caring people who hold great promise to continue to carry out the founding principles of the firm. As they gain the experience necessary to become exceptional lawyers, the firm’s ability to serve our clients will grow and deepen. Those of us who have been with Carr McClellan for a few years are not only proud of our firm’s past, but we are excited about our firm’s future.