Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 12, 2010
In a town steeped with civility, Maddux is here to stay
Erica Tuggle
Lee Maddux has practiced law for 36 years in Chattanooga, and has learned during that time that showing respect to not only fellow lawyers, but also staff, county clerk employees and everyone inbetween goes a long way. Maddux says he also loves to talk about Chattanooga and how living and working here has been a blessing and a joy.
- Erica Tuggle
Chattanooga Bar Associa-tion members have a well-earned and well-deserved reputation of being very civil, allowing their word to be their bond and being a place where a handshake on a matter makes it stick, says Lee Maddux, attorney with Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel.
There are not a lot of places that can claim this level of integrity and cordiality, but Chattanooga has it, and it’s just one of the many reasons Maddux loves to live here, he says. This emphasis on civility amongst lawyers and good ethics promotion is not only the CBA’s pride but is also the main focus of the Inns of Court organization that Maddux joined only six months ago, but has been practicing for 36 years since he began in law.
“I like the fact that they don’t actually compromise on advocacy, but want you to be in tune with [the fact] that we are a profession, and as a legal profession, we have to hold ourselves up to standards,” he says. “Another reason it is unique is that you have attorneys from all ages – from those two years out of law school, to retired judges, to current judges, to attorneys who have been here for many, many years.”
Maddux says the opportunity to see young attorneys come through and join the bar in Hamilton County is a joy for him and adds to the well-known reputation all across Tennessee that this bar has for the scholarly nature of its lawyers and judges, he says.
“This is a wonderful place to not only practice your profession but have your family and raise your family,” he says.
Maddux’s personal contribution to helping the bar earn this reputation is his own practice of showing respect to everyone, including fellow layers, those in the clerk’s office and all the staff in-between. He says he was told early on in his career to get to know those in the clerk’s office, and says this has been so helpful to him in the assistance they have provided him over the years.
Although Maddux grew up in Nashville and attended law school at Vanderbilt, he says he moved to Chattanooga three months after graduating and one week after taking the bar exam and has been proud to be a local ever since.
“We’ve been here through the time when combustion was really strong, when they had the issues that came with the nuclear industry, gone through the employment lulls and with regards to TVA, the same thing, and now with the renaissance that you see what the city has become. We have had three children grow up here, and wouldn’t have changed anything,” he says.
Maddux first took an interest in law through his father, who had attended law school for a year, but was forced to drop out due to The Great Depression. Maddux also found later that he had a great-great-grandfather who was Cordell Hall’s first law partner in Clay County. (Hall later went on to become secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.)
During Maddux’s last year in college as an English major, he made the decision to study law for a career. Once he graduated law school, he spent his first 14 years in the business with the city attorney’s office working on a wide variety of lawsuits that gave him the opportunity to get in and try cases quickly on everything from motor vehicle accidents, missing stop signs and regulatory matters.
In 1988, Maddux moved to Stophel and Stophel, and remained with the firm through the merge of the two firms in 1997 to create Chambliss, Bahner and Stophel. He now concentrates 80 percent of his work in the defense of nursing home and long-term care litigation and the rest in education law. This brings into play not only medical malpractice, but also standard tort cases, liability issues and negligence issues.
Maddux says, “Long term care has been interesting because it is a growing area and there are more lawsuits that are being filed.
Through the progress of working those cases as well as the increased attention that the media and state have given to it, I think care has improved.”
He says also having a mother who is now in an assisted living facility makes the litigation of particular interest to him.
“It’s really interesting how the administrators are becoming much more involved in making the process more family friendly and becoming attentive to the families’ needs because they recognize it’s a home away from home and that it is an aging process,” he says.
“It’s a delicate balance be-tween how you handle that aging process with some ultimate issues that undoubtedly occur with regards to palliative care where residents or patients come in with severe conditions.
“We all get older, and unfortunately, that’s a plight that is facing most of us eventually, and if not, we certainly have our own families that are or have been in those positions, and we have to be attuned to those needs.”
When his children were growing up, Maddux says he enjoyed taking them to their youth activities, and now his son works in an office down the hall from him, also as an attorney with Chambliss, Bahner and Stophel.
These days, Maddux enjoys outdoor activities, has been active with Boyd Buchanan School since 1974, continues to follow the Vanderbilt Commodores and enjoys events in Chattanooga such as concerts, Mocs games, parks, arts, attractions and the convenience factor of its location to surrounding major cities.
Maddux says Chattanooga is a well-kept secret, but the word is getting out.
“I like the way the city and the community leaders have fostered the environment in which we all live and the issues that are pertinent to raising families in this complicated world,” he says.
He also reminds us that he will be spreading the word about Chattanooga wherever
he goes.
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