The apple never falls far from the tree, or so the saying goes. And at first glance, attorney William Godbold and his son, Andrew, appear to be a living, breathing example of the widely held adage, with the mannerly and well-spoken William serving as the tree, and the bright and ambitious Andrew taking on the role of the apple. But as these two men prove, the truth is more interesting than the cliché.
The paths father and son have taken are uncannily similar. Both attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville as undergraduate students, both earned their Juris Doctor at the University of Memphis, and both went from law school to the firm of Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan, where both do personal injury defense work.
As the two men sit next to each other in a conference room in the Pioneer Building, which Leitner calls home, the only discernable differences between them are their age and the stripes of red in the elder Godbold’s tie.
How did this happen? Did William insist his son walk in his deeply impressed footsteps? Andrew says no.
“He never told me what to do. I had the opportunity to go in any direction I chose. My following in his footsteps shouldn’t be construed as anything but a compliment to him,” he says.
Williams says his only desire for Andrew was for him to choose work he would enjoy. “At the end of the day, you want your kids to be happy,” he says.
Andrew could have turned down a different road. An avid pilot since his teens, Andrew spent a summer in New York City towing advertising banners across the horizon. Real estate also interests him, to the point that he earned and maintains a license. But the law captured Andrew’s fancy like nothing else did, partly due to its ever-present nature as he was growing up.
“I was fortunate to have two wonderful men in my family who were attorneys – my dad and my uncle. And I looked up to them,” he says.
In particular, Andrew admired his father’s work ethic and Christian faith. “He’s one of the hardest working individuals I know. I have a deep respect for that. He made a lot of things possible for me. And he’s a man of deep Christian conviction,” Andrew says.
When Andrew goes on to mention his father’s status as a Mid-South Super Lawyer, William makes a play of getting up from his chair. “I should leave the room,” he says.
William is clearly a humble man, despite his achievements, which also include being AV rated by Martindale Hubbell, becoming a Chattanooga and a Tennessee Bar Foundation Fellow, and serving as a captain in the military intelligence arm of the U.S. Army Reserves. Even his reasons for becoming a lawyer have an air of altruism. “I liked the idea of achieving a fair and just result. When you practice law, making sure you achieve the right result is satisfying,” he says.
A business law class at UT also turned Andrew’s thoughts toward becoming an attorney, even though he didn’t care for the professor. “It was case study after case study, and I loved it,” he says.
In addition, Andrew was looking for a career that would consistently challenge him in new ways. “I was afraid of doing the same thing every day. And so far, every case on which I’ve worked has been different,” he says.
William, who’s been practicing law since 1976, agrees, and says the freshness of the work is part of what has made his chosen profession enjoyable for nearly four decades. “Every day is unique; every case is new. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, here comes something else. [Chattanooga] has a plaintiffs’ bar with an amazing imagination and clients who can push the limits of reality. That has made what I do fun,” he says.
Andrew graduated from law school this year and has been helping Leitner’s senior partners with their cases. This is how the firm breaks in new attorneys and helps them to begin developing their own practice. The idea, says William, Leitner’s managing member, is to expose recruits to different areas of the law in the hopes that they’ll discover an area of interest and then gravitate toward it. “I wouldn’t want Andrew working with only me,” he says. “He’d pick up my bad habits.”
Andrew’s father is far from concerned about his son not doing well as a lawyer. He believes Andrew, who won the mock trial competition at school this year, has a natural knack for trying jury trials and, therefore, a promising career ahead of him. “He’s friendly, outgoing and relates well with people, which are good traits for someone who needs to persuade a group of people to follow a particular line of thinking. He’s smart, and he knows the law, but those things wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t relate to a jury or the witnesses in a trial,” he says.
Now Andrew feigns leaving the room. But he settles down and expresses the eager enthusiasm typical of many new lawyers: “I can’t wait to get real time in a courtroom.”
Although William and Andrew are both at Leitner, they rarely work together. On the rare occasion when this has happened, they were not father and son, but two lawyers working on a case. William says their interactions were “healthy.”
“We see some things differently because of the generation gap between us, which gives me a new perspective. I told him about how I was going to present the evidence in a case on which we were working, and he said the jury would never go for it. Fortunately, that case was dismissed before the trial,” he says, laughing.
While both men radiate humility, they have reasons to be proud. William has been a reliable servant in his community as a member of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity and a ruling elder at Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church. Andrew has also worked with Habitat for Humanity, and hopes to again once he settles into his work at Leitner.
Although William and Andrew have pursued similar career paths, their roads diverge when it comes to their personal interests. William likes to garden with his wife, Debbie, keep in touch with his other son, an entrepreneur living in Texas, and fondly remember the days when he had enough time to play golf. He and his wife, who was diagnosed with MS in 1997, also like to walk their dog in the North Shore community in which they live.
Andrew likes breaking the restraints of gravity, and hopes to someday own a Boeing-Stearman, a biplane used as a military trainer during World War II. “It has an open cockpit. We’re talking leather cap and goggles,” he says.
The open skies are a fitting metaphor for Andrew, who’s looking forward to exploring different areas of the law, including aviation. “That line of work isn’t common at this firm, but I intend to pursue it wholeheartedly,” he says.
William is confident his son will put his stamp on whatever he chooses to do. “Andrew is his own man. I’m proud of him. I wouldn’t change a thing except maybe his choice of tie sometimes,” he says, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses and a smile crossing his face.
While there’s truth in the saying about the apple never falling far from the tree, some apples have the occasion to roll down a hill to a spot they can claim as their own. Over time, these apples take root, grow, and spread their branches until they become as majestic as the tree from which they came. While they always remain in the cool shade of the tree on the hill, they eventually produce fruit of their own that nourishes others.
This is Andrew’s future, and William’s legacy.