Editorial
Front Page - Friday, February 26, 2010
Bar selects Chattanooga attorneys for Leadership program
David Laprad
The Tennessee Bar Association has selected Chattanooga attorneys Jeff Matukewicz and Tim Mickel to take part in the 2010 Leadership Law Program. During the next four months, the two men will attend events that will give them the vision, knowledge and skills necessary to serve as leaders in the legal profession and their communities.
- David Laprad
Jeff Matukewicz of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz and Tim Mickel of Husch Blackwell Sanders are just two lawyers, sitting at a conference table in Chattanooga. Matukewicz, an associate in his office, concentrates on personal injury defense. His friend and colleague, seated to his left, has a broad civil litigation practice. There are more than a thousand attorneys in Scenic City who, from external appearances, might differ from Matukewicz and Mickel only in the suit they wear.
Yet the Tennessee Bar Association saw something in these two men that set them apart: the potential to be leaders, both in their profession and
their community. To equip Matukewicz and Mickel with the vision, knowledge and skills necessary to serve in those capacities, the state bar selected them to participate in its 2010 Leadership Law Program.
The bar selected Matukewicz, Mickel and 30 other attorneys from across the state out of a pool of hundreds of nominees. Both men say they were elated and humbled when they learned they’d made the cut.
“I was thrilled because I know two other individuals
from my firm who took part
in the program, and they said it was a wonderful experience,” Matukewicz says.
Mickel also has friends who have gone through Leadership Law and urged him to apply after someone nominated him. “To a person, all of the past participants have such a positive testimony about the program that when I received the invitation to apply, there was no question that I was going to do so,” he says. “And for the bar to choose me – I was ecstatic.”
Mickel was even more enthusiastic about Leadership Law after attending the opening retreat at Montgomery Bell State Park in January. “I was impressed. The speakers were fantastic and the issues were on point,” he says. “When we went in, people were cynical, thinking it might just be a rah, rah session with not a lot of substance, but what we got was very much the opposite.”
Lewis Donelson, the senior partner of Matukewicz’s firm and one of the founders of the Republican Party in Tennessee, was among the speakers. “Regardless of your politics, when you get to have a conversation with someone like that, you appreciate it,” Mickel says.
On the ride home, Matukewicz and Mickel talked about the tight structure of the program, including how the organizers limited the length of the breaks so the participants wouldn’t have enough time to “get on their Blackberries.” The two men did their best, though, to forget about the Saturday morning exercise session.
“It was mandatory yoga,” Mickel says, shaking his head. “We ended up getting to know each other a little better than we’d hoped.”
The opening session of Leadership Law set the stage for four months of events that will lead up to graduation in June at the annual bar convention in Nashville. Each occasion will highlight a different arena of leadership, including politics, the courts and one’s community. During a two-day stay in Memphis in April, for example, the group will visit the National Civil Rights Museum to learn about leadership in action. The participants will also spend time in Knoxville, as the bar aims to hold affairs in each of Tennessee’s three grand legal divisions.
The bar also aspires to include participants from a wide range of individuals working in the legal profession in Tennessee. Matukewicz and Mickel, for instance, are both employed at large firms, while some of the other lawyers are sole practitioners. “There’s a lot of diversity in terms of age, race and level of practice,” Mickel says. “It’s about half men and half women, too.”
Matukewicz says he’s excited about the variety of perspectives represented within the group and is looking forward to building strong relationships with other participants. Down the road, he believes the associations he forms through Leadership Law and the manner in which he applies those connections will be the biggest benefit of his involvement in the program. “I’m looking forward to taking the relationships we’re going to forge and carrying them toward bettering our profession,” he says, adding that he’s already communicating with a number of other participants on a professional and personal level.
Mickel says he has a “micro” and a “macro” view of what he hopes to take away from Leadership Law. “From the micro perspective, I hope to become a better leader at my practice,” he says. “The seminars really get into the esoterics of leadership, such as how to characterize the individuals on your team and understand their perspectives.”
The broader perspective Mickel hopes to gain echoes the comment Matukewicz made about benefitting the legal profession as a whole. “It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-days rigors of your practice and not take a more global approach to things,” he says. “But it’s important to think about where the legal profession is going and address the pressures it’s facing in the state and nationally.
“My hope is to be able to transcend what’s happening within the four walls of my practice and spend my time in a more balanced manner. I want to be more of a professional than an in-the-trenches lawyer. Both are admirable, but you need one to preserve the other.”
In closing, Matukewicz and Mickel both express appreciation to their employers for allowing them to participate in Leadership Law. Although attorneys must be invited to participate, attendance is not free. In addition to a financial commitment, the firms for which the two men work must also make allowances for them to be gone during Leadership Law events.
But like the members of the bar who invited Matukewicz and Mickel to take part in this year’s program, their firms must see tremendous promise in these two lawyers from Chattanooga, and consider their investment well worth the cost.
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