David Evans loves the view from his law firm’s space in the Cornerstone Bank Building. He’s not so high he can see only rooftops, and he’s not in the thick of things down below, either. Eight stories up, with a bird’s eye perspective on Miller Plaza, is perfect.
Evans speaks in complimentary terms about most things. His firm, Evans Harrison Hackett, is a small practice with eight attorneys, which he prefers after spending a good portion of his 37 years as a lawyer working for a larger concern. Yet he says good things about the bigger outfits. He calls Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, where he practiced for nearly two decades, “a great firm.” Similarly, Baker Donelson is “a wonderful firm.” He can see the tops of the buildings in which both firms are located from where he’s standing.
Evans does speak his mind when inclined to do so, but the diplomatic tone in which he wraps his words makes his opinions easy to digest. “Everyone here came from a large firm, where our work wasn’t about the practice of law but the business of law,” he says. “We wanted to get back to the practice of law.”
Evans says the legal climate is shifting in favor of a return to “the practice of law.” Technology is giving small firms the tools and the information they need in order to do their work, he says, and in an effort to cut costs, corporations are becoming more prone to hiring attorneys rather than law firms.
“Those things have made a big difference for us,” he says. “We saw the changes coming, and we wanted to take advantage of them. Leaving was difficult, but, knock on wood, we’ve been successful.”
When Evans does have a disparaging thing to say, he wraps it in playful charm. For example, a corporate attorney who’s done litigation work, he defends his work by calling trial lawyers the real paper pushers. “Litigators think corporate attorneys just push paper,” he says, a smile creasing the corners of his eyes behind his thickly rimmed glasses. “But litigators push a lot more paper. I had a bankruptcy matter with 3,000 boxes of documents. It was a zoo and a half.” (Evans admits 3,000 might be an exaggeration, but insists it was still “a mountain of boxes.”)
Evans, who grew up in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, became interested in pursuing the law as a career while a history student at the University of Virginia. Two courses in particular shaped his thinking: a Constitutional law course taught by “an incredible professor” and a course on the Federalist Papers. After graduating from Washington University Law School in the late ‘70s, he went to work for a St. Louis, Mo., law firm for which he did litigation and corporate work. When the practice dissolved five years later, Evans and his first wife set their sights on Atlanta. Contact from a headhunter working on behalf of Chattem in Chattanooga changed things.
“They had exposure on a product liability matter in New York City. One of their subsidiaries had been involved in a blast that had killed 25 people and badly burned another 100 people,” he says. “It sounded interesting, so on the way to Atlanta to see family, we stopped in Chattanooga, and rather liked it. It’s been home ever since.”
Evans pulled Chattem out of the fire of the claims pending against it “for a mere $500,000,” which he calls fortunate. He then came under the mentorship of Chuck Jolly, the company’s general counsel. Jolly steered the young attorney toward corporate law work. Unenamored with the “win or lose” mentality of litigation, Evans took well to the change.
“I like completing a deal. I enjoy doing a sale or an acquisition for someone,” he says. “When you do an acquisition, you’re growing a business; you’re creating value.”
Evans left Chattem in the mid-’80s – with the blessing of the company and his mentor – and went to work for Chambliss. Nearly two decades later, he moved to what’s now Husch Blackwell. While there, the seeds of what would become Evans Harrison Hackett began to germinate. In 2010, Evans, along with partners John Harrison and Mark Hackett, officially launched their firm.
Nearly four years later, Evans says his work is as gratifying as ever. “I have a tremendous sense of helping people, and of helping to build the economy,” he says.
Evans uses his legal abilities and knowledge to help pro bono clients as well. For example, he helped to relieve Summit View, a Chattanooga non-profit that provides residential care for frail elders, of fraud litigation. “That took about three years of my life,” he says, “but they survived.” Evans is still involved with the organization today.
His past community contributions included promoting the Boy Scouts to inner city children. “I felt sorry for some of the kids living in that atmosphere, and I thought Scouting could do something wonderful for them,” he says.
The law isn’t the only passion in Evans’s life. His second wife, Ann, and the yard outside their Signal Mountain home are close to his heart as well. In fact, he says he’s married not to the former, but to the latter. “I’m really loving this time of year. I’ve got the sticks up, and I filled a hay wagon full of branches this past weekend,” he says.
Evans enjoys bush hogging his property, which consists of a couple of acres of grass and about a half dozen acres of pasture. He doesn’t bush hog the back third, though, because he doesn’t want to “run over Bambi.”
A big gardener, Evans ticks off a long list of the vegetables he’ll be growing this season. “There’s nothing better than picking an ear of corn off the stalk. It’s much sweeter,” he says. “And there’s a big difference between homegrown broccoli and the stuff you buy in a store. The store-bought stuff tastes like cardboard in comparison.”
When his wife can coax him out of the yard, they enjoy visiting friends around the country, attending football and basketball games in Charlotte, N.C., and seeing his two children from his first marriage and their two granddaughters. “They love to ride in the hay wagon,” he says of his daughter’s two girls.
Evans is glad the practice of law gives him time to experience family and home. He also feels fortunate to be doing work he enjoys with people he likes.
“I’m very fortunate to be working with a great group of guys, all of whom are incredible lawyers,” he says. “We connect with one another and have fun. Working with them makes the practice of law enjoyable.”