When Hank Warren announced his intentions to become a lawyer, he offered three reasons for his choice of profession: He wanted to drive to work with his father, C. Mark Warren, a renowned personal injury lawyer in Chattanooga, he wanted to eat lunch with his dad and, above all, he hoped to work at his father’s side as he tried cases in court.
Hank was in second grade when he laid out his career plans as part of an assignment at Boyd Buchanan School. Now 26, all the pieces are snapping into place as he joins Warren & Griffin, the firm his father launched with John Mark Griffin in 1999.
All of the pieces except eating lunch together, that is.
“Hank probably thought I ate a big feast when I went out to lunch,” C. Mark speculates. “But I normally don’t eat lunch except at my desk.”
Hank was not the only one hoping he and his dad would someday work together; C. Mark framed the piece of paper on which his son jotted his intentions in neat – but clearly adolescent – lettering and then hung the declaration in his office.
The document graced the walls of C. Mark’s work space for 18 years, providing a daily reminder that he was not just building a legacy at his firm but also paving the way for the last of his three sons – and the only one to become an attorney.
He’d glance at his son’s words as he left work at the end of each day and went home, where he and his wife, Terrie, gathered their children together for the evening meal.
He also lodged them in his thoughts when he turned off the lights in his office before leaving on a mission trip to Jamaica or Honduras, where he and his sons would serve the local population and perform spiritually-themed puppet shows.
Hank says he remembers the dinners and the puppet shows. He also insists he wasn’t trying to please his father by saying he wanted to become a lawyer, but that he actually did want to practice law when he grew up.
“Dad would come home every day and talk about his cases,” Hank recalls. “He was always meeting and helping new people. It sounded interesting.”
“I don’t know if ‘talk’ is the right word,” C. Mark interjects with a laugh. “I think ‘rant’ would be more accurate.”
His father’s fuming over cases aside, Hank learned at a young age that serving those in need could be a key element of an attorney’s work. The evidence of his awareness is contained in the last line of his second grade assignment, in which he scrawled, “I want to ... make the world a better place.”
Dad smiles today as he points this out. He then chuckles again as he reads the first two sentences, in which the young Hank revealed he’d been watching his dad very closely as he executed another important part of his practice – the marketing of his services.
“Hank didn’t begin by writing, ‘I want to be a lawyer.’ Instead, he began by asking, ‘Do you need a lawyer? Call me.’ He was only a kid, but he was already thinking about how to get business.”
Hank stayed the course as he grew older, even after his mother – a nurse – encouraged him to become a doctor instead. Here again, the 26-year-old Hank lets his second-grade self speak for him through the words he wrote, which included a sentence about steering clear of medical school because he didn’t “want to see bad things at the hospital.”
As Hank matured, he developed the kind of temperament his father believed would someday serve him well in the legal profession. For example, after successfully running for student government, he’d rally his fellow incumbents together to complete the projects he envisioned.
“I liked representing my classmates,” Hank recalls. “Since I was usually the oldest kid in my class, they always felt like I was the natural choice to lead them.”
Meanwhile, dad crossed his fingers and waited. C. Mark says he hoped Hank would follow through on his declaration but didn’t feel compelled to push him toward the law or any other profession, for that matter.
“Hank was going to excel at whatever he did. He’s always been very driven, very task-oriented and very personable. I was proud of him. I still am.”
Since Hank did wind up following in his father’s footsteps professionally, one could easily assume he did so academically as well. But one would be wrong.
The conference room in which the two are sitting is as orange as a Florida citrus grove. The space in the Dome Building on Georgia Avenue is not only painted the carroty color of the Volunteers’ uniforms but also serves as a small museum of framed prints of paintings and newspaper articles detailing the team’s history and successes.
The display makes it clear that C. Mark is not just an alum of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, he’s a proud graduate of both its undergraduate school and college of law.
In fact, when it was time for C. Mark to find a job after completing law school, he looked for positions no more than 90 miles away from the Vols’ football stadium. Chattanooga marginally expanded that sphere, but he says the $40,000-a-year salary Stophel & Stophel offered him to obtain defense verdicts for a local manufacturer was too good to pass up.
Hank, however, chose Lipscomb University in Nashville for undergrad and Lincoln Memorial University in Knoxville for law school. Of the latter, he says, “[Lincoln] offered me a great set of scholarships, and its professors were invested in their students. They worked hard to guide us to success.”
As a freshly minted lawyer, C. Mark had been open to working anywhere within a 90-minute sphere from Knoxville; however, Hank had one destination in mind: Warren & Griffin. He’d not only grown up listening to his father’s stories at the dinner table but had also worked as a runner at his firm and become a believer in its mission.
“I love the attorneys and I love the work they do,” he says. “I love the idea of representing people who need someone on their side.”
As Hank approached the end of law school, C. Mark noted that his shadow was growing long as the sun began to set on his practice. Although only 63, he and Griffin have grown from a two-person outfit in the Flat Iron Building to a firm of nearly a dozen attorneys with more than 200 years of experience with personal injury cases, and he felt like he’d accomplished his life’s work.
But the arrival of his son at Warren & Griffin heralds another sunrise, he says.
“It’s a new beginning for me. We have trial dates on the calendar, and I’m looking forward to trying cases with Hank. Can you imagine that?”
C. Mark says he’s looking forward to how juries will react to a father-and-son team. As a battle-tested litigator, he believes it could work in his clients’ favor.
“I think it’ll play well with a jury, especially if we do it right. Like any legal team, we’ll need to work in tandem, side by side.”
Clearly, the apple fell close to the tree, as Hank demonstrated in second grade when he urged his future clients to call him. But he does admit to feeling intimidated as he settles in.
“I have a lot to learn from dad, John Mark and the other attorneys. And they’re not going to go easy on me. I’m going to have to prove myself – like everyone else – and earn what comes next.”
C. Mark nods in agreement and says Hank has already learned the most important lesson about being an attorney. He points to a pair of Bible verses painted in black letters on the orange wall that read, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor” (Psalm 31:8-9; New International Version).
When C. Mark graduated from law school in 1989, his mother gave him a paperweight containing those verses. However, he never connected the words to his defense work at Stophel & Stophel, which he says, “never felt good.”
That changed as C. Mark tried his first personal injury case and then left the firm to be able to focus on those types of cases. “When I started doing plaintiffs’ work, I realized my mom knew my heart better than I did,” he says.
Hank, however, is entering the practice of law with a servant’s mindset, C. Mark says. His son takes a turn nodding in agreement.
“One of the biggest things my dad taught me is the importance of serving others. He’s always looking to serve my mom or my siblings or the community. Having that example means more to me than anything else.”