Each weekday, there’s a time when John C. Harrison of Evans Harrison Hackett is the only attorney in town. Granted, the sun isn’t up yet, let alone anyone else, but for a few, glorious minutes, he has downtown Chattanooga to himself. In these moments, when there’s nothing but lights on empty streets, Harrison sees a side of the city few people do.
“It’s a different world. I can run up the middle of Broad Street because there aren’t any cars,” he says. “I love that time of day. It’s quiet.”
Harrison’s first glimpse of each new weekday comes at 3 a.m., as he sips coffee while looking at the stars above the Signal Mountain home he and his wife, Lisa, share. From there, he either heads to the Sports Barn for his morning workout, or the office. Either way, that time is his, and he treasures it.
Eventually, the sun interrupts this sacred hour, and other people begin trickling into town. From that moment on, Harrison’s time belongs to his clients. As a labor and employment attorney, he spends his days helping employers who want to minimize their exposure to legal risks.
“I spend most of my time on the telephone telling people how not to get in trouble,” he says. “It’s a lot easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble. Those are challenging calls, but I feel like I’m helping someone because I’m keeping them from making potentially costly mistakes.”
Now in his sixties, Harrison can remember when going to trial was how an attorney practiced law. But he doesn’t long for those so-called golden days of litigation, even though he has enough entertaining stories to fill one of his thick case binders. Rather, Harrison appreciates the less consuming nature of his current work.
“I was talking with a young lawyer about the excitement of going to trial, and I told him I knew what he was talking about because I was his age once. But what I used to call excitement I now call stress,” he says, laughing. “Trying a case can be fun, I just don’t want to do it every week, like I used to.”
A Michigan native, Harrison wasn’t always going to be a lawyer. In college, he was a biology and chemistry major, partly because it was in his blood; his father was a professional entomologist, and Harrison grew up loving nature and all things scientific. He didn’t know if he could make a living as a biologist, though, so he pursued the profession a high school aptitude test suggested would be the best fit for him: attorney.
“I’d always had a sense that I’d like to be a lawyer,” he says. “I enjoy working with words.”
Harrison was also attracted to the idea of being a trial lawyer, as everything else an attorney can do seemed dull to him.
The only hazy part of Harrison’s plan was where he was going to practice. He attended college at the University of Washington in Seattle, where his parents had moved for his dad’s work, and then law school at Emory University in Atlanta after following his father and mother back east. While doing interviews as a law student in the fall of 1979, however, Harrison met the person he says convinced him to choose Chattanooga.
“If someone asked me what brought me here, I could answer that question with two words: Bill Aiken,” he says, referring to William P. Aiken, an attorney with Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel. “He came down to Emory, and even though I was only half-interested in coming here, I signed up for the interview. It wound up being one of the most interesting job interviews you could have.”
Harrison came to Chattanooga and talked with the partners at the firm. When he was done, Aiken asked him if he’d like to go running. Harrison had brought his running shoes with him, so he said yes. “We went into North Chattanooga. It was getting dark and really cold, but we had a great run,” he says.
The chilly autumn jog didn’t impress Harrison as much as Aiken’s offer to spend time doing something enjoyable. At the end of the day, Harrison was drawn to the “positive, upbeat” personality of the firm, so when Max Bahner and the late Bill Crutchfield offered him a job, he took it.
“If it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t be here,” Harrison says. “I’ll never forget those guys for giving me a chance.”
Harrison spent the next four years in the nurturing arms of the firm, learning the ins and outs of general litigation. From there, he moved to Miller & Martin, where Ray Murphy, the late Hal Clements, and the late Ron Ingram recruited him to do labor and employment work. Those were intense, but exciting years for Harrison. “Ron and Hal were Semper Fi guys; if you weren’t committed, you weren’t on their squad for long,” he says. “But I’ve always been a committed guy, so we got along great.”
After 13 years with Miller & Martin, Harrison moved to the last of the big three law firms in town – Baker Donelson, where he worked with T.O. Helton and headed up the labor and employment practice group for a time.
Then, in 2008 or 2009, as Harrison was approaching his late fifties, he had a thought. Although he’d worked for large firms his entire career, he’d always wanted to start his own practice. With the years passing quickly, he knew if he didn’t do it then, he’d never do it. So on June 15, 2010, he and five other attorneys formed Evans Harrison Hackett.
Harrison smiles as he talks about his current cohorts in the law. “We work hard and play hard,” he says. “Last year, Maury Nicely and I tried a case together. We had a great time.”
Throughout his decades of practice, Harrison has earned many honors, most of which were the result of nominations by his peers. (He says he was “blessed” with these awards.) He mentions being a Master in the Brock-Cooper American Inns of Court first. He then points to the wall behind his desk, where he’s hung the plaques he received for being selected for Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America. He then nods at a credenza on the other side of the room, where he’s placed his four Lawyer of the Year honors from Best Lawyers (2013-2016).
Harrison is also on the Board of Governors of the Chattanooga Bar Association, and is a Fellow of the Chattanooga Bar Foundation.
Several photos of Harrison’s immediate family also occupy the credenza. His wife is a professional counselor in Chattanooga; their only son, Jack, is 29 and lives in Washington, D.C., where he works for an advocacy group; their middle child, Kathleen, is 26, married, and a new lawyer at Baker Donelson; and their youngest, Olivia, is a magazine writer in New York City. “I have three remarkable and successful children,” he says.
Harrison also has a few odds and ends on his credenza, including a bottle of Kaiser Imperial Oktoberfest Lager his partners gave him because they thought the man on the label looks like him. “Either his moustache or his tired eyes reminded them of me,” Harrison says, laughing again. The man on the label is wearing a spiked Pickelhaub helmet from pre-Nazi Germany. Harrison’s partners gave him one of the helmets on his 60th birthday. It sits on the credenza next to the lager, giving him a pair of unique conversation pieces.
While Harrison still chuckles at the bottle of lager, his disposition is very different from the dour gentleman on the label. He has an unassuming smile that seems to be fixed to his countenance, and a friendly voice. Harrison also keeps his wit close at hand, and frequently responds to a statement with a self-deprecating joke. He also talks highly of other people, to the point of all but suggesting they’re largely responsible for his success as an attorney. He lavishes superlatives on the lawyers, secretaries, and legal assistants with whom he’s worked, and he praises the local judiciary, calling it “phenomenal.”
“If I have achieved some measure of success on this job, I didn’t do it on my own,” Harrison says.
When Harrison is on his own, he does something entirely different from practicing law. As the proud owner of an 18-foot aluminum canoe his father gave him when he was eight, he likes to paddle away a few idle hours. He also spends Saturdays in his yard, which serves as a sanctuary of sorts where he turns off his thoughts about the law and gets his hands dirty. “I work six days a week. Saturday is my soul day,” he says. “I like taking care of the trees and the rhododendrons. It’s relaxing.”
While Harrison is quick to elevate others, he’s earned his accolades. In a moment he’ll never forget, Bahner approached him a few months ago, shook his hand, and told him he’s proud of him. Harrison pauses after mentioning the encounter, his face wearing the emotions it stirs like a badge of honor.
Someday, the people whose lives Harrison touches will look back on those who helped them along the way and think about him, just as he has given consideration to those who afforded him with the opportunities that helped to shape his life. Harrison wants them to remember him for two things: “I hope they say I taught them the value of hard work and respect for others,” he says.
With each new day, Harrison works to make his simple legacy a reality. But if what Bahner said is true – and who would argue otherwise? – he’s already there. That won’t stop Harrison from getting up before the sun, though.
To see more photos, pick up a copy of this week's Hamilton County Herald.