Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 17, 2009
Young Lawyers Division president lays out plans for 2009
David Laprad
Brian O’Shaughnessy certainly looks the part of the president of the Young Lawyers Division of the Chattanooga Bar Association. Although 31 years old, his boyish face and short hair make him appear as though he could be fresh out of law school. He doesn’t talk the part of a young attorney, though; instead, he speaks with the clarity and insight of someone whose experience far exceeds the two years he’s been practicing in Chattanooga.
When asked what he enjoys about being a solo practitioner, for instance, he says, “Owning my own business has been incredible. You live and die by the sword, but it’s fun that my failures and successes are mine.”
O’Shaughnessy’s statement conveys the kind of self-assurance a client would want to have in his corner, which is good news for Chattanooga’s accused, as he devotes the majority of his practice to criminal defense work. “There are always going to be people being arrested. Those are the ones I’m interested in defending,” O’Shaughnessy says, adding that he finds the cases and issues that come before him on a weekly basis “fascinating.”
He didn’t set out to work as a criminal defense attorney, though; his original intent was to become a tax lawyer. O’Shaughnessy grew up in Pensacola, Fla., and studied linguistics at the University of Florida. For him, law school was the logical next step. “I love language and wanted to find something in that area. Since attorneys work with words, I applied to a few law schools,” he says.
Although Tennessee is considered enemy territory to a Gators fan, O’Shaughnessy had come to love the mountains of the Southeast earlier in life and wanted to be closer to his dad (who lives in Farragut), so he chose to attend UT Knoxville and took every tax class he could. “I wanted to do asset protection, write wills, those sorts of things,” he says.
O’Shaughnessy’s days at UT yielded more than an education; he also met his wife, who graduated one year ahead of him and found work as an attorney in Chattanooga.
After he finished law school, he moved to the city to be with her, took the bar and volunteered at legal aid so he could get into a courtroom as quickly as possible. In a twist of fate, he found his interests shifting when he started taking appointments in the criminal courts. “I had a great time, so that’s the direction in which I took my practice,” says O’Shaughnessy.
Once O’Shaughnessy received his bar results, he started working out of the apartment in which he and his wife were living.
Although that was only two years ago, O’Shaughnessy talks about that time in his career as though he were an elderly attorney recalling the days of his youth.
“I owe a lot to some incredible people in the Chattanooga defense bar. They let me use their conference room, coached me through cases and helped me get experience. As mentors, they were amazing. Eventually, my practice grew to the point where I was able to move into my own office.”
While he was ramping up his practice, O’Shaughnessy became involved with the YLD. After serving a year under Craig Smith of Miller & Martin, who he says worked hard to bring the YLD back into the limelight, he took over the reigns of the organization.
The goal of his board is to foster a sense of community among the young attorneys in Chattanooga and attract other youthful lawyers to the city.
“Chattanooga is near three big cities: Knoxville, Nashville and Atlanta. And we sometimes lose people to those places. So through social activities and networking, and other forms of connectivity, we’re trying to encourage people to stay here,” O’Shaughnessy says.
Job two of the current YLD administration is to improve the overall image of lawyers by contributing to their community. On July 18, for example, a group of young attorneys will be volunteering their time and skills with a paintbrush to beautify a North Shore site.
In addition, the group is collecting cans for a food drive. And they hope to do one more event before the year is over.
“Our profession as a whole doesn’t have the best reputation,” O’Shaughnessy says. “We’d like to change that while giving something back to our community.”
O’Shaughnessy is speaking in broad terms, as he knows Chattanooga has every reason to be proud of its legal heritage and the distinguished legacy of those who came before him.
What he won’t say, but what is evident when looking at him and his youthful colleagues, is that the city also has every reason to believe its up and coming lawyers will uphold the traditions of quality and integrity
moving forward.
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