Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 13, 2010
Art Grisham creating a legacy of service, integrity, faith
David Laprad
Attorney Art Grisham has practiced law in Chattanooga for 39 years. When he’s not trying cases on behalf of his clients, he devotes his time and energy to a number of worthy causes, such as the Lawyers Helping Lawyers committee of the Chattanooga Bar Association.
- David Laprad
This article was written before the August 5 Chancery Court election in which Grisham was a candidate. It is not a political piece, but a profile of a distinguished attorney and resident of Chattanooga.
Attorney Art Grisham’s life is a testament to the power of the spoken word. The son of a farmer with an eighth grade education, he rose above hardscrabble roots to become a respected lawyer, not through heroic effort, but through simply accepting what other people spoke into his life.
“My stepmom said I was going to be a great concert pianist, or a great surgeon, or the president of the United States. We have the ability to put courage into people with our words. When you criticize someone, it pulls the courage out of them, but my dad and stepmom always encouraged me, no matter how much of a brat I was,” he says.
The odds were stacked against Grisham. Raised in Kingston, Tenn., his mother died when he was five, and his father sent him and his younger brother to Mississippi to live with their grandparents.
Although they had no electricity, running water, or indoor plumbing, Grisham says he was unaware he was “doing without.” When his dad remarried three years later, Grisham and his brother returned to Kingston, where his stepmother promptly began building his confidence.
“There was no question I was going to go to college, and I was going to be great,” he says.
Grisham knew he didn’t want to become a doctor, as he’d hated high school chemistry, so he settled on an industrial management curriculum at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in the hopes of encountering a subject that would capture his interest. He also enlisted in the advanced ROTC program.
While doing active duty in Korea, France, Germany and England in the mid-’60s, Grisham noticed he got along well with the lawyers wherever he was stationed. This steered him toward the law.
“My personality was a lot like theirs, so I decided to go to law school. I thought it would be useful in business,” Grisham says.
Midway through his classes at UT, Grisham decided he’d try practicing law.
“As it turned out, I didn’t become a concert pianist, or a surgeon, or the president of the United States, but I had aspired to great things, thanks to my stepmom. That’s what the spoken word can do,” he says.
During his last quarter of law school, Grisham accepted a job in Chattanooga with the Air Pollution Control Bureau. The Federal Clear Air Act was about to go into effect, and the city wanted someone with a legal background. During his two years with the bureau, Grisham prosecuted violators and rewrote the Air Pollution Control ordinance.
After leaving the bureau in 1973, Grisham spent six years in private practice doing insurance defense work, and then expanded his horizons by practicing commercial law with attorney H.L. Smith. Most of his work since 1979 has involved handling Chancery Court and General Sessions Court cases.
Two years ago, Grisham parted ways with his long-standing firm to work on his own handling court cases for other law firms. His practice has taken him as far away from home as Alabama, Arkansas and Kentucky.
In addition to building a legacy of quality legal work, Grisham has served his community through a number of volunteer positions. He has been the chairman of the Chattanooga Wastewater Regulations Board since 1978, is currently serving as the immediate past chairman of Hope for the Inner City and served on the Bethel Bible Village board of directors from 1981 to 1985.
Grisham has also given back to his profession in a number of ways, the most notable of which has been as chairman of the Lawyers Helping Lawyers committee of the Chattanooga Bar Association, which assists attorneys with addiction problems. Through the committee, Grisham has taught a seminar titled “Quality of Life in the Practice of Law” annually since 1995. Grisham has also served as president of the CBA, on the bar’s board of governors, and on a number of Tennessee Bar Association committees and panels, including the General Sessions Court committee and the Creditor’s Practice committee, among others.
In 2002, the CBA gave Grisham its Albert L. Hodge Volunteer Award in recognition of his exemplary service to the bar and the legal community.
A complete picture of Grisham must include his work outside of the public’s eye, including his support of the NAACP and the Urban League. Since seeing racial discrimination firsthand as a young boy, Grisham has done what he can to promote a change in attitudes.
“I grew up in a town where black people couldn’t eat where we did, which I didn’t understand. As a fairly young person, I was ashamed of the South, and swore if I ever got out, I wouldn’t come back,” he says.
While in ROTC officer’s training in Indianapolis and while serving overseas, Grisham met people from all over the U.S. and the world, and discovered racial discrimination was “a common state of mankind.” Realizing he couldn’t escape it, he vowed to do what he could to make a difference.
His resolve was tested
when the time came to introduce his Southern born and bred parents to his second wife, an African American.
“In their minds, white folks and black folks didn’t mix. So I looked outside my window and said, ‘Dad, how many different kinds of trees do you see out there? Creation is filled with variety, so why would God prefer one race to another? Don’t you think He loves diversity?’ My folks realized I was right and grew to love my wife and her daughter,” he says.
Grisham and his wife will celebrate their 22nd anniversary this fall. In addition to his stepdaughter, Grisham has one son from his first marriage.
Using faith to appeal to his parents was a natural tactic for Grisham, an elder at New City Fellowship Church in Chattanooga. He says he “began waking up spiritually” when he moved to Chattanooga, and that his beliefs have been a guiding principle in many of the things he’s done.
As a Presbyterian, his faith has also given him a unique perspective on his career. Instead of offering the usual spiel about how he’s pleased with the path he took, and how his work has brought him a lot of personal satisfaction, he merely says it was meant to be.
“Presbyterians believe every thing is foreordained, so all I can say as I look back on my life is that I wouldn’t have planned any of it. My life was orchestrated for me, and I’ve been blessed,” he says.
While Grisham has done many things, he doesn’t wear his accomplishments on his chest, like a military officer decorated with medals. Instead, a casual, self-effacing sense of humor appears to be his most evident trait. He jokes about being egotistical as a young man, and says God gave him spouses and children that exposed his “self-centeredness and sinfulness.” And he bookends almost everything he says with a smile and a joke.
As unassuming as Grisham, now 67, has become, he’s also lived up to the words his stepmother spoke into him a lifetime ago, words that encouraged him to become exceptional. He might not be president, but he is working on a legacy of service, integrity, and faith that will hopefully endure beyond his years in the lives of those in whom he plants the seeds of greatness.
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