It's been 2 full days since I learned that my friend & former law partner Jim Williams died. It's taken me almost that long to find some words appropriate to the occasion. Bear with me, please. (1/)
greensboro.com/obituaries/wil…
greensboro.com/obituaries/wil…
Ethically, a lawyer can’t say he or she’s the best. Ethically, a lawyer really ought not say another lawyer is the best, either. So be it. But I’ll swear under oath Jim Williams was an artist. He was P.A. Renoir with a jury in a complex business lawsuit. (2/)
I once saw the man on re-direct rehabilitate a witness who, at the end of cross-examination, would have envied the optimism of Humpty Dumpty’s condition. Forget any king’s horses or men, Jim Williams pieced him back together again. (3/)
I once saw a judge, exasperated by a long-winded witness of Jim’s, tell the witness (in front of the jury) to keep your answers short because attorneys can still ask more questions & you are represented by one of the best trial lawyers in NC. (Judges can say such things). (4/)
Jim had a magnificent bass speaking voice, like if Gregory Peck had spent his childhood between Winston-Salem and Ocracoke Island. When Jim said something serious, it might as well have been Moses himself reading from a stone tablet. (5/)
Any day that you as a young lawyer got to hear that voice for a few minutes of conversation was a good day. But there was one day in particular I’ll go to my own grave remembering. (6/)
In law, as in most careers, advancement is not a linear process. Some days are good, some days are bad. Moving beyond the status of mere employee in a law firm is an achievement, not an entitlement, particularly in a firm of any size where opinions and experiences differ. (7/)
During all of my own twists & turns as a young lawyer, there were some days I wasn’t sure I deserved to be mentioned with Jim and the rest of the highly skilled, highly accomplished attorneys in the firm. I know, boo-hoo, I usually got over it and kept doing my job. (8/)
But the day I shook Jim’s hand inside his office and heard that Piedmont bass saying “I’ll be glad to have you as my law partner,” that was that. Those 10 words wiped out any doubt in my mind. The man himself said I belonged. See above re: stone tablets. (9/)
I moved away from NC & back to my native VA three years ago. There’s still one piece of Jim’s advice I (& my family) value most of all: “You can do anything you want in life, you just can’t do it all at once.” (10/)
Between his wife, his daughters, his grandkids, his firm, the bar, Wake Forest, the school board, corporate boards, our church, the tennis court, and a host of other things, I’m confident Jim lived up to his own advice in a prolific and superlative way. (11/)
TL;DR version: Jim Williams was the guy you’ll never be as good as, but you don’t mind it for a minute because he still made you better too. I’m grateful he was my friend & the friend of dozens of other people special to me. There lies something good about this world. (12/12)
@threadreaderapp unroll
