President's Message
PDF Version60 YEARS OLD
The older one gets, birthdays become not only occasions for celebration, but for reflection as well. So it is with our firm’s 60th birthday on September 1, 2005. We will celebrate the event in the usual ways. But for those of us who have been with the firm awhile, we also take the occasion to reflect on the reasons why we have been able to reach this milestone. These reflections yield a simple and straightforward answer. Our success and longevity is attributable to one reason: great people. Throughout our 60 years, Carr McClellan has been home to some wonderfully intelligent, dedicated attorneys who have applied their considerable talents to take on and solve the challenges brought to them by our clients. They have worked, and continue to work, quietly and diligently without fan-fare or fame. Often the causes that they champion are not front-page news, but they are the causes of our clients, so they are of the utmost importance.
All of us at Carr McClellan chose to build a career in law in an environment that allowed us to practice at often the highest levels of legal sophistication while at the same time building life long relationships with each other and with clients and the members of the communities that we serve. Many of my colleagues could have chosen other paths that perhaps would have led to fame and fortune. Instead they chose the Carr McClellan path. I was struck by this fact as I flipped through the most recent edition of the Stanford Alumni magazine that featured on its cover Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist and one of his Stanford Law School classmates, fellow Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. As I scanned the picture of the members of the 1950-51 Law Review, standing shoulder to shoulder with two present members of the United States Supreme Court, was our own Albert J. Horn.
Yes, great people who are great lawyers are why Carr McClellan can celebrate 60 years of service. It is also why I am confident that it will celebrate many more well into the future.