Business Comes First at Family Firms

(Click here for the list of the region’s largest law firms.)

Two of the largest three law firms in Northwest Arkansas are family-owed businesses, according to the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s annual rankings.

Like any other family-operated business, a law firm made up of relatives offers some advantages but also some pitfalls.

Lawyer Doug Norwood said his law partnership with his wife Cathy Norwood wouldn’t work if the two actually shared an office. She’s at the Tontitown office, and he’s in Rogers.

“My blood pressure couldn’t handle it,” Doug Norwood said. “My temper’s too quick. Can you imagine being at odds with your wife in the daytime at the office and then having to go home?”

The Norwoods were at one time part of a larger family law firm with offices from Fort Smith to Springfield, Mo. Cathy Norwood’s father, Ted Smith, and her sister and brother-in-law, Holly and Jack Martin, were also part of the Smith, Norwood and Martin law firm.

Doug Norwood was the only lawyer among them who was practicing criminal law. That difference and the fact that business issues constantly came up during family get-togethers led Doug and Cathy Norwood to form their own firm.

“It was such a complicated thing whenever we got together with family, it was all about business,” Doug Norwood said. “Now when we get together with the family, it is quality family time.”

The Martins continue to practice together in Springdale, and Smith practices in Springfield, Mo.

“I’m very happy being a lawyer, and my wife is a compliment to everything I do,” Norwood added. “We just shouldn’t be in the same office.”

John Lisle decided to form his own firm when he realized his two sons were interested in the law. One of their childhood friends joined the law firm first and is still part of the firm. That friend, Donnie Rutledge, also serves as the firm’s president.

Rutledge said negative issues that sometimes come up in family-based businesses have never been an issue at the firm.

John Lisle attributes that to the fact that the firm isn’t run like a family operation. His sons are treated like any other partners in the firm, he said, and Rutledge agreed. There are 11 lawyers working at the firm.

John Lisle said he’s never been unhappy with the contribution his sons have made.

“You have to maintain a certain healthy respect for each other,” John Lisle said.

That attitude is important for any partnership, family or not, he added. Stephen Lisle said any law firm that allows family issues to take priority over business decisions would suffer from the problems that come up, but growing up as the son of a lawyer had at least one advantage.

“There’s some comfort in the fact that you’re already exposed to it,” Stephen Lisle said. “You sort of have some on-the-job experience.”

Fayetteville lawyer Conrad Odom makes an effort to separate home and work. He calls his father “Bobby” at the office and “PaPa” at other times.

“I think it’s a little harder for him,” Odom said. “Sometimes he treats me like a junior partner, and sometimes I get a father-son talk at the office. I think I get treated pretty fairly — I get chewed out just as much as anybody.”

His sister Jennifer Walter also works at the Odom & Elliott firm in Fayetteville. She’s a paralegal.

Several other local law firms feature family members including the Kelley Law Firm in Rogers, Huggins & Huggins of Springdale, and the Bassett Law Firm and Niblock Law Firm, both in Fayetteville.