Then & Now: Scott helping clients at Conner & Winters

John Scott, equity partner at Conner & Winters LLP in Fayetteville, has been an attorney for 27 years. He was a partner at Keisling Pieper & Scott PLC in Fayetteville when the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal named him to the Forty Under 40 class in 2008.

He remained with the firm until 2010 when he joined Conner & Winters. The firm was founded in Tulsa in 1933 and has six offices nationwide. He was 40 when he joined the firm. He’d previously been with a smaller firm with three partners, who oversaw about three or four staff.

“In a smaller business, you kind of have to take care of everything like lease space, furniture, staffing and all those kinds of things,” he said. “You’re there to do business to be a lawyer, and then you find out you spend a lot of time managing the business side of it.”

This, combined with the impact on businesses amid the Great Recession, were factors that led him to join Conner & Winters.

“It let me practice law without having to be real hands-on running a business,” he said.

Scott, 54, primarily practices construction law. He’s helped clients, often construction companies, who were owed money in construction projects. He said he started to become involved in construction law while he was with his previous firm.

In recent years, he’s received multiple Lawyer of the Year awards from Best Lawyers for construction law and litigation. He’s a fellow in the Construction Law Society of America, which is limited to a small percentage of area lawyers. He also served as chairman of the construction section of the Arkansas Bar Association. And, he’s written a chapter in a construction law book.

“I’ve tried to say, ‘Yes,’ and be involved in things,” he said. “We also have another local group called Inns of Court that I did a stint as a vice president and president. That’s kind of a combination of judges, lawyers and law students that meets monthly … dedicated to civility and having an educational thing once a month.

“My thought about practicing law is life is too short … I don’t do this to try to make enemies with the other lawyers. I don’t feel like there’s anything that requires lawyers that you got to be hostile, fight and … burn the house down over the dispute.”

He largely receives his work through word-of-mouth referrals from clients or attorneys. Aside from construction law work, he also handles business litigation, such as non-compete or intellectual property cases.

“I kind of jokingly say most of the things I deal with are resolved with dollars and cents,” he said. “It’s not really blood and guts.”

He noted that he previously practiced as a certified public accountant (CPA), and this certification remains valuable to him in understanding the financial side of most disputes. He maintains an inactive CPA license.

Since 2008, some of the top changes in the legal industry in Northwest Arkansas include the influence of the larger firms in the area and attorneys changing firms. Technology has also changed the industry. Data security and cybersecurity have become significant.

“You’ve got to be more nimble, at least in recent years, to things being done electronically, with Zoom hearings, and people now are more willing to do Zoom depositions,” he said. “Not really my preference because I was trained how to go into a courtroom and how to ask face-to-face questions with a witness where you have a three-dimensional aspect of it.”

He joked he wasn’t trained to be a “talking head up on a screen where we look like we’re on CNN … It just doesn’t have the same depth to me … Never would it be my preference to try a real case on Zoom.”

A career highlight is being respected by tending to his business and trying to do it well while being ethical and honorable. In the coming years, he looks to continue to do his job well and leave a legacy comprising more than just his business career. Scott resides in Fayetteville and has a 22-year-old son and a 25-year-old daughter. He enjoys traveling and listening to live music.