Husch Blackwell Chief Executive Paul Eberle, Chair Catherine Hanaway, and Chief Executive Elect Jamie Lawless recently spoke with the Tampa Bay Business Journal to discuss Lawless succeeding Eberle in February 2024.
Lawless was selected after what Hanaway called a “rigorous yearlong process” that included more than 1,000 applicants. Lawless, like Eberle, is not an attorney by trade—a feature that “breaks the typical mold seen at the nation’s largest law firms,” Eberle said.
“I’ve always been in client service delivery roles. At the end of the day, delivering an exceptional experience to a client or a customer in legal services or consulting, facilities management or outsourcing services, it’s about what it feels like to consume those services and be a client of that organization, whether it’s a corporation or a law firm,” Lawless told the Tampa Bay Business Journal.
Both Eberle and Hanaway used the word “uncommon” to describe the firm strategy and approach that started with the merger of Husch & Eppenberger and Blackwell Sanders, followed by organizing the firm into six industry business units in 2012.
“We realized almost a decade ago that becoming industry experts [and] aligning with our clients, in addition to being really good lawyers, is a successful strategy, and it’s proven true for us,” Eberle said to the Tampa Bay Business Journal.
Read the full article: Tampa legal services veteran Jamie Lawless to lead national firm as CEO