By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

Paul VanWagenen, a 31-year-old attorney in law firm Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein’s Charleston’s office, recalls how once upon a time he and his wife found Washington, D.C., a fun place to be.

“We loved it as 20-somethings,” said VanWagenen, a real estate lawyer.

As they got older and seriously considered starting a family, VanWagenen and his wife found the nation’s capital less appealing. The city’s real estate prices were astronomical. Finding a starter home for under $1 million was a challenge, VanWagenen said.

And working in the Washington office of global law firm Clifford Chance, which boasts 3,500 attorneys worldwide, grew wearisome. VanWagenen spent five years there as “an anonymous grunt,” with chances of becoming a partner growing increasingly remote, he said.

VanWagenen and his wife looked at Charleston for their future. Having spent their wedding week on Folly Beach, they were already familiar with the area. In 2005, VanWagenen joined Parker Poe after being referred to the firm by a Charleston contact who knew Walker Coleman, a partner in the firm’s Charleston office.

That same year, attorney James Bruce, 36, came to Parker Poe after seven years at international law firm King & Spalding’s Atlanta office. Attorneys Jennifer Dunlap, 31, and Ernie Cochran, 28, followed suit, leaving King & Spalding for Parker Poe and Charleston.

The Charleston area’s quality of life and healthy supply of smaller yet top-notch law firms are luring young attorneys from bigger firms in bigger cities.

The bigger cities and the bigger firms, whose clients demand that their attorneys be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, made for a stressful lifestyle that left little time for relaxation. Working 12-hour days in the office and staying up well past midnight at home to receive e-mails from colleagues was pretty much the norm, Dunlap said.

“It’s a different pace here, a different feel; it’s more relaxed and you’ve got the smell of saltwater,” Bruce said.

VanWagenen has found he can log all his billable hours during regular business hours.

“I can have dinner with my wife,” he said.

Parker Poe is based in Charlotte, N.C., with offices in Raleigh, N.C., Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Spartanburg and Charleston. The firm has a total of 200 attorneys. The Charleston office is the firm’s fastest-growing office, increasing its size from 10 attorneys when it opened in 2004 to 22 today. Attracting young lawyers has been the key to the Charleston office’s growth, Coleman said.

Smaller law firms generally have a faster partnership track. At Parker Poe, lawyers are considered for a partnership after they have been with the firm seven years, Coleman said.

At larger firms, that timeframe often is a “moving target,” shifting from seven to nine years or more. Some firms are not allowing any more attorneys to become equity partners, Coleman said.

It is not just the beaches, the ocean and the more relaxing lifestyle that lure young lawyers to Charleston. Because Charleston law firms generally have about 50 attorneys or fewer, young lawyers tend to begin working with clients sooner rather than spending the first several years of their careers sifting through boxes of paperwork.

“At Parker Poe, you get more client exposure and experience more quickly,” VanWagenen said, comparing Parker Poe with his previous law firm.

Jay Ward, 35, left Charlotte-based Smith Helms Mulliss and Moore law firm and its 200 attorneys five years ago for Mount Pleasant-based Richardson Patrick Westbrook and Brinkman, which has 34 attorneys on its roster. The chance to work at a smaller law firm and to enjoy the Lowcountry’s quality of life were the reasons Ward made the move, he said.

“I work as much now as I did then. The difference is that in the big city, (attorneys) live to work. They defined themselves by the amount of work they did. Here, people work to live,” said Ward, a products liability lawyer and the firm’s business manager.

Richardson Patrick receives as many as 20 resumes a year from attorneys across the nation seeking to relocate to the Charleston area, said Ward, who does the firm’s hiring.

James Courie, founding partner of Charlotte-based law firm McAngus Goudelock & Courie, which boasts 90 attorneys, says some of the 15 attorneys in the firm’s Charleston office came from other states and were attracted to Charleston because the city is a popular destination.

The Charleston office, consisting mainly of lawyers in their 30s, is one of the firm’s youngest offices, Courie said.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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