By David Laprad
On the 10th floor of the Volunteer Building, Evan Sharber studies dirt for a living.
Not the red clay that stains a pair of running shoes during a long stretch on a Chattanooga trail or the soil packed beneath a construction site, but the dirt that exists on paper – in boundary lines, legal descriptions, survey notations and title commitments.
“I like to say I’m a dirt lawyer because I do real estate,” Sharber says.
Recently, Sharber was elevated to member at Miller & Martin after four and a-half years there, signaling he’s earned his place among his firm’s leadership.
“The central principle behind being elevated to member is you’ve reached a point where the membership trusts you and is willing to treat you like a partner,” he says. “And I guess I’ve reached that point in my career. It feels good to be there. A lot of hard work has gone into it.”
The moment carries extra weight. His father, Hugh, has spent his entire career at the firm. His mother, Virginia Anne Sharber, once practiced real estate law there, as well, before becoming executive director of the Hunter Museum of American Art. The younger Sharber grew up in Chattanooga surrounded not only by lawyers but also by Miller & Martin itself.
“I remember coming here on various days when school or child care fell through and sitting in conference rooms,” he says.
The pull was strong but not immediate, and for years Sharber tried to find his way elsewhere.
Finding his way back
As a student at Washington and Lee University, Sharber imagined becoming a teacher. Then he thought about politics. After college, he joined U.S. Sen. Bob Corker’s office in Washington, D.C., where he worked from 2011 to 2015.
He started in the mail room and as the senator’s driver, ferrying him between meetings on Capitol Hill.
“I’d get to hear conversations he had with various elected officials,” Sharber recalls. “It was really interesting to be a part of that.”
Over time, Sharber began working on banking committee matters, including housing finance reform legislation that ultimately did not pass. But the work that stuck with him most closely resembled legal practice.
“I enjoyed helping constituents connect the dots between ‘I’m having this real world banking issue,’ for example, and ‘I need to talk to a regulator,’” he says.
Sharber also met his wife, Erica, who worked in the same office. And while she felt like a permanent fit, politics did not.
“I don’t have thick enough skin for that business,” he says. “I’m more introverted, and I couldn’t handle the constant criticism or the sense that I was always letting someone down.”
However, Sharber’s experience in D.C. clarified something that would shape his career.
“’I remember thinking I just needed to have a group of clients I was helping,’” he says. “I was good at taking these concerns that Senator Corker’s constituents had and helping them navigate their problem. And that translated pretty well to the practice of law.”
Energized by a sense of direction and purpose, Sharber and Erica moved to Knoxville, where he enrolled at the University of Tennessee College of Law. After graduation, he joined Baker Donelson, where attorney Jim Levine took him under his wing and taught him the “blocking and tackling” of practicing law and being a transactional lawyer.
“I have a ton of admiration for Jim,” he says. “He’s been a great mentor of mine.”
After several years, Sharber made a move that felt both familiar and new: He joined Miller & Martin – the firm where both of his parents had built their careers.
Reading the land
If Hugh Sharber built his career in mergers and acquisitions, his son has staked out a different corner of the transactional world. He focuses on commercial real estate transactions such as leasing, acquisitions, dispositions and financing, keeping him busy on the deal side of the practice.
He describes his work with enthusiasm that might surprise those who find land law arcane.
“I enjoy pulling out the ALTA surveys, poring over maps, reading legal descriptions and preparing deeds,” he says. “It might put some people to sleep but not me.”
An ALTA/NSPS land title survey – the kind Sharber studies regularly – documents property boundaries, improvements, easements and utility locations. Every survey tells a different story.
“The process is the same for every closing, whether it’s an acquisition or a loan,” he says. “But each deal comes with its own issues. Our job is to identify them and determine whether they’re risks the client is willing to take or significant enough to require a different approach.”
Sometimes the survey reveals gaps between parcels that formed decades ago through poorly documented deeds. Sometimes driveways weave along boundary lines without the benefit of recorded easements. In one instance, he recalls, a property had been sitting with a technical defect for decades.
“The lawyer in me wants to make things perfect. I see an error and I want to fix it,” he says. “But sometimes going through all the steps to correct something would create a bigger mess.”
Much of Sharber’s work centers on negotiating title insurance, determining what will be covered if a claim arises. He rarely sees disputes reach litigation. Instead, he helps clients assess risk before problems develop.
“Ultimately, the decision belongs to the client,” he says. “Our role is simply to lay out what we see.”
Sharber handles a mix of local and national work – roughly 60% national, 40% local. Some clients operate real estate portfolios across the country. Others run businesses unrelated to property and only occasionally need guidance.
Whatever the nature of the transaction, Sharber relishes the mechanics of a closing – the checklist, the documents and the moment when agreement is reached and the deal comes together.
“It can be a big relief when a closing finally happens, especially when it’s been all-consuming and building for a while,” he says. “But it can also be exhausting to wake up the next morning and find yourself at the beginning of another one.”
Carrying the worry
If real estate law is about identifying risk, Sharber acknowledges that the mindset can follow him home.
“Attorneys worry about everything,” he says with a laugh. “Absorbing our clients’ concerns is part of the job. The lawyers who do it well are the ones who take that responsibility seriously.”
The hardest part of his job, he says, is managing that constant undercurrent of concern.
“I carry that worry with me everywhere,” he says. “I’ll bring work home, and my wife will look at me at the dinner table and say, ‘Snap out of it – you’re not here right now.’ I’m still thinking about something from work.”
To clear his head, he runs.
A former cross-country runner at Baylor School and later at Washington and Lee, Sharber still turns to the road when he needs perspective.
“A good run can clear my head,” he says.
On weekends, he and his family often visit Reflection Riding, a nonprofit nature preserve in Chattanooga. He enjoys spending time in the outdoors, he says, even if he didn’t grow up immersed in it.
“It’s an important part of my in-laws’ lives – one I’ve come to appreciate.”
At home, his work takes on a different shape in the eyes of his two children. When he gave his 4-year-old daughter a cart filled with craft materials for Christmas, it reinforced her impression of what he does for a living.
“She’ll ask, ‘Daddy, are you going to go cut papers?’” he smiles. “She pictures me sitting in my office using scissors on the surveys.”
Rooted in community
Though his practice spans the country, Sharber remains deeply connected to Chattanooga. One avenue for that connection is the Compassion Community Care Center, a nonprofit working to address barriers that prevent low-income cancer patients from accessing transportation, child care, food insecurity and other services.
He became involved as the real estate lawyer helping with the acquisition of a campus at the intersection of Brainerd and Germantown roads.
“We want to create a campus of like-minded nonprofits all working toward the same mission,” he says.
Growing up, he watched his parents serve on boards and engage in community leadership. That example left a mark.
“I realized that being a lawyer could position you to serve in those roles and make a meaningful impact,” he says.
Now, as a newly minted member of Miller & Martin, he occupies both a literal and figurative middle space – between floors and between generations.
His father practices on the seventh floor. Sharber works on the 10th. They have separate practices and separate clients. Yet they share weekly lunches and regular conversations.
“A lot of people couldn’t work with their parents, but for me it’s been a real gift,” he says. “It’s been good for our relationship.”
Shaber is candid about the advantage of growing up in a legal family.
“In a lot of ways, I had a leg up just by being Hugh and Virginia Anne Sharber’s son,” he says. “But that motivated me to earn my place and to make sure people trust me for who I am.”
The desire to earn trust is, in many ways, the through line of Sharber’s career. From a Senate mail room to a law school classroom, and from a junior associate reviewing surveys to a member entrusted with partnership responsibilities, the work has always been about taking on someone else’s worry and helping carry it to resolution.
For this dirt lawyer, the ground might shift and the lines might change, but the principles beneath it remain steady – careful analysis, clear-eyed judgment and the trust placed in him to get it right.