Attorney Kelly Etchells’ days as a carefree associate at Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel are over (she calls this phase of her career her “worker bee years”) and she is now a shareholder of the firm.
Etchells, 34, knows this new chapter in her practice comes with an uptick in responsibility and expectations – but she says Chambliss has been preparing her for this moment since she joined the firm in 2017.
“When you become a shareholder, you’re expected to begin making connections and forming relationships with potential clients,” she says. “But you’re not left alone to fend for yourself. You still enjoy many layers of support from the senior attorneys at the firm.”
A commercial litigator, Etchells says the informal mentorship she’s received from the veteran practitioners at Chambliss have guided her over the hills and through the valleys of her “worker bee” years and helped her to develop the skills that have brought her to this point in her career.
For Etchells, one of the high points of practicing the law has been the opportunity to learn about new businesses.
“My work involves business dispute cases, commercial contract disputes – it runs the gamut. In the process of learning about a case and getting to know our client, I have to become familiar with our client’s business,” Etchells explains. “This exposes me to all sorts of new information. We have food manufacturing clients, clients in the construction industry – it’s all over the place.
“And to serve a client well and be the best advocate I can be, I have to understand the nitty gritty of what the client does day in and day out. My favorite part of my practice is reaching the point where I understand and can anticipate what the client wants.”
Etchells says the most challenging aspect of her practice involves reassuring a client who’s anxious about the outcome of a case.
“You can tell the client what to expect based on what the law says and how you believe things might go, but if a ruling is up to a judge, then you can’t give them an answer with 100% certainty,” she notes. “No case comes with a crystal ball, so I have to sit with them in their uncertainty. And then after the judge makes the ruling, it’s my job to give the client the best advice and course of action I can.”
Etchells was drawn to the law by watching an attorney do these very things. A native of Warner Robins, Georgia, she grew up running track and cross-country, making good grades and interning for a local lawyer.
While watching the attorney practice, Etchells says she came to believe she’d be well-suited for the work, too.
“I watched him day in and day out, and saw how the city could turn to him when it had an issue, and he either had an answer or was able to figure one out,” Etchells remembers. “I thought, ‘I could do that.’ I felt like it aligned with my ability to look at a problem and solve it.”
Etchells completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia in 2010 and then received her juris doctor at the University of Georgia School of Law in 2013.
While in law school, her professors encouraged her to do a clerkship after she graduated. Heeding their advice, she spent two years clerking for federal judge Marcia Morales Howard in Jacksonville, Florida.
She says the experience was invaluable.
“I felt like it was one of those now-or-never things – spend two years of my life working hard but also developing a close relationship with a judge. And I learned how to write and be a good lawyer while I was there.”
After completing her clerkship, Etchells moved with her husband to Atlanta, where he was in medical school, and did products liability defense at the law firm of Alston & Bird.
When her husband was assigned to Erlanger for his emergency medicine residency, she reached out to everyone she knew who had a connection to the Chattanooga legal market. Time and again, the people the contacted suggested she get in touch with the people at Chambliss.
These people were happy to speak with her – all of them, she jokes.
“I was in a big conference room, and I think nearly every attorney in the litigation section was there,” she laughs. “Fortunately, everyone was nice and welcoming and they had a space for me.”
Etchells and her husband, Dr. Chris Etchells, are pleased with their new hometown, even if they’re too busy to enjoy it. When they do have a day off together, they often spend part of it at Home Depot and the rest of it at their North Chattanooga home, working on a renovation or repair project.
Etchells says she and her husband are fortunate to have landed where they did, as they became part of a small cluster of neighbors who are young and have children and were able to weather the pandemic together. “We have a real little community here,” Etchells says.
Etchells is also part of a group of younger attorneys at Chambliss who will be taking the mentorship they received and the responsibilities they have inherited and shape the future of the 135-year-old firm.
“The older guard wants us to forge our own path. They’re always saying, ‘This will be your firm someday, so make it what you want it to be,’” Etchells says. “It’s going to be a challenge, but that’s how you grow.”