Top Lawyers: Glenn Hendrix of Arnall Golden Gregory Law Firm On The 5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law

An Interview With Chere Estrin

Notwithstanding the foregoing point, you have to be able to let things go once the matter is over. Not every case will go your way. If you can’t handle a loss, you’ll be too risk averse to fight the fights your clients need and want you to fight. You learn from your mistakes, but like a pitcher who blows a save to lose a baseball game, you have to be able to move on.

The legal field is known to be extremely competitive. Lawyers are often smart, ambitious, and highly educated. That being said, what does it take to stand out and become a “Top Lawyer” in your specific field of law? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law”, we are talking to top lawyers who share what it takes to excel and stand out in your industry.

As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Glenn Hendrix.

Glenn Hendrix is the Chairman of the law firm Arnall Golden Gregory in Atlanta. Much of his law practice involves representing companies in government investigations and federal False Claims Act cases. Glenn also handles a range of cross-border business disputes, and often serves as an arbitrator. The Global Arbitration Review cites peer feedback in describing Glenn as “determined, efficient and effective; the chairperson you wish to have.”

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit more. What is the “backstory” that brought you to this particular career path in Law? Did you want to be an attorney “when you grew up”?

I never really aspired to become an attorney. I originally wanted to work at the State Department as a foreign service officer. They turned me down, so I was left wondering what to do with my liberal arts degree. I went to law school as a Plan B. I surprised myself by really loving law school, and as it turned out, I’ve been able to work with the State Department from time to time as a private sector advisor on various projects.

Can you tell us a bit about the nature of your practice and what you focus on?

I’m a litigator with two primary areas of focus: defending companies in False Claims Act cases brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and international arbitration. I started out as a general litigator, and, early on some of my cases were healthcare-related, which evolved into the False Claims Act practice. I also worked on a series of cases referred by a law school classmate that involved international freight forwarders. That evolved into an international arbitration practice. Instead of giving up one practice area for the other, I kept both going. The variety keeps things interesting.

You are a successful attorney. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? What unique qualities do you have that others may not? Can you please share a story or example for each?

• Being able to communicate is crucial. I was already 25 years old when I started law school. Before that, I had worked at Sea World as a tour guide and later in the National Park Service, giving tours several times a day in a variety of settings, such as nature preserves and historical forts. I was also a high school debater. By the time I got to law school, I had put in a few thousand hours standing in front of strangers trying to connect, tell a story, and impart information in a way that engages the audience. That’s ultimately what you’re trying to do as an advocate. It didn’t come naturally to me because I’m basically an introvert. It’s a learned skill and behavior.
• Later, some of my most important lessons came, oddly enough, from coaching my sons’ and grandson’s baseball teams. Coaching is fundamentally about communication. I also happened upon H.A. Dorfman’s The Mental ABC’s of Pitching. That book framed how I mentally approach oral advocacy. Just as a pitcher must be focused in the moment on executing his next pitch — blocking out whatever else has already happened in the game, his ego, and anxieties about the stakes of the outcome (for him personally and the team) — once an advocate starts speaking, he or she must be centered in the moment and focused solely on executing their “pitch.” As Dorfman says, “when the pitcher stands on the rubber, … his head should be clear of all thoughts but three, pitch selection, location and target.” If any other intrusive thoughts enter his head, he should step back off the rubber and clear his head of extraneous thoughts. When you’re standing in front of a judge or jury, it’s easy to worry about whether they “like” me or about the terrible things that might happen to my client if I lose, etc. When those thoughts intrude, I “step off the rubber,” so to speak, and remind myself that it’s not about me and refocus on the pitch. I reread portions of that book before going into any big hearing or trial.
• Empathy is also important. You must put yourself in the shoes of other people to sway them. It doesn’t matter if I find my own argument persuasive. Again, it’s not about me. The argument must be persuasive to whomever you are talking to. Whether in a negotiation or an argument, seeing things through the point of view of others is critical.
• Curiosity is also critical. Curiosity has allowed my practice to evolve over time. Being curious about your clients’ business, their industries and the challenges they face is crucial for practice development and building relationships.

Do you think you have had luck in your success? Can you explain what you mean?

I’ve had a lot of luck. I was lucky that I went to law school. It was my Plan B, but I think it turned out better for me than my Plan A would have. I was fortunate to find my way into healthcare litigation, which is now a mature area of law, but when I started, it was still developing. A senior partner in the firm needed help in that area, so I saw an opportunity and grabbed it.

Almost 25 years ago, I won a lawsuit against the Department of Justice for a relatively small Georgia company that involved Medicare reimbursement for respiratory therapy in nursing homes. That case got the attention of a much larger, national public company that hired me because they had a similar dispute. They turned into a multimillion-dollar client that I still represent today. If I hadn’t had success with the first case, I wouldn’t have come to the attention of the national company. I learned later that the in-house attorney who hired me essentially had to win over others in the organization because it was a “bet-the-company” case, and they wanted to hire a big D.C. or New York firm — a known quantity. He convinced them they needed to hire someone who had actually won one of these cases. I was lucky that someone I didn’t even know was an ally inside his organization and was willing to give me a chance. He risked his internal reputation to go to bat for me. Fortunately, AGG is a more recognized brand today than it was back then.

Do you think where you went to school has any bearing on your success? How important is it for a lawyer to go to a top-tier school?

My undergraduate education had a huge bearing on my success. I attended a small liberal arts school called New College in Sarasota. It was founded on experimental academic principles in the 60s, basically a hippy school at the time it started. You write a lot of papers, and instead of grades, you receive detailed, several-page narrative evaluations at the completion of each course critiquing your work. Unusual for obtaining an undergraduate degree, we had to write a graduate school quality thesis. The narrative evaluations were brutally honest and picked apart your writing. They taught me how to write.

As far as law school, a top-tier school helps land your first job. That, in turn, affects some of the opportunities you receive early in your career. But once you’ve been practicing for a while, it’s rare for someone to ask where you went to law school. I don’t think anyone particularly cares. I have no idea where any of the litigators opposing me went to law school. So, while the top-tier schools can give someone a head start, it doesn’t define your career. Many people go to top-tier law schools and are not successful; others come from lesser-tier law schools and succeed spectacularly.

Based on the lessons you have learned from your experience, if you could go back in time and speak to your twenty-year-old self, what would you say? Would you do anything differently?

When I look back, I might have worked in the park service a little longer. They were some of the best years of my life, but I was already two years behind my peers going to law school and wanted to get going.

This is not easy work. What is your primary motivation and drive behind the work that you do?

I get to solve problems. Every client who calls has a problem. If you have the Department of Justice knocking on your door, that’s a big problem. It’s validating when, out of all the lawyers in the world they could have picked to help, they pick you. It’s always a challenge, and it’s never dull.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

I recently served as an arbitrator in Moscow in a dispute between a Russian railroad company and a Turkish construction company about a railroad project in Libya that was disrupted by the Libyan civil war. There were Russian, Turkish and American lawyers in, and the other two arbitrators were Russian and Lithuanian. It was a lot of fun.

In my False Acts Claims practice, there are fascinating cases where the government is trying, in my view, to expand the definition of fraud. The government seeks to hold healthcare providers liable for what the government calls fraud but really amounts to differences of opinion over how clinical care is provided and how much care is needed. The government is pushing the envelope on that. Pushing back on where you draw the line between differences in clinical opinion versus what amounts to a fraudulent claim makes these exciting cases.

Finally, I’m part of a U.S. State Department delegation to The Hague that is negotiating a possible multilateral treaty on parallel litigation, where there are lawsuits pending between the same parties and same subject matter in different countries. It’s fascinating to have a front row seat while the sausage is being made, especially given the very different perspectives of the countries sitting at the table. I’m really impressed with the State Department lawyers who lead these delegations and do this work.

Where do you go from here? Where do you aim to be in the next chapter of your career?

I want to continue getting interesting arbitration assignments and win False Claims Act cases.

Without sharing anything confidential, can you please share your most successful “war story”? Can you share the funniest?

While not my most significant case, it’s one I’m proud of because I’m not sure what this company would have done without me. I represented a small Russian company that had obtained an arbitration award against an American company. I don’t usually take cases on a contingency, but they didn’t have much money, partly because they’d been so thoroughly shafted by the American company. They hadn’t been able to find an American law firm to help them, and a Russian lawyer I met at a conference sent them my way. The company’s executives, located in Siberia in a town called Barnaul, did not speak English, but because I speak enough Russian, I could handle the matter for them. I got the award enforced in a Seattle court where the American company was based and then got them to pay, even though they tried to hide their assets abroad. This case wasn’t my biggest success in dollar terms, but it made a huge difference to them.

Ok, fantastic. Let’s now shift to discussing some advice for aspiring lawyers. Do you work remotely? Onsite? Or Hybrid? What do you think will be the future of how law offices operate? What do you prefer? Can you please explain what you mean?

My preference is a hybrid model. There are certain things I find that I do better in the morning — mainly writing. I’m most productive when I can dedicate the entire morning to briefs, memos, emails and such until around noon. Then I head into the office. If I can help it, I always try to save my phone calls for the afternoon.

It’s important to have face time with colleagues, so I don’t believe a purely remote working environment is ideal. I do think people can still be efficient working remotely part of the time.

The future of law offices and how they are set up is something we are discussing internally right now. I think people will primarily come into the office to collaborate. And it’s going to mean different things for different people. I don’t have kids at home, so I can be at home and focus and get work done. But some of our younger lawyers work entirely in the office because there are fewer distractions. There is not a one-size-fits-all. The future law office has to accommodate people who want or need to be in the office all the time and others who only come in periodically.

How has the legal world changed since COVID? How do you think it might change in the near future? Can you explain what you mean?

The most significant change in my view is what we just talked about — it’s remote work, remote hearings. I have a hearing coming up in a Rhode Island court. In the past, I would fly in the day before, and I would return depending on available flights. Now, I can log in 20 minutes before the hearing; when it’s over, I can move on immediately to something else.

Conducting hearings, interviews, internal investigations, and arbitrations remotely is much more efficient. That may revert some, but it will never go back to what it was.

We often hear about the importance of networking and getting referrals. Is this still true today? Has the nature of networking changed or has its importance changed? Can you explain what you mean?

There’s no one way for lawyers to generate business, but I think the easiest way and the way I’ve been most successful is by becoming part of an industry. Industry niches form their own communities, and you want to become part of those communities. For example, suppose you represent home health agencies, or fintech companies, or whatever. If so, you should aspire to be a home health industry person or a fintech person who happens to be a lawyer, not just a lawyer who provides legal services to home health agencies or fintech companies. There’s a difference.

Industries are somewhat tribal. People within an industry have their own lingo, join the same trade associations, read the same newsletters, and go to the same trade shows and conferences. When they change jobs, they tend to go to other companies in the same sector. That’s a great opportunity to pick up business. When one of your client contacts leaves to join another company in the same space, they become your advocate at their new enterprise. You can build relationships with industry people by becoming involved in their trade associations, writing articles in trade publications, and hanging out at conferences and association meetings. When they approach you with an issue, you’re more likely to understand it because you know their business and their industry and can anticipate problems they will face. Curiosity will serve you well here. Once you achieve a certain level of trust — you become one of them. I’ve found that kind of engagement to yield the highest ROI.

Based on your experience, how can attorneys effectively leverage social media to build their practice?

This is something I don’t do at all, although I think it’s very effective. I know people who have used LinkedIn to build their brands and expand their networks. I just haven’t done it.

Excellent. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law?” Please share a story or an example for each.

These aren’t necessarily the 5 things everybody needs, but they’re the 5 for me.

1. Know your client’s business and industry. For False Claims Act cases, you must know the regulatory environment in which your clients live. That gives you a leg up. In these types of cases, the right approach usually shows the government portraying an issue as black and white when in reality, it’s usually quite gray. To do that, you have to have a pretty broad understanding of the various government guidance, how it has been issued, how it has evolved, and how some of it might be conflicting. You need to know where to look to find that information. We’ve had cases where the government would allege fraud because too much rehabilitation therapy was being provided to patients in nursing homes. As you can imagine, there are a lot of conflicting views on that. How much therapy is too much? You need to know where to go to find other sources within the government that would indicate that maybe they aren’t providing enough therapy. Or maybe the government is reading the standards wrong. Someone might be the best advocate in the world, but without that background they’re going to miss key arguments.
2. Not just knowing an industry but becoming a part of it is critical. You want to be a full-fledged member of your client’s “industry/tribe” as discussed earlier.
3. Having cases and clients you genuinely care about. If you’re not personally invested in the outcome, you should find another line of work.
4. Notwithstanding the foregoing point, you have to be able to let things go once the matter is over. Not every case will go your way. If you can’t handle a loss, you’ll be too risk averse to fight the fights your clients need and want you to fight. You learn from your mistakes, but like a pitcher who blows a save to lose a baseball game, you have to be able to move on.
5. Family support. My wife and I of 37 years have 5 kids. Neither she nor any of them know much about my cases or what I do day in and day out. I like it that way. My family is my refuge.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might see this. :-)

Ray Davies of the Kinks. I never get tired of listening to his songs.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!