Legal Blog

He was just another young lawyer in a small firm in a small, tough, mountain town.  At least, that's the way it started.

John W. Davis was a lawyer who rose from obscurity and his small town roots in Clarksburg, West Virginia, to be the Solicitor General of the United States, a Democratic nominee for president of the United States, an ambassador to the Court of St. James's, and, at one time, the lawyer who had argued more cases in the Supreme Court of the United States than nearly any lawyer in history.  The firm he built in New York 70 years ago, Davis Polk, still bears his name.

One might think a lawyer of this success must have had a brilliant mind.  But actually, he did not.  The lawyers he defeated were often the most brilliant lawyers of his generation, but he bested them by more predictive, if pedestrian, values: hard work, a commitment to clarity, brevity (clarity's first cousin), close reasoning, and a respect for all people.  He had learned one of life's greatest treasures which people of intelligence and strong pedigree sometimes overlook:  you have a lot more success in life if people like you.

As a fierce advocate, one would think he was a man of fierce emotion and that he could ignite the passion of those in the audience whom he sought to sway.  But his passion was of another kind.

In the rough and tumble days around the turn of the 20th Century, Clarksburg, West Virginia, was a burgeoning industrial center of coal, oil, and gas interests.  Passions often flew, and John W. Davis was one who let them fly.  He was once held in contempt for striking his opponent in court.  On another occasion, he threw an ink well at his opposition.

Davis learned very early in his career that he was not going to succeed as he hoped if he did not learn to control his emotions.  His work ethic, personal charm, attention to detail, and advocacy skills - a considerable skill set for any lawyer - were compromised by this weakness. 

In time, Davis learned to curb his outward, emotional passion, and he became a lawyer of dispassionate focus.  But it took great personal discipline.  In a sweet irony, it became his abiding strength that he kept his head while others around him lost theirs, to borrow Kipling's happy phrase.

"The best way to predict your future is to create it", said another backwoods lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, who rose from obscurity because of his similar commitment to dispassionate, clear, concise, and labor intensive argument.

The distance between a hard-fighting rural practice in Clarksburg, West Virginia, to the boardrooms that controlled the economic power of the nation, was not as great as one might think.  And revealingly, the journey came not through the doorways of elite Ivy League schools, entrenched wealth, or superior intellect, but through the doorways of those old fashioned values we learned from our parents and grandparents, including one's disciplined shoring up of a compromising weakness.  In the close hand-to-hand combat among the nation's most elite leadership in the turmoil of the Great Depression, where emotions often ran high, it was the self-disciplined and now even tempered John W. Davis who beat the demon temper at its own game, who would dispel the hard emotions in the room with the gentle word.  He became the master of his age.

In a very real sense he created his future, as Abraham Lincoln predicted a lawyer could do, by shoring up his greatest weakness, which really allowed his considerable strengths to flourish fully, trumping more often than not the intellectual brilliance of others.

What I've learned about life on the way to the courthouse is this: the best way to achieve success in life is to create your own way.  When you face your most compromising weakness honestly and you shore it up adequately, your strengths, more defining than you realize, can literally change the trajectory of your career.

A lesson we can learn from a lawyer who started out on the bottom rung, much like you and me.

R. Michael Wells

** Those who view change in life as inevitable, and who remain open to the belief that changes would be positive, were 35% more likely to be satisfied with their lives than those who did not.  Minetti 1997. **

Are you making your New Year's resolutions?  If you are, put at the top of the list learning how to say "no".  For an interesting perspective on saying "no", read Mike Wells' piece on "The Fine Art of Saying No", which you can access by clicking here.  This piece will air on our local National Public Radio affiliate WFDD, 88.5 FM, in the near future. 

The North Carolina Bar Association has written a number of free and easy to ready pamphlets that address common legal questions.  One of our attorneys, Mike Wells, recently wrote an article about all of those pamphlets.  Click here to access the November 2010 column.  The column references the Bar Association web site where you can download the pamphlets for free.

Best Health is an organization associated with the North Carolina Baptist Medical Center.  Best Health is located inside Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem.  Each month Best Health holds a free session on living wills and health care powers of attorney.  At these free sessions you learn about these documents, and the staff at Best Health will assist you with getting these documents executed (signed and notarized) on site without charge.  Preregistration is required.  Please call (336) 713-2378, or visit www.besthealth.com, for more information.

Mike Wells, an attorney with the Wells Jenkins law firm, gives free presentations for Best Health on a variety of legal topics.  Check out the calendar at Best Health for upcoming talks!

Here are some of the changes that affect you

1. Starting right away, there is a ban on lifetime dollar living on coverage, and policies issued generally can not be canceled (rescinded) except in cases of fraud.
2. Effective immediately, families are allowed to keep their children on employer run insurance programs until a child turns 26 or obtains their own coverage.
3. One of the most talked about provisions, which is also effective immediately, provides that insurance companies will not be allowed to deny coverage to children due to pre-existing medical conditions.

Major changes

1. The law enacts a payroll tax for single people earning more than $200,000 and families that earn more than $250,000.  Owners of small businesses are exempt.
2. For this year, and the next four years, small businesses with 10 or fewer full-time employees earning less than $25,000 a year on average will be eligible for a tax credit of 35% of health insurance costs.  The company must provide coverage for at least half the premium cost for employees and must offer a group policy.  Companies with between 11 and 25 workers and who have an average wage of up to $50,000 are eligible for partial credits.
3. The Medicare prescription drug "donut hole" will be closed.

Changes coming in 2011 as a result of the Health Care Reform Bill

1. A new benefit plan to be known as a Simple Cafeteria Plan will be established so that small businesses can more easily provide benefits to their employees.
2. Employers will have to start reporting the value of employees' health care benefits on their W-2 forms.

Some of the changes that will occur in 2014 as a result of the Health Care Reform Bill

1. Health insurance companies will no longer be able to set rates or exclude coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and can vary premiums only by geographic location, age, family size, and tobacco use.
2. Individuals who are not covered by an employer must acquire health care coverage either through purchasing a plan for themselves or carry Medicare or Medicaid.  Individuals who do not carry health care coverage will be fined by the Internal Revenue Service at $95 or 1% of the individual's income.  The penalty is set to rise to nearly $700 in 2016.
3. Businesses with more than 50 employees will be required to either offer health care coverage or pay a penalty of $2,000 a year per full-time worker.  The coverage offered will also have to meet minimum benefits - covering both 60% of employee health costs overall and a specific set of services - or employers will face additional penalties.
4. Each state will need to create Small Business Health Options Programs which will allow for purchasing pools for small businesses.
5. The government will begin providing tax credits to help low income and self-employed individuals pay for health insurance premiums.  There will be a sliding scale for households.
6. Businesses with more than 50 employees must offer insurance or pay a penalty of $2,000 per employee after the first 30 employees.

These are some changes to our health care costs and operations as a result of the 2010 Health Care Reform Bill.  Hopefully these few pieces will help you to understand its full reach.

Setting up a business?  One of our partners, Leon Porter, practices in the areas of business, corporate, employment, intellectual property, and franchising law. 

Leon earned his BA in Economics with Honors from UNC-Chapel Hill, and graduated Cum Laude from the Wake Forest University School of Law.  He is licensed to practice law in the North Carolina and Federal District Court of the Middle, Western, and Eastern Districts of North Carolina.

We provide advice on all matters relating to the formation and operation of all types of business entities, including sole proprietorships, corporations (both S corporations and C corporations), limited liability companies (LLCs), and partnerships.

Did you know that if you wait until you are 67 or 70 years old to receive your Social Security benefits you can receive much higher payments?  You can start receiving your benefits at age 62, but it is generally well worth the wait to start receiving benefits at a later date.

Another little known fact: A former spouse may be eligible for benefits if the marriage lasted 10 years or more.  A divorced spouse must be at least 62 years old and unmarried.  But the amount of benefits a former spouse claims has no effect on the benefits their current spouse can receive.

If you have questions, check with your local Social Security Administration office.