Conversations
Harry Lightsey, Jay Courie, and Jeff Thordahl of McAngus Goudelock & Courie LLC
MidlandsBiz:
Most recently you were in Columbia as the state president of BellSouth. What have been doing since then?
Harry Lightsey:
Following the merger of BellSouth and AT&T, I moved to Atlanta to serve as president of the Southeast region. I retired a year ago when corporate AT&T decided to eliminate all regions within the company. Since then I have been mostly decompressing from the 26 year corporate grind, but also keeping my ear to the ground for a new opportunity. At 53 years of age, I felt I was not quite ready to play golf every day.
MidlandsBiz:
What does it feel like to be back in Columbia?
Harry Lightsey:
It's great to be back! Columbia is my home and my family has deep roots here. I grew up in Columbia, attended Dreher High School and received my law degree at the University of South Carolina. My father was also deeply involved in this community as a former Dean of the USC Law School. I spent 26 years working for BellSouth, first as in house counsel and then as a manager. As President of BellSouth for South Carolina, I developed close ties to the community through my tenure on numerous boards and associations as well as many great friendships.
More than anything, I'm excited about this new opportunity at a great company, heading up the Business Practice Group at McAngus, Goudelock & Courie (MG&C).
MidlandsBiz:
Jay, why did you approach Harry about the Business Practice Group?
Jay Courie:
I had known Harry for a long time and had served on boards with him. When I heard that he was looking to do something after AT&T, I decided to at least open a dialogue with him about joining our firm. Culture means everything at our firm and we have always prided ourselves on hiring people who are a good fit in our organization. Harry shares the same values and work ethic as us. I admire his business acumen and knew that he was the ideal person to lead this business unit.
MidlandsBiz:
Harry, why a law firm and not another company? Why MG&C?
Harry Lightsey:
When I first graduated in 1981, I had a brief stint at a law firm in Dallas, Texas, but that was a long time ago. It's like learning to breathe all over again, but that's a good thing. When you work twenty years in a specific industry, with one company, you certainly get to know the business and you develop some pretty engrained habits. I was looking to break out of that mold, to find an interesting challenge where I could grow and learn. The opportunity here is to build the Business Practices group at MG&C.
This economic downturn has affected companies in profound ways and forever changed the way in which we do business. Companies have been forced to restructure their costs in order to become more efficient. Strangely, in the past, the legal profession has largely been exempt from that pressure. The demand for legal services has historically been inelastic – a captive market where law firms were able to pass on rate increases to their clients without impacting the demand for their services.
I believe those days are over and there will be a dramatic change with how legal services are delivered. Clients will come to view law firms more as strategic vendors and demand that they provide more value at less expense. They will look for more certainty around the cost of legal services, for different types of fee structures, for firms to think beyond the 30 year old model of billable hours.
MG&C operates its business in a manner that is conducive to succeeding in this new business environment. Its core business is insurance defense, perhaps one of the most cost conscious areas of legal practice. In order to remain competitive, MG&C has been forced over the years to vigilantly control their costs, to set up wise compensation structures, to create innovative IT platforms, and to implement lean but effective administrative procedures. Most businesses, and law firms for that matter, do not know how to properly manage and allocate their costs, yet more than ever, companies must have a handle on this essential part of running a business in order not just to succeed, but to survive. MG&C has been doing this for years.
The more that I looked at this opportunity, the more I liked it. It became clear that if I were to go back and work for a law firm after all these years, that it would be at a well run law firm like this one, a firm that is well positioned to take advantage of the changes coming down the pipeline.
It was also important for to find a firm that had a tradition of giving back to the local community. That is something that was instilled in me by my father.
MidlandsBiz:
What is the business idea behind this decision?
Jay Courie:
We have built a strong insurance practice and are amongst the top firms in North and South Carolina in this area. As Harry alluded to, we have put together a sophisticated business model of systems and processes in the area of insurance defense. Could we take that business model from insurance and move it over to our Business Group? That became the strategic question as I started taking with Harry.
We established our Business Practice Group several years ago to better serve the needs of our clients in areas such as environmental, employment, trust and estate, and real estate law. We have talented lawyers working in these areas, but they are for all intents and purposes, working solo. It will be Harry's job to bring them all together into a cohesive group. We also see the possibility for great synergies between a growing Business Group and MG&C Consulting, our governmental affairs group.
MidlandsBiz:
What is MG&C Consulting? What is its structure?
Jay Courie:
As far as the structure is concerned, we were known mostly outside of South Carolina for our insurance defense work, so for branding and marketing purposes it made more sense to set up a separate company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the firm. We started the consulting group 8 years ago under the leadership of Jeff Thordahl.
Jeff Thordahl:
The consulting group offers professional and credible representation for our clients' interests at the state house. At some point, most businesses will have to deal directly with the government or a government agency over new laws and regulations that directly affect them.
But it is more than simply lobbying where all you do is spend time down at the statehouse trying to kill a bill or to get something passed. We seek to foster relationships and teach our clients to be truly effective at communicating with their legislative representatives.
MidlandsBiz:
What are the synergies that you see with the Business Group?
Harry Lightsey:
The next iteration of MG&C Consulting will be partnering with our Business Group to offer expanded services under one umbrella. To me, the ability to combine these two disciplines is a real plus for the firm and fits perfectly into that idea of providing extra value for our clients. We see an opportunity for expanded relationships with existing clients and also something that will attract new clients. With a foothold in both South and North Carolina, we hope that clients will see MG&C as a firm that can represent their interests in both Columbia and Raleigh.
MidlandsBiz:
Is governmental affairs a practice area that is growing at this point in time?
Jeff Thordahl:
There has been increased interest in the private sector over the past 18 months about where the stimulus dollars are flowing and how clients might be able to take advantage of them.
The private sector always needs to negotiate with the public sector – today more than ever. Everybody knows that there is certainly momentum building for increased government regulation in sectors such as health care and alternative energy. The coming together of our legal and consulting groups means that we will be uniquely positioned to assist our clients with sound advice in these areas.
MidlandsBiz:
Harry, you were involved in external affairs at AT&T. Do you think that experience will help you in your new role at MG&C?
Harry Lightsey:
I was hired at BellSouth the year that the government broke up the Bell System into many different parts which ushered in an era of dramatic and disruptive change in the telecommunications industry. We were constantly interacting with the government to understand how their decisions would impact our industry. Hopefully, my experience will have positive spillover into the new job.
Jay Courie:
Harry is a very humble guy. If I operated in a regulated industry, I'm thinking Harry Lightsey would be the first guy I would call for business and legal counsel.
Harry Lightsey:
Companies need to learn that one of the most powerful ways that they can interact with government is through their PAC (political action committee). Employers need to motivate their employees to understand the importance of being involved politically. Decisions made in Columbia, Raleigh, and Washington have a direct impact on a business's bottom line, and therefore a direct impact on hiring and firing. A company that organizes its employees at the grassroots level will have a much bigger chance to influence on policy decisions than one that doesn't. The power is in the numbers.
MidlandsBiz:
Are their specific new practices areas that you are looking to add to the Business Group?
Harry Lightsey:
Jay has done a fantastic job growing the firm and has proven that he is willing to take business risks. But those risks have always been calculated ones based on responding to the market, not trying to guess what services are needed.
MidlandsBiz:
Will you hire in new practice areas?
Jay Courie:
Knowing that you can't be all things to all people, if a particular need arises, we may look to hire in that area – if it is a good fit for the firm and if we can offer superior service to our clients. Coming out of this recession, there may be talented lawyers looking for a change, or perhaps have had change thrust upon them. Some law firms in the larger cities such as Atlanta have suffered huge dislocations and layoffs because of this recession. Joining a conservatively managed, growing law firm might be an attractive option.
MidlandsBiz:
Where do you se the Business Practice Group in five years?
Harry Lightsey:
We see that there is an opportunity for the Business Practice Group to become a bigger percentage of the firm's revenue. I am intrigued by the unique set of challenges and opportunities that come with this new job, but we are not going into this with a five year goal of achieving a certain level of sales or profitability. We see this more as setting up a solid business structure that will put us in a position to better serve our clients. If we have done that over the next five years, then we will be successful.
