Blair Durham

Don’t look for change up on the 17th floor of Parkway Towers, where Blair Durham is determined to keep his pop’s legacy thriving long into the future.

While his dad, founder of Bart Durham Injury Law, does sometimes mull changing the name of his firm to simply “Durham Injury Law” to allow for Blair to become the face of the firm – “I‘m 80, or at least I will be in March. I’m only going to live five more years, maybe, so it’s time to get Blair and his name out there,” says the elder Durham – the son says “no way.”

“I don’t have any plans to change the name,” says the 44-year-old father of two. “He’s spent his adult life branding the firm in that name.” He notes that there are plenty of law firms named for senior partners who are no longer with the firm or who are deceased.

So even if and when his dad either actually retires to the beach full-time or presents his case at the Pearly Gates, Bart Durham Injury Law will remain.

“We’ve built up so much brand-name loyalty,” says the younger Durham, who has become an increasing presence in the firm’s jousting at windmills for the little guy commercials in recent years.

“When I go out, I get recognized at a lot of places. If I’m with my dad, there is no one that doesn’t recognize him. He’s been around here and active so long and he knows everybody,” says Blair Durham. “I feel like I’m with Paul McCartney when I’m with my dad.”

While the elder Durham is cuddlier than a Marine drill instructor, it is the latter who helped Blair find his way into the long shadow of his father.

“I’d goofed off at Alabama for about 4½ years,” he says, noting that he had not been known for academic prowess during that time.

“So my Dad and I traveled to Australia (during Christmas break). When we got back, he steered me in the right direction to get some discipline in my life. He steered me to the Marine Corps.”

After training at Parris Island, the younger Durham was dispatched to the Northwest. “I guarded nuclear missiles outside of Seattle at a Navy base,” he says.

“I learned what you could do if you were motivated to it,” he says. “After the Marines, school and even law school was easy.”

He finished up his bachelor’s studies at Belmont and then attended law school at Pepperdine, in Malibu, California. “My dad didn’t have a house out there then, but I think with me going out there, he grew very fond of it, as he’d come to see me.”

Now his dad spends six months of the year out at the beach house, calling in every day to check in at the firm. The elder Durham does frequent the office to keep his finger on the firm’s pulse when he is in town, although he has handed off most daily duties to Blair.

“I have been managing my dad’s firm for six years,” the younger Durham says. His role is to handle the day-to-day operations, and “I make the decisions about litigation, where a case needs to go, trials, that type of thing. I do most of it.”

He’s quick to point out he regards his father as “a genius” for the way he’s revolutionized injury law cases.

“He still manages every bit of our business, every financial decision that’s been made, and he still definitely controls all the marketing and oversees the litigation.”

In the latter role the elder Durham is something of a traffic cop, helping decide which cases the firm will take “and where we send cases we’re not going to handle.”

“I do the daily grunt work of managing the litigation part,” says Blair, adding that pop “has still got it mentally. He’s about to be 80, but mentally he’s very much with it.”

Blair, whose first commercial with dad was on 9/11 – which, of course, is impossible to forget – admits that the firm’s advertising philosophy is slightly changing its focus to get the younger Durham, who handles most of the settlement or trial work, more exposure.

One current commercial has Blair offering up hope to a client on the Seigenthaler Bridge. Bart isn’t in that one at all.

“There is some intent for me to be featured more in commercials. He’s about to turn 80, but I think he’ll still be working ‘til he’s dead,” says the son, saying that it always does his dad’s spirits good to be in the legal environment with the rest of the firm.

“I hope he stays until he just doesn’t want to come in.”

The son actually operates his own Law Office of Blair Durham from his headquarters at Bart Durham Injury Law, and he handles cases that “don’t quite fit into Dad’s system.”

“My dad is a genius. He has a very good system to handle straightforward car wreck cases quickly and efficiently and to the best interests of our clients.” The younger lawyer takes on cases that don’t quite fit that mold.

“If there are some wrinkles in there, it may be more appropriate for me to take them,” he says.

But, he insists, his dad’s system is the best there is on cases that fit into his system.

“Quite frankly, I don’t think what we do is rocket science, but it’s not super easy. You have to be enough of a people person to meet people, and you have to be intellectually ready to do the work.”

His dad’s system is well-polished and streamlined from years of experience.

“Through the years we have refined the process of getting from ‘A’ to ‘B’ in the way that’s best for our clients and gets them their money the quickest of any attorney out there,” he says.

“We’ve kept the things that have worked and tweaked the way that we handle cases from start to finish unlike any firm out there.”

Pop’s genius is not just shown off in the courtroom and settlement table by Blair and the other three lawyers (plus Bart) that are part of the 20-person staff. It also is displayed in his personnel decisions.

“Dad has tried to identify the superstar (for any aspect of the firm) and paid them competitively, so they’ll stay. He is great at recognizing human capital and taking care of it.”

Marketing director Pam Wheeler backs this up by saying that each employee is allowed 30 minutes of paid “Bart time” daily to work out in the office gym. And the elder Durham is good about providing freshly-squeezed juice to refresh the troops during the day.

One thing the younger Durham wouldn’t mind seeing go away are the commercials. But in the same breath, he allows that will never happen.

“I’m not really into doing the commercials, because you lose your anonymity, but it’s part of our business and it works. So I’m not going to change the system that works. If it stops working, we’ll change something.”

Like his father, Blair does not “care about people making fun of us for something we do (in a commercial) that may be a little cheesy.”

He knows that “cheese” draws clients in the door at Bart Durham Injury Law rather than some firm that is more “stuffy” in its approach.

“The commercials get people who would be intimidated by the legal system to pick up the phone and call,” says Blair.

And since he has spent his adult life working with his father, he has a unique perspective on the man who has made a comfortable living by vowing to get justice for the little guy in commercials that are staged for that demographic.

“I’ve always admired him. He’s a genius, his system was genius. He’s a good human being and he really cares about people in general,” he says. “He’s always been fun to be around…He’s a literally brilliant, funny, fun-loving, big-hearted, temperamental softie.”

And those are some characteristics that the younger man hopes will be used to describe him after that “big softie” is gone and he becomes “the people’s lawyer.”