Steve Barham | Leading with Integrity as the Legal Profession Changes

Elise Holtzman: Hi, everyone. It's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer’s Edge podcast. Welcome back for another episode. Law firm leadership is changing fast. New technology, new business models, new generational expectations. But for some firm leaders, the response to disruption isn't a new strategy. It's a deeper commitment to the values that made the profession worth entering in the first place. Today's guest reads voraciously, not just for entertainment, but to become a better lawyer, leader and human being. And he has a lot to say about what's worth preserving in the legal profession, even as everything around it shifts. In today's episode, we're going to talk about what it means to lead with integrity, when the pressure to compromise has never been greater.

Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms, since 2008. Each member of The Lawyer's Edge coaching team is a trained, certified and experienced professional coach and either a former practicing attorney, or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

My guest today, Steve Barham, is the president and managing shareholder of Chambliss Bahner & Stophel, a mid-sized law firm in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Steve has been with Chambliss for more than 20 years, building a litigation practice focused on complex healthcare and commercial disputes. But one of the things that sets him apart, as a firm leader, is the path he took to get there. Before becoming president in 2025, he served as the firm's General Counsel, advising on ethics, risk management and professional responsibility. That background gives him a distinctive lens on what it means to lead with integrity. He's also someone who I know reads voraciously. He always has a book to recommend. And he brings those ideas that he reads about directly into how he thinks about leadership, the profession and the people around him. He serves on the Board of Legal Aid of East Tennessee, has been appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court to the Board of Law Examiners, and helps build the Stophel Scholars Program, an endowment supporting exceptional students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He's a UVA law graduate, a familiar face at the Managing Partner Forum, where I spend some of my time and someone I'm genuinely glad to have on the show. Steve, welcome to The Lawyer's Edge.

Steve Barham: Thank you, Elise. I'm glad to be here.

Elise Holtzman: I'm thrilled to have you. So you and I have run into each other quite a few times over the past few years and we always have great conversations about what's going on, in the legal profession and what's going on for managing partners. So I'm curious about the role you had before being the managing partner of the firm, which was the firm's general counsel. That's kind of an unusual path to the top job. What was that like for you and what did that role teach you, about leadership, that maybe you couldn't have learned any other way?

Steve Barham: What I learned the most in that role came from working through conflicts with the different shareholders in the firm, being able to sit down and help resolve conflict issues that come up between shareholders, where one really wants to take on a new matter and the other is saying, it's really going to cause me problems and then helping diffuse that situation and get them to see what our rules of ethics require and allow and can't allow and when there's a room for compromise and when there's not. And then trying to help them move past that dispute as well, really put me in a good place to, one, know my partners a little better than maybe I would have otherwise. And then also just already understanding the need to take the time to help people get there themselves. We lawyers are a little headstrong at times and it's very hard for us to decide that maybe I'm not right and helping people work through that and bringing them along, is really an important skill that I developed in that role that has served me well so far in this new role.

Elise Holtzman: It's interesting, because as you point out, it's not just about the ethical rules. You're talking about client relationships, interpersonal relationships among shareholders. And those interpersonal relationships are the backbone of the firm.

Steve Barham: Absolutely. We don't have non-competes, right? So everybody's here, because they want to be here and you want to continue to grow that. And as a firm gets bigger and the world gets smaller, there's more and more conflicts and issues that come up and getting everybody to stay on the same page of, you know, It's not just about any one individual. It's about what's the good of the whole and how do we maximize everybody's practice and work together to advance the, the firms, how the firm is viewed in the state, the region and the country, in our different practice groups, is really a great challenge, but is one that I enjoy, trying to help lead everybody through.

Elise Holtzman: You mentioned a challenge that really does sound like a challenge to me. And as you said, you were trying to… when you were in those situations, you were trying to help them get to the right place, without you necessarily laying down the law. No pun intended. Right. So, you know, a little bit like King Solomon with the baby, I guess. And so, did you think that you've learned better negotiation skills as a result, or better leadership skills as a result? I mean, you mentioned that as being something that's helped you as managing partner.

Steve Barham: Yes, I think being able to help people feel heard. A lot of times people need to feel heard. They need to be able to kind of express their frustrations and talk things through. And then to sit down and say, I'm willing to take as much time as we need to work through the comments and the rules and everything else, so that we get to the first absolute can we do something, or can we not, what do the rules allow us. And then you step to the, all right maybe we can, if we can, how do we get there. And then how do we then take that back to the clients and what are the relationship risks at that, because there may be a conflict that is technically waivable, but you just know, because of the history and things you know about the potential client and the current client, or whatever the issue is, that it's going to be a touchy subject. And maybe it's one that's worthwhile going down that road and sometimes it's not. You know, I had one recently with a client that I'm personally working with, where we had to work through that and ultimately had to turn away work that would have been a nice piece of work that we could have done, but it wasn't… We weren't able to do it, from a relationship standpoint with the current client. You hate those and always try to avoid that. We're not in the business of turning away business, but sometimes you have to and everybody just has to recognize that.

Elise Holtzman: You became managing partner last year, at a moment in history, where midsize firms, smaller firms, are under real pressure. There's a lot of consolidation out there. There's new technology, client expectations are changing. What have you found, in the last year, as you've taken on this role, to be most surprising?

Steve Barham: I think the thing that's most surprising to me is that your mindset drives how you perceive everything. And by that, I am always looking at things as an opportunity, where is the opportunity? It may feel like a problem and a challenge, but there is opportunity in every challenge. And so if we focus on finding the opportunity, finding how we can take something that seems like a challenge and turn it into a positive. How do we convince the client that the midsize firm in a midsize town that's two and a half hours north of Atlanta and two and a half hours southeast of Nashville and has a better cost of living. So our rates may not be as bad as some other things. And really, where are those opportunities for us to grow? And instead of sort of being fearful, in a world of change and chaos, be opportunistic and have faith in each other. And the ability to kind of lock arms and say, hey, let's go, there's opportunity out there. Let's go find it and really advance, take us from where we are to where we want to be. And that's to grow and do great work for fantastic clients.

Elise Holtzman: I'm smiling right now, because this is one of the reasons, Steve, that I wanted to bring you on the podcast, because there is so much fear out there right now. And I think it's understandable. There's a lot of upheaval going on in the legal industry, you know, all the way to is AI going to replace lawyers, that sort of thing, right? So some existential grief and fear here. But you always do look at it from the side of opportunity. Even so, there are all of these changes happening. So what are some of the things that have been keeping you up at night, or you think will keep you up at night, in the foreseeable future?

Steve Barham: Yeah, you know, you always have in the back of your mind, you're worried just to worry about the economy. But I've got no control over that. And my grandmother gave me a little poem years and years ago, when I was a kid about not to worry about things that you can't have any control over. And so I think my biggest worry is just trying to keep people focused on what, where we should be focused and that is on providing great service to our clients and being relational. I think that the biggest change we're going to see is that those lawyers that can stay relational with their clients and really know their client's business and show their clients that they care on a personal level, are going to succeed. Those that struggle with that, it's going to be harder, because there are going to be changes. I told our summer associates a story, I said, how many of you have spent hours in the law library shepherdizing cases? And they looked at me like I was crazy, because nobody does that anymore. I said, when I was your age, 30 years ago, I spent most of my first couple of years of practicing law as a litigator, shepherdizing cases. By the time you got to the second half of the year, you were pulling out four different books that had different citations and then you'd go pull all the cases that were cited on there and it took forever. And that's what my timesheet was full of, was checking the continuing validity of such and such case for this principle. And now nobody puts any time into that, because it's already done. And I said that that is the evolution of the practice of law. AI is going to evolve the practice of law more, continued technology is going to evolve the practice of law. But what it won't do, is remove the lawyer as a trusted advisor for the clients that are looking at things. At least I don't think so. Maybe there's somebody out there that's going to feel comfortable just trusting their legal advice to a computer, but I think most folks, especially small business owners and a lot of the people that we find as our clients, they want you to be able to sit across the table, listen to them, evaluate their issues and give them good solid legal advice. And as long as we do that, I think we just continue to have great opportunities. There's so much good business going on right now and they can do that. When we have more and more regulations and various other things, they need good, solid advice.

Elise Holtzman: I love that you're talking to summer Associates about that, right? Because I don't recall ever hearing that, as a young lawyer, when I was practicing law. And Steve, you know it's something that I take very seriously. I think that this whole business is relationship-based and yes, there are other things going on, but without that, really, who are we? But I think it's something that is really important for the younger lawyers to be hearing, because we don't want to do the bait-and-switch with them, when they're seventh- and eighth-, ninth-year associates and say, oh, by the way, you know, you should have been developing relationships with people and you should have been developing nice relationships with your client and this is what drives business development and this is what drives trust and this is what drives longevity, in the profession. I do think it's funny that you mentioned shepherdizing cases, only because one of my daughters just graduated from law school. And I guess sometime last year, I said something to her about shepherdizing cases. And she said, what's shepherdizing? Because it's not even called that anymore. Right. They have… you know, it's…

Steve Barham: Right.

Elise Holtzman: It's just as you said, it's done for you. And, you know, it's in a corner of the app that you're on and it tells you what needs to be done. So I'm not surprised they looked at you as a little crooked, but it's a really important message.

Steve Barham: Well, and that was really the point I was trying to drive home to them, is that the only constant in any profession is change. And any attorney and I've got some wonderful mentors here that have been practicing a lot longer than I have. And it really shocked me, Elise, I did the math right before I was going to talk to the summer associates. And it was 30 years ago that I was a 1L summer clerk at a law firm that I ultimately started practicing at. And I started going, OK, who did that? Who do I align with based on my experience? And I was really disappointed. It was people that were much older than I think I am today.

Elise Holtzman: It is shocking, isn't it? Yeah.

Steve Barham: I started off my conversation with these summer clerks telling them that story. I said, I really, I came into it thinking I was going to be these guys, when I was a 1L, but I was actually, I was the… I'm actually the age of the guys that I had to call Mr. So-and-so and such, because, you know, they were of that really formal old-school mentality and took me a long time to get to call them by their first names.

Elise Holtzman: Right. Yeah, it's a strange feeling, but you know, where you are, because you are so thoughtful about these things, right? I think I love that you're a guide for them. And one of the things I know about you is that you do have this strong core of values. And yet, you're not afraid of change, right? You're embracing change, you see change as an opportunity. And I wonder if part of that, it's a little bit of a chicken and egg, because I know you do a lot of reading, as I mentioned, you always have a good book recommendation. And so you may be reading, because you're looking for all that good stuff, or you may be finding all that good stuff, because you're reading. Either way, I know that you read kind of widely and deliberately and not just legal material. You know, the books that you recommend have really typically nothing to do specifically with the law, but there's always some good advice there for us, as leaders and as lawyers and as business owners. So how did you start developing that habit and how does that show up in how you lead your firm and in other places?

Steve Barham: I think it started with just trying to realize that I know I don't have all the answers. And so the more I can get some help with that from other people that have been down the road, the better off I'm going to be, the better leader I'm going to have a chance to be. And I learned a lot of leadership techniques and such through the scouting organizations. I was a scout growing up, was an Eagle scout and I've been involved in the same troop that I was a kid in, as an adult leader for the last 25 or so years. And so been through a lot of the adult leadership programs, they put on for people and just really drives home this concept of servant leadership. And so I really believe heavily in being a servant leader, my job is to elevate everyone else in our organization, no matter where they are, I want to help them do their job to their very best. I want every one of our lawyers to have the career that they want and be as successful as they possibly could dream. And I tell them all that what I'm really, my goal is so that they get to a place, where when they hang it up, they look back and say, I had a career that I'm proud of and that I feel very grateful to have been able to do. And so how you do that is, you know, the devil's always in the detail. Right. But, I know, the one thing, I know is that I'm not smart enough to figure it all out on my own. And so, I listen to great podcasts like yours and others and get ideas from other people. And typically, the books I read are going to be on either, you know, business, how to run businesses and different business ideas, just leadership and life coaching in general. And then in this new role, I've started reading a lot more books on just legal business development and just general professional services, business development ideas and that sort of thing so that we make sure that we're doing things in the right way, that part of working and that sort of thing. So that tends to be a lot of what I read, but a lot of it just comes from wanting to make myself better, so that I can do my job to my best ability.

Elise Holtzman: Do you have one or two favorite books that you go back to over and over again, or that you like to recommend the most?

Steve Barham: The business development book that I've really enjoyed that I've probably read about three times now is the “Activator Advantage” that came out last fall. And I read it and then we did a book club here, where it was kind of the willing and I got our business development people involved and we had about 15, 16 lawyers that all just kind of got in. We just read a chapter and then get together and talk about it and that kind of stuff. And then I've kind of read it again, just looking for those nuggets and pieces of stuff. Again, a lot of it just drives into if you're intentional and you are giving so that your focus is on others as opposed to yourself. You know, a lot of good things are going to come. I just finished “The Meaning of Your Life” by Arthur Brooks, which was really good as well. And I heard him on a leadership podcast talk about this book. And it was where he was just talking about running into more and more people, who seem to just feel like something's missing from their life and they're trying to figure out how to get there and what it was. And I think I see that some too. So I really enjoyed reading his book and his thoughts on, you know, in his words, kind of left brain, right brain and how all of technology drives you into the left brain and a lot of your meaning and sort of the philosophy and love of art and some of the other things that really can drive meaning in our lives resides in the right side of your brain. And that was stuff that I didn't know, but found very interesting. And that's a new book that I just finished, but it's on my short list of recommendations to people.

Elise Holtzman: Where do you come up with the ideas for the books to read? Are you somebody who looks at lists that other people have put together? Are you getting recommendations from friends?

Steve Barham: It's coming from everywhere. Podcasts. It's coming from lists that I see, you know, different… If I talk to somebody, you know, at the managing partners forum and they throw a book title out there or something, I'm always jotting it down and going and getting it. I think I drive my wife crazy, because I send them to her, because she's my controller. She's like, no, Steve, you have four books on your nightstand that you haven't gotten to yet. We're not ordering any more. I say, okay, we'll put them in the, mark them where at least I don't forget about them. And then once I get down where I've read enough, I've cleared enough of them, then she'll let me order some more.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, that's funny. You've got to go through the procurement department to make sure that they're okay with what you're ordering. I like it.

Steve Barham: We all need a boss, right?

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, exactly. So one of the things that you've mentioned to me and I think is really important to talk about, especially in today's world, where everything is so busy and law is treated more like a business than ever before, which I support, but also could potentially create some challenges and things that we need to remember. You talk about maintaining law as an honorable profession. I'm even a few years further out of law school than you are. And so I know that when you and I first started, there was a lot more focus on the law as an honorable profession, perhaps, than there is now, because of what I talked about with law becoming more of a business than ever. And we've got marketing departments and we've got advisors and we've got PR. And there are all kinds of things that people are doing to try to maximize profit and all of that sort of thing. So maintaining law as an honorable profession, it kind of, that's a phrase that carries a lot of weight, kind of sounds heavy. It feels like it's under pressure from a lot of directions. What does it mean to you, in practice? And how do you think other law firm leaders can help in protecting it?

Steve Barham: It's probably a whole separate podcast, but to me, we as lawyers, have a tremendous obligation to our society. If the rule of law breaks down, then what's next, right? The rule of law is what allows us to have a civilized society. And if we can't act honorably, so that the people out in society have faith in the rule of law, then the rule of law will start to break down and people will start to say, oh, well, it's just a scam and it's just the rich man's world and all the things you hear. And so we have this moral obligation to maintain our practice and how we represent the law and the way things that we do and to lift up the law, as the way that we resolve disputes in our society. And if we can't do that honorably, then we will begin to see it get chipped away at more and more. And I think that ultimately leads to a much poorer society and is bad for just our country. And so, I don't know, that probably sounds really heavy, but realistically what it means is honoring our ethical obligations to the court and to our clients. It's one of the reasons that I serve on the board for Legal Aid of East Tennessee, because I think it's really important that we do pro bono work and that we support access to justice for people who can't afford it, but need legal help. If we give up on that for the sake of chasing, oh, I can make 10 extra dollars, if I don't do any pro bono work, or I can make 100,000 more dollars, because I don't do any pro bono work, we're putting ourselves way above our role as lawyers to help our society. And it's important that we remember that. And so we emphasize public service, we encourage our lawyers to get involved in nonprofits, to do pro bono work. And we're really proud of that commitment, not only to our practice and our firm and nobody here is not wanting to make a nice living, but we want to do that. But while we also serve our fellow man and give back.

Elise Holtzman: In addition to being on the Board of Legal Aid, I mentioned that you were appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court to the Board of Law Examiners and that you also helped build something called the Stophel Scholars Program, which supports exceptional students at the University of Tennessee.

Steve Barham: I guess so. Technically, I am an interviewer. I'm not on the board. I'm on a panel below the board for the law examiners. But in Tennessee, everybody that takes the bar has to have a personal interview. And I don't know if other states have that or not, but I usually end up conducting anywhere from 10, 8 to 12, 10 interviews, of people that have applied for the bar and come in. I enjoy it, because I get to meet all these folks from various different backgrounds and get to talk to them. Sometimes they're hard conversations, because we have to talk about issues in their application. Most of the time, it's just, hey, welcome to the Chattanooga Bar. I really encourage you to get involved in the Bar Association, the Young Lawyers Division is fantastic, it's the best way to get to know the other lawyers in town. And you're going to practice with them a long time, so I encourage you to get to know them, because once you have relationships with your fellow lawyers, it makes for practice in this community to be better.

Elise Holtzman: What I'm hearing you say is you're walking the talk. I mean, not only are you talking about, we need to maintain this profession as an honorable one, we need to stand for the rule of law, we need to work on behalf of those who can't afford legal counsel, but you're doing it. And you're not just doing it, but you're teaching it. And that's why I wanted to remind people what I said in the introduction was not only are you a managing partner, who's obviously talking to your people on a regular basis and, you know, starting with the summer associates. But, you know, talking to new lawyers as they enter the bar, helping with the scholars program. So, I don't know, to me, that's the takeaway, right? You can talk about this stuff all you want and there are lots of pundits out there and people who talk about these sorts of things, but I guess I would encourage people, based on what you're saying, to ask yourself the question, if I believe this stuff, am I doing something about it? And not everybody's going to be able to do as much as you do, Steve, or maybe they're not inclined to do as much as you do, but some of the things, you know, there are things out there that they can be doing.

Steve Barham: I like to call it walking the talk. We got to walk the talk. Everybody can talk the talk, but if you mean it, then you'll show it by doing it. That's how we know whether somebody means something or not, is we observe what they do. I try always to keep in mind that as the president of the firm, every associate is watching me. And if I say that it's important that you go to at least one of the days of service that we do through the local United Way and go and actually pick up a shovel and move some rocks around at the zoo, but I don't go, then they are like, yeah, he didn't mean that. Right. If I say, you need to serve on boards for nonprofits in our community, but I don't ever serve on one. Do I really mean that what I say is important. So, that… I really try to keep that in mind, because I think a leader shouldn't be asking people to do things they're not willing to do themselves.

Elise Holtzman: You obviously find a lot of meaning in the work that you're doing. How do you find meaning outside the law? And how do you think other people can do this? Because we know that that's one of the biggest concerns of the younger generation, right? Is that like their parents and perhaps their grandparents before them, they're going to wind up running themselves into the ground in the service of their job. So what does meaning outside the law look like for you?

Steve Barham: I give back, do a lot of work through church, help out at church as much as I can, various things. And then for me, it's the scouting program. I kind of have developed a niche of taking the scouts that have earned their life rank, which is just below Eagle. And what I call coaching, they call harassing. But just kind of helping them learn to just be self-aware that… a lot of them, they might, they feel like they've got a lot of time to get it done, but you know, it's like they have this 18th birthday and if they're not done before that, they lose out. And so I'm always kind of going like, you know, what, what are you working on? Are you working on anything? And then show me progress. And those are trying to teach them some self-discipline and teaching them that they've got to… that they only get there if they take themselves there, that we're willing to coach them, but not do it for them and those sorts of things. And so working with those young boys and now boys and girls to just learn the self-discipline that it takes to achieve that milestone, always my first question to them is like, do you want to be an Eagle Scout? If they say no, I say, well, let's talk about why. But if you, you know, if they say yes, then I say, okay, now you've identified a goal. Let's talk about how you get there and let's create a path and try to help them learn, you know, the old, you how do you eat an elephant, you know, one bite at a time, right, so break it down in small pieces so you're not overwhelmed and work through these things. I just get a lot of personal satisfaction out of getting to work with those young folks and things and it's really, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's just, I had some fantastic leaders, when I was a kid, that helped me learn and see things and develop. And so the way I can honor those men is by paying it forward. And it's the same thing in the practice of law. I have had the privilege of working under and with some incredible lawyers that poured so much into me that made me who I am today. And so the only, well, the best way I know to honor them and their investment in me, is to pay it forward to the next generation. And so that's kind of how I look at it.

Elise Holtzman: It seems to be summed up in one word, which is service, which I love to hear. And I think a lot of us need to be reminded of how important that is. So Steve, as we wrap up our time here together today, I want to ask you a question that I ask all of my guests at the end of the show. There's a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge, where experts sometimes forget that what is so obvious and natural to them, is not at all obvious to others. When it comes to leading a law firm and living a life with integrity and staying grounded in what matters most, what's a principle or piece of advice that may seem obvious to you, but you think is really important for others to hear?

Steve Barham: You have to know how to forgive yourself when you mess up. You are going to mess something up. Something's not going to go right. You're always going to, you can almost always look back and say, gosh, if I had thought of this or that, I could have done that a little better. And if you don't forgive yourself, then you can never get past it. And so not being your harsh, your own harshest critic is huge. The other thing I think is that it's a quote that I think about a lot is, and I think I've seen it attributed to Maya Angelou, but I'm not sure if that's correct or not, but it's like people may forget what you say and what you did, but they'll never forget how you make them feel. And so it's important that we make people feel valued and appreciated, no matter what the situation is, that if they feel like that they were valued and appreciated, then they're going to be much more comfortable with your leadership. And that takes time and relationship building and there's no shortcut to it.

Elise Holtzman: Yes, in a time where people are looking for a lot of shortcuts. That's a great message, Steve. So thank you so much for all of your words of wisdom and sharing your story with us. And thanks so much for being here.

Steve Barham: I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Elise Holtzman: Absolutely.

I also want to thank our listeners for tuning in today. If you enjoyed our episode, please subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action and make things happen. We'll see you next time.