Mary Elizabeth Gettins

The concept of Gettins’ Law was contrived over a happenstance business lunch. I introduced myself to a fellow attorney on a national American Bar Association listserv. We were both practicing attorneys, in the same area of law, and in the same city. We should meet.

Over lunch and a soda, we introduced ourselves. He promptly informed me, he was leaving private practice to take a job in-house with a local company. “Did I want to transition into private practice,” he inquired. My initial response was: “You should have asked before I ordered a soda, I would have ordered a beer.” Throughout my legal career, I had worked in-house for numerous national brands. Before that, I worked in the healthcare field. I had an educational background in psychology and law. I did not know anything about running a private law practice. I had never considered opening my own legal practice.

I took inventory of what I did know. I knew how business folks viewed law, how businesses operated from the inside, and I knew how to listen to business folks. Business folks, unlike me, don’t like legal. They don’t sit around and read legal cases, regulations, statutes. They don’t want to. I have to make it simple. Give them the need-to know information without the legal jargon, in their own vernacular.

I set out to develop a law practice that made sense to business. Develop a law practice that endeavors to scale down the volumes of legal red tape. The mission was to create a law practice that provides digestible, practical, and efficient legal services.

Initially, I did not stop to ask what other attorneys and what other firms were doing. An over site, maybe. Perhaps it was a lapse in logic. Inevitably, I began to notice. Gettins’ Law does not follow the norm. This gave me pause. I thought for a time. I came to a realization. No, we don’t want to be the norm.