Courtney Paulk Profiled in The Virginia Lawyer

12.2018

The December issue of The Virginia Lawyer includes a feature story on Courtney Paulk’s open water swimming success and her new role as president of Hirschler.

In the article, Paulk shares that collegiality and camaraderie of the firm has impacted her life professionally and personally — her construction law specialty and her open water swimming are both the result of interactions she had with her colleagues.

When she first joined the firm, she had been on the job less than two months when partner R. Webb Moore looked down a long empty hallway and saw Paulk standing there. “He said, ‘You just got here. You don’t have anything to do. Come with me,’” Paulk recalls.

Her first case, an arbitration over a very large leaking baptismal font at a church, cemented interest in construction law. “I got to try the whole thing by myself, and I thought, ‘How cool is this that you’re layering the law on top of the complexity of a construction issue and the procedural issues on top of all of that?’,” she states.  “And it just made the law so much more interesting to me. I really liked working with Webb and I liked the clients.”

When it comes to lawyer well-being and balancing the demands of her career with the demands of her open water swimming, Paulk shares, “It’s like on the airplane when they tell you to put your mask on yourself before you put the mask on and help others. If I’m not taking care of myself, and if I’m not healthy and balanced within myself, then I’m not going to do as good a job being president of the firm.”

For the full article, click here.