by Donna Gregory
for Virginia Business
December 2004
Even after
38 years of practicing law, Everette G. “Buddy” Allen
Jr. has never lost his sense of humor. He still laughs
at lawyer jokes,
and he doesn’t take it personally when he hears
politicians bash trial attorneys. “I have fun practicing
law, and it’s hard to do that if you’re jaded,” says
Allen, chairman and senior partner of Allen & Allen,
P.C.
Bringing a sense
of fun to a world of big-dollar lawsuits is a rarity
these days. So is finding
a lawyer who is tough, highly principled and charming,
but Allen is consistently cited as one of Virginia’s
best civil litigators, because he combines those characteristics. “Working
with Buddy almost makes a lawsuit worthwhile — almost,
but not quite,” says T. Coleman Andrews III, a
longtime Allen client.
Andrews recalls watching Allen in action
during a difficult pretrial settlement negotiation. The
plaintiff was requesting a seven-digit settlement, alleging
Andrews had committed a breach of contract.
After hearing the
plaintiff’s case,
Allen spent about 20 minutes ripping apart the allegations
using the systematic but gentlemanly approach he’s
known for. “Afterwards, they [the plaintiff’s
attorneys] said, ‘So, what are you going to offer
as far as a settlement?’ I was using a dry erase
board [during the negotiations] and I wrote down a big
zero. I saw this zero up there, and it looked so harsh
that I went back and put a smiley face on it. I did it
just to be cute, just to let them know there were no
hard feelings, but let me just say, they didn’t
smile,” Allen recalls.
Allen eventually
settled the case for Andrews — for zero money. “In fact, they
wound up paying him [for attorney fees],” Allen
says with a laugh.
In another case, Allen recalls using humor
to break the tension as a client awaited a jury decision
in an employment discrimination suit. As they waited
for the verdict, his client (the defendant in the case)
slid a note across the table to Allen.
“Should I be worried?” the
client asked.
Allen scrawled, “Yes.”
The client, obviously
alarmed, quickly wrote back, “Of what?”
Allen then smiled
and scribbled, “My
bill!”
Allen’s sense of humor isn’t
the only reason he’s highly regarded. “I
think he’s one of the best courtroom lawyers in
the country,” Andrews says. “He quickly demonstrates
that he knows more about the facts and the law than anyone
else in the courtroom.”
Fellow attorney
Rosewell Page of McGuireWoods in Richmond agrees. “It’s his reputation
as a tough litigator that’s gotten him to the top.
He has a gifted legal mind. He’s quick. He’s
a top negotiator and knows how to use the leverage he
has to get the best results for his client, and he’s
not afraid to lose!”
Allen credits his
success in the legal realm to three defining principles:
attitude (“I
have to make their problem my problem,” he says
of his clients), hard work and a mastery of people skills. “I
got it from my folks,” he says. “My mama
always said, ‘Don’t lose your sense of humor’ and ‘Don’t
take yourself too seriously.’ I can be the toughest
guy you’ve ever seen, but I don’t think you’d
find anyone who would call me a jerk.”
In 2001, Allen
united with son E.G. Allen III to form Allen & Allen, a three-man law firm that
concentrates on litigation, real estate development,
commercial disputes and finance/debt restructuring. Before
that, he was a senior partner with the Richmond law firm
Hirschler, Fleischer, Weinberg, Cox & Allen.
Allen is currently representing Johnny
Johnson, the former owner of Community Pride grocery
stores in Richmond, in a business dispute with Minneapolis-based
grocery wholesaler SuperValu Inc. Johnson blames SuperValu
for the collapse of his chain of inner-city supermarkets.
“I would describe my typical case
as a complex and difficult business dispute. I jokingly
say this, but it tends to be true: I don’t get
a lot of easy problems,” Allen says.
