A Tribute to Patricia Taber Morgan

• Citation: Vol. 19 No. 2
• Publication year: 2010
• topic: Business of Law,Charity and Non-Profit Law,Contracts,Family Law,Tax Law,Labor Law

A Tribute to Patricia Taber Morgan

Charity Scott

Pat Morgan was just about the first friend I made when I came to Atlanta nearly 20 years ago. I was looking for a job at the time, and as an attorney, wife, and mother of two young children, I was looking for a more family-friendly alternative to the big-law-firm experience I had just left up North. Pat also had initially gone into large and well-established practices after graduation from law school, having first joined Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan and then gone in-house with the National Bank of Georgia.

When I met her, Pat had recently joined a small start-up law firm which had attracted a number of young Baby Boomer lawyers who, like herself, were very smart, energetic, idealistic, hard-working, ‘60s-style liberal, and in retrospect, a bit youthfully and wonderfully na?ve. They were all looking to create an alternative legal practice where, hopefully, the intellectually stimulating (as well as profitable) cases they had found at the traditional and highly-respected big firms could be combined with somewhat less mainstream, small-firm qualities, such as an informal and open working environment (in fact, the office space was so informal and open it was practically a commune, and there were windows not just on every outside wall, but on every inside wall as well). These young attorneys espoused high democratic ideals (no hierarchy in that office, the clients were all charged the same hourly fee no matter which attorney worked on the case). And with great enthusiasm they were setting about to create a novel and eclectic workplace (with fewer than a dozen attorneys, it had more diversity along the lines of race, gender, and sexual orientation than the typical politically-correct TV law firm of today). "Well sure," I said, "count me in."

As a practicing attorney, Pat always took on the hardest and most demanding cases—corporate transactions, business planning, securities law, and tax fraud cases—while I got to do what, I thought, was the more interesting stuff, the fun and sometimes kooky cases. The amazing thing was, Pat always managed to make the hard stuff look really interesting and fun, and even downright hilarious at times. And although she worked endless hours to ensure that a business deal closed successfully or that an IRS matter was successfully litigated or negotiated, she always managed to keep her sense of humor as fresh as it was ironic, and to let her gentle, tactful, and non-confrontational nature spread to those around her.

She loved the law and working on challenging cases, and she set the gold standard in terms of both quality and integrity. For such a young attorney, her high standards of excellence were already widely acknowledged and respected throughout the legal community. As a former client of hers from that time...