The position paid nothing, so Cody worked
weeknights taking inventory at a plumbing supply
company and on weekends collecting tickets at a
movie theater. At the end of the summer, Burch
rewarded his young protégé with $100. “And that
was $100 more than I had expected,” Cody says.
He had already accepted a job at a big
Philadelphia law firm in his final year when Burch
invited him to Thanksgiving dinner. “Philadelphia
is not your home,” Burch told Cody. “We’re in
the middle of the civil rights movement here in
Memphis, and Memphis needs lawyers that will
get involved. Come work for me instead.”
Despite the lure of the Philadelphia firm—
which had 130 attorneys as opposed to Burch’s
half-dozen—Cody couldn’t resist joining the
hometown crusade. “Black women couldn’t even
try on clothes in the department stores,” he says.
“It was really a lockdown segregation and a lot
of us felt like that was wrong.”
In his first court case, he defended a yard
W.J. MICHAEL CODY
· BURCH, PORTER & JOHNSON
· ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION,
GOVERNMEN T RELATIONS, BUSINESS
LITIGATION
· MID-SOUTH SUPER LAW YERS: 2007–
2011; TOP 100 TENNESSEE: 2009–2010
