The lobby of Law’s office building includes a 7-by-9-foot painting of Abraham Lincoln,
a 1938 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead and a 1942 Harley-Davidson WLA.
As a result, he’s not afraid to go to trial.
“A lot of lawyers are hesitant to engage
in an all-out brawl in front of 12 strangers
and a judge in a courtroom,” says Barbara
Marschalk, a defense attorney and partner
at Drew Eckl & Farnham, where Law began
his career before leaving to start his own
firm. “Pete’s definitely not one of them.”
THERE ARE OTHER STORIES THAT HELP
explain why Law is good with the law.
When he was 9 years old, Law hauled
a neighbor’s discarded riding lawnmower
to the family garage and took it apart,
labeling each piece and diagramming his
work. “My father came home and I said,
‘Dad, look at what I’ve done! How cool is
this?’” Law remembers. “He didn’t share
my enthusiasm.
“I still love mechanical stuff. I’m interested
in how stuff works. There’s a tremendous
connection with that and my work in the
law—understanding the way things work and
being able to take apart a case and put it
back together.”
His parents, Peter and Hilda, were
public school teachers, and his older sister,
Tiffany, followed in their footsteps. Law
enjoyed sports in high school but was
much more interested in earning a buck. “I
played some football and ran a little track,
but baseball was my thing, that was my
sport,” says Law. “Mostly, I worked.”
In addition to giving Law great career
advice, his early boss, Hubschman, also
taught him an important lesson in self-
reliance. “He always had this attitude of,
‘Figure it out and don’t rely on someone else
to do it,’” Law says. “That stuck with me.”
Of course, Law has a story that
exemplifies this.
One day, Law was driving one of
Hubschman’s pickup trucks on the Jersey
Turnpike when it broke down. “I called him
and said something was hanging down
and I didn’t know what it was or how to fix
it. Honestly, I didn’t really try,” Law says.
Hubschman drove out and within two
minutes fixed the problem with a coat
hanger. He didn’t say anything; he just
looked at Law, shook his head, and drove
off. Message sent. “That was an important
moment for me,” Law says. “Sitting there on
the side of the turnpike after he left, knowing
that I could have fixed the problem so easily.”
Since then, Law has honed his problem-
solving skills to the point where, according
to his partner, he’s developed an almost
preternatural sense of how a case will unfold.
“Pete has this ability to know, from the
moment we take a case all the way through
discovery and trial, how every fact or witness
or piece of evidence or turn of discovery will
affect our ability to win at trial,” says Moran.
“It’s uncanny. In a trial, he knows in real
time, not upon reflection, how something
will fit into the big picture, and he has the
ability to make an immediate adjustment.
He’s got the quickest, sharpest mind of any
person I’ve ever met.”
Marschalk agrees. She compares Law
to a battlefield general making brilliant
flanking maneuvers in the heat of combat.
“He recognizes the defense’s case
sometimes before the defense,” she says.
And he works quickly, which is to his
advantage. Long ago, Law realized that
because most jurors watch television, “they
get the whole story in 30 minutes or 60
minutes, including commercials. They want
information quickly and efficiently. So we
started trying cases that way. Cases that
traditionally would take two weeks, we try
to finish in three or four days.”
“From the moment the trial starts,”
Weathington says, “it is his aim to get
to his closing argument as quickly as
possible. He doesn’t waste the jury’s time,
doesn’t belabor points with witnesses.
Even his cross-examination is efficient.
He wants to get to the closing argument,
where he can stand in front of a jury for 30
or 40 minutes and use his persuasive skills
to produce a positive verdict for his client.”
It’s a case he lost, though, that is
foremost in Law’s mind. He represented
the family of Sgt. Keith Carmichael, a
severely brain-damaged U.S. soldier
who was injured during a 2004 fuel
convoy wreck in Iraq. His wife, Annette
Carmichael, sued civilian contractor KBR,
its former parent company Halliburton,
and the truck driver in 2006.
“It was a clear case of negligence,” Law
says. “But we lost at every single level, all
the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. We
lost, but we raised some important issues
about the legal hurdles in cases involving
wartime events.”
IN COLLEGE IN THE 1980S, Law and his
buddies used to go to Atlanta during
weekend trips, and that’s when he fell
for the city. When he decided on Emory
University for law school, he was choosing
it because he was choosing Atlanta. It’s
also where he met his wife, Agnes, and
where they raise their five kids.
“This felt like a young, energetic city that
had a lot of opportunity for people who
didn’t necessarily have roots here,” says
Law. “It felt like an accepting and open city.
I felt I’d have a chance to succeed here.”
