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Brian Poe
By Kimberlee Payton Jones
From the time he entered law school, Brian Poe had plans to
do something “really outside of the box.” At that time, he was
referring to becoming a general manager for a Major League
Baseball team. He did not ultimately end up in baseball, but
he definitely succeeded in crafting a law practice that is outside of
the box.
Brian Poe began his career in a traditional manner. Encouraged
by his parents - Atlanta pediatrician Booker Poe M.D. and the late
educator Gloria Reeves Poe, Brian Poe earned his bachelor’s degree
at Florida State University, an MBA at University of Georgia, and he
received his JD from the University of Virginia, a Top 10 law school.
He subsequently worked at two top-tier law firms before going to
work in-house at a Fortune 500 company. Since that time, he has
succeeded in building traditional practice areas by using untraditional
methods.
Poe began his legal career as a summer associate at Morgan, Lewis
& Bockius. He chose that firm because of its baseball practice, and
while there he worked under Chuck O’Connor, one of the top labor
and employment attorneys in the country. He also worked under
Robert “Rob” Manfred, who is the current Commissioner of Baseball.
Upon graduating from UVA, Poe went to work at Morgan,
Lewis & Bockius as a full-time associate. He soon learned, however,
that he was not the only associate with hopes to work in the firm’s
competitive baseball practice and that he would have to work in the
firm’s labor and employment division for five to seven years before
he would be able to get any of the much-coveted baseball work.
As such, he crafted a plan to return to Georgia where he had attended
business school. He knew that after just a brief stint as a fulltime
associate at a major law firm that employers would question his
motives for wanting to relocate. In figuring out how to best sell himself,
he planted the seed for what would become one of his business
ventures, legal recruiting. Poe implemented his plan and secured a
position at Troutman Sanders in Atlanta working as a labor and employment
litigator.
Poe had a successful run at Troutman Sanders and subsequently at
Delta Air Lines, Inc., but he found it difficult to be working in labor
& employment, an area in which he had never dreamed of working.
Moreover, Poe found it challenging always having to defend the employer.
“A lot of my peers were really motivated to win these cases.
They would come up with 10 different reasons why someone should
lose their job or not be paid severance, and I might have one or two.
And while I often felt like when I was at [the firm] or at [the company]
that I was on the right side of the issue, sometimes I wasn’t so sure.”
The difference between his colleagues’ zeal and his own brought Poe to
the realization that he should be doing something different. “I realized
that in order to succeed you really need to be that person that has ten
ideas. And if you don’t have ten ideas on something, maybe you are not
in the right space.”
With this revelation, Poe began venturing into a variety of business
and community endeavors, but he chose things about which he was
passionate. His pursuits thus far have included entertainment and film,
legal recruiting, practicing law, and writing a legal column for Atlanta
Tribune: The Magazine. To that end, Poe has written several screen
plays, and he has also written, produced, and financed a major film Big
Ain’t Bad, the Hollywood Black Film Festival’s Audience Choice Award
winner, that was distributed by Starz and First Look and was the red carpet
Kick Off Film of the Fox Theater’s 75th Anniversary Summer Film
Series. In addition, since leaving corporate America, Poe has worked in
the area of legal recruiting and has established a specialty in the area of
diversity placement. He has placed attorneys, several of which are now
judges and elected officials, at major law firms and corporations.
Poe serves on numerous community non-profit boards and advisory
boards. Though not a politician himself, he has served on the
Campaign Finance Committee of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, chaired
the successful 2016 campaign of Fulton County Superior Court Judge
Thomas A. Cox, Jr., and mentored and supported two former Troutman
Sanders summer associates – Atlanta City Council President
and current mayoral candidate Ceasar Mitchell and Fulton County
Commissioner Marvin Arrington, Jr. His support of former President
Barack Obama landed him a coveted invitation (which he accepted)
to attend the Motown Sound event in the East Room of the White
House in 2011. According to Judge Cox’s campaign manager, “Our
campaign team’s appointment of Attorney Brian Poe as Chairman was
the game-changing moment in our successful race in 2016.”
Poe has also launched, and successfully sustained, a multi-area
law-practice. He currently has offices in downtown Atlanta, Decatur,
and in Union City. His rapidly expanding practice areas include real
estate closings, family law, business, bankruptcy, personal injury, criminal/DUI
law, estate, entertainment and debt collections. His approach
to the practice of law has changed from his early days in that he now
is extremely passionate about his work. As such, his primary focus is
consumer and small-business-based. “We’ve come full circle. Just
like children in Atlanta have needed my father’s medical services for
decades, my consumer and small-business clients in our community
really need our legal service and advice. And we listen first, and then
keep exploring as many different ideas and approaches as necessary
– until we find the team, strategy and solution to best address their
challenge at hand.”
A hallmark of Poe’s practice is that he is diligent about choosing to
work with people who are passionate about what they are doing. These
strategic partnerships have enabled Poe to develop a true general service
law firm that he is continually growing. He currently has a team of
over 20 people. As a result of these partnerships, Poe has been able to
do many things well. But, as he had done since beginning law school,
he has approached each in a manner that is outside of the box.
Poe is the proud father of two teenage daughters with one in studying
pre-med at a prestigious Southeastern university and the other in a
prestigious Atlanta prep school with future political interests.
Visit: www.thesigningattorney.net
for further information
VOL. 6 ISSUE 3 ATLANTA ATTORNEY MAGAZINE | 5