All we are and all of our success turns on, not only what we do, but how we do it. How we practice law, treat our clients, treat our adversaries, and treat one another defines what we are and how successful we will be for our clients, our profession, and ourselves. How we do all that we do turns on our values as individuals and as a firm. A statement of these values follows.

1. The interests of our clients are paramount. We will exert all necessary and appropriate efforts to protect and satisfy these interests and, if necessary, to vindicate them.
2. We will bend every effort to represent our clients skillfully, successfully, and honestly. Our clients seek us out for our skill and success in the practice of law. We will apply that skill and achieve that success with the utmost integrity.
3. We will strive to offer innovative solutions to problems our clients bring to us, whether they involve a transaction or an adversarial proceeding. We understand that the state of the affairs of our clients and of our profession advances only on the basis of creative efforts.
4. Ours is a small firm and will remain so. We believe that the practice of law is a very personal business that requires accessability, acuity, sensitivity, creativity, and responsiveness, qualities impossible for large organizations.
5. We will work to achieve excellence in both our professional and personal lives. Our clients come to us because of the excellence we achieve professionally, but we know that we cannot provide that excellence without achieving it in our personal lives, as well.
6. Any confidential information that comes to us will be resolutely protected. We understand that our clients must feel at ease in discussing their problems and that our success in representing a client depends on full disclosure and an understanding of all of the facts. We will do nothing to disturb the certainty clients can have that their confidences are safe with us.
7. We will staff our firm with ambitious, sincere, bright, and upright people and not necessarily those with the most elite credentials. We want our firm to be a haven for people with potential in search of a chance to flourish. The internal drive that such people have will redound to the benefit of our clients and ourselves.
8. We will treat our clients and our adversaries decently, respectfully, fairly, and professionally. We are professionals and will behave like professionals. We want our clients to feel that they are well treated and we want former adversaries to seek us out as allies when the need arises.
9. We will treat one another as members of our family. The care we take of our people and they of one another make us a team and maximizes our value to our clients and to ourselves.
10. We are a diverse firm and will remain so. We understand that neither race nor creed nor sex nor ethnicity matter. What matters is the strength and application of our values and the service we render to our clients. If our values remain strong and are applied consistently, success will come to the efforts we expend for our clients. If, among these values, we maintain our diversity, our acuity, sensitivity, and creativity will flourish and our clients and we will benefit.

Bruce Claugus, the senior member of our firm, formulated these statements of values many years ago. The concepts they express have guided him through nearly forty years of professional practice. He has passed them on to all of us and he and we will apply them for you.