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From the President's Desk

 

Generosity: A Hallmark of the Primerus Lawyer

A hallmark of the Primerus lawyer is generosity. I said it at the Convocation and the International Summit this year, and I will keep saying it, because I believe it explains more about who we are than any brochure or website ever could.

We are a values-driven society. Membership is not bought; it is earned, and it is kept. The Six Pillars – integrity, superior work product, reasonable fees, continuing legal education, civility, and community service – are how we measure a firm before it joins us. But spend a few years inside this society and you notice something the pillars only imply: The best among us give freely. They share what they know. They open doors. They show up. Generosity is the quality that turns a directory of good firms into a community worth belonging to, worth staying involved with.

We are just past the spring’s Institute meetings and our Latin America and Caribbean regional meeting in Panama City in June, and soon our EMEA colleagues fly-in gathering will happen in September, so it is a fitting moment to point to a few people who show what generosity looks like in practice. These are examples, not a roster. Every one of you can name your own.

Christian Stegmaier

Start in my “home” institute, the Primerus Defense Institute.

Tim Sullivan of Ogden Sullivan Stover & Saar, P.A. in Tampa, Fla. is the quiet dean of the PDI. For more than two decades, he has been engaged, energetic, and unfailingly willing to teach – particularly on the technology that now wins and loses cases in the courtroom. He has made me a better lawyer. He has also been generous with introductions and with his good word. Two of my firm's largest clients trace directly to Tim's willingness to vouch for us. I will be forever grateful, and I will admit the debt plainly: I have received far more from this society than I have given.

Bob Brown of Donato, Brown, Pool & Moehlmann PLLC in Houston is a lion of the PDI. When you take honest inventory of the people who will actually show up for you, Bob is on the short list. Reliable, responsive, and formidable – in the courtroom and in the harder work of tending client relationships – he has spent years giving younger lawyers the benefit of what he knows. Bob would do anything for a colleague, and many of us have been on the receiving end of his generosity.

Tom Paschos of Thomas Paschos & Associates, P.C. in Haddonfield, N.J. is a man of faith and family who lives what he believes. He is also deeply invested in the future of the profession and of Primerus. Tom conceived and now leads the Trial Skills Academy, and he has built it into something best in class – giving young Primerus lawyers the chance to learn from our finest trial attorneys and to try a mock case in a working courtroom at the Kline Institute of Trial Advocacy at Drexel University in Philadelphia, before actual judges. Tom is spending relationships built over a lifetime of practice in that city, on our behalf, so that the next generation can stand up and try a case. That is generosity with a long horizon.

The instinct is not regional, and it is certainly not confined to the PDI.

In Panama City, Julio Quijano of Quijano & Associates opened his firm's doors and was a truly gracious host of our June regional meeting. He and his staff made it first-rate, and he made every colleague who traveled there feel welcome. Hospitality of that kind is generosity in its oldest form.

In Mexico City, Iker Dieguez of Cacheaux, Cavazos & Newton is a leader of Primerus in Latin America – always ready with an encouraging word, always helping our society take root and grow in a part of the world where our future is bright. Encouragement freely given is its own quiet form of generosity, and Iker gives it well.

And in Vienna, Klaus Oblin of OBLIN Rechtsanwälte, chair of PBLI EMEA, is a tireless advocate for Primerus across Europe. He has been a faithful companion in our recruiting efforts there, and strong firms have joined us because of it. This September he is helping coordinate and host our EMEA gathering. Klaus is simply a difference maker.

Six people, three regions, one instinct.

Let me be honest about the returns, because you have surely noticed them too. Generosity tends to come back around – the introduction becomes a client, the recruit becomes a friend, the young lawyer you mentored becomes the colleague who saves you one day. But that is the byproduct, never the motive. As I have learned as the years go by: You do the right thing and let the compounding take care of itself. Give because it is who we are, and the rest follows.

So, I will close with a challenge, an invitation, and my thanks.

The challenge: be someone else's Tim, Bob, Tom, Julio, Iker, or Klaus. Make the introduction. Take the young lawyer's call. Share what you know instead of guarding it. Invite others in. Membership in this society is a standing invitation to be generous – accept it.

The invitation: Come and take part when the opportunity presents itself. Join us in Boston this October for the 2026 Primerus Global Conference, October 1–3 at the Fairmont Copley Plaza. It is our largest gathering of the year – members from across the society, together in one place. That is where generosity happens, face to face; you cannot open a door from across an ocean.

And my thanks to the many Primerus lawyers who show up and give of their time, talent, and resources. A society built on generosity is built to last. Ours is, and I have never been more confident in where we are headed.

With gratitude,

Christian Stegmaier

President and Chief Executive Officer-Designate
The International Society of Primerus Law Firms