The People Make the Practice

Bryan Hawkins
Labor & Employment Partner & Managing Partner for California Offices

I am Bryan Hawkins. I am the current office managing partner for the California offices at Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Diego.

What makes the firm tick?

You know, it is funny, even as a partner pre-OMP, you are very much focused on building your practice, and again, that is first and foremost. But as an OMP when you get a leadership role, you really start to see kind of what makes a firm tick. What really goes into having a law firm, a successful law firm? Getting that insight into it has been amazing, it has been eye-opening, and it has also allowed me to get more insight into my colleagues, what they do, their practices. I am not just focused on my own practice, my own clients, but I am also focused on my colleagues and how I can help support them grow their practices as well.

Together “more often than not.”

It is one of those things where I know that there are definite benefits to working remotely, and I appreciate that--I, myself, have taken advantage of that; but I do think sharing the same space with people feels different. It just hits differently. We have all been to Zoom meetings where people are surfing the web or looking at their phones. You cannot do that if you are in person, nor would you want to. I think it makes you more engaged. Especially for younger attorneys, I think being in the same physical space as the senior attorneys helps them learn, helps them connect. Helps them learn the things about being an attorney that are not taught in law school, that you have to learn by actually experiencing. I think you will only experience that being in the same space as someone else.

How do attorneys grow at Stoel?

I can personally attest to this, that they allow you to build your practice. When I first joined Stoel I had to grow my practice. I became a partner still growing that practice, and they allowed and gave me the space to do that. I think people sometimes have this belief that in order to be a partner, you need to kind come in with a 7-figure book of business. That is not the case. They allow you to kind of grow and to kind of grow yourself, grow your career. I think by doing that through the marketing team, the BD team, my colleagues, they really have kind of supported me as I have kind of grown in the California practice, specifically the California L&E practice in 2025 and beyond.

How does the firm support your personal success?

For me, you want to be in the office because I think, as I said before, there is a value to being in the same space as your colleagues. But for example for myself, I try to pick up my kids after school at 3:30 every day. And I think being able to do that, being able to say, hey, I am here in the office at 8 a.m., I work, I could take a break from 3 or 4 o’clock to go handle some personal activity and come back at 5, 6, 7 o’clock to finish my day gives me some flexibility and I appreciate that. They are not saying you must be here from X to Y, although that is obviously ideal, but having the room, the space to structure your schedule to what makes sense for yourself, for your clients, I think is critical. I think just to phrase “more often than not,” it comes with it a certain flexibility. It is not saying Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Tuesday, or what have you, it is saying be here more often than not. We trust you as adults and professionals to know your job and to be here enough to do your job, to satisfy your clients, and to kind of have this legal excellence that we strive for to achieve here at Stoel Rives for our clients.

Why is Stoel the right place to practice?

You know, I would just say that being an attorney, it is a tough job. It is a very demanding job. There are things that I would want to change in the way the law is kind of practiced overall, but I cannot think of a place I would rather be than Stoel Rives. As attorneys, as senior attorneys, we get emails from recruiters every day and it is no surprise. But what keeps me here is the people I work with, the people I get to interact with on a day-to-day basis. That is kind of the connective tissue that I really enjoy, that makes this a job that I enjoy doing despite billing hours, working long hours. Being able to do that with people that I respect and learn from is just so critical being here at this firm.