The Balance of Law and Life

List of winners in the Small Companies category

GordonDerr partners Joel Gordon (left) and Jay Derr raise a toast on their office patio.

Co-winner: GordonDerr

 

When Jay Derr meets you at the door to his downtown Seattle offices, there’s no denying it: This guy looks happy. He’s warm, relaxed and unpretentious. He isn’t wearing a tie.

 

As the managing partner of the Seattle law firm GordonDerr, he might be expected to look at least a little bit stressed—GordonDerr is one of the city’s larger real estate and land use law firms, with clients ranging from Amazon.com to Taylor Shellfish to the YWCA. So why does he look as carefree as a schoolboy?

Because Derr manages what may be the Washington state law firm with the healthiest attitude toward work. In 1979, the founders—Peter Buck and Joel Gordon—set out to create a business that didn’t work its partners and associates into a blurry-eyed stupor. (GordonDerr’s yearly billable-hour target is a humane 1,600 per lawyer, whereas others require 2,000 hours or more.) 

“Those of us who started at the outset were attracted to this place because we were interested in doing top-quality work for top-quality clients, but at a pace that allowed us to have other interests, and families, and to survive the practice of law much longer and more successfully than we might have otherwise,” Derr says.

Thirty years later, the continued focus on providing a work-life balance has paid off. GordonDerr’s 48 employees are treated to incredible benefits, including memberships at Seattle Athletic Club, up to $1,000 each year for additional services at the gym (Pilates, spinning classes or personal training, for example) and a generous parental leave policy that doesn’t differentiate between male or female parents.

 

Add to those perks a regular, casual lunch-hour run on the waterfront—an unofficial outing that anywhere from two to a dozen employees take part in on any given day—and you have a healthy, happy and fit workforce.

“Finding time in the day to exercise is incredibly helpful for breaking the stress and keeping our employees healthier,” Derr says. “It’s fun and it’s team-building.”

Perhaps it’s the post-workout endorphins that inspire the firm’s playful, humorous advertisements, which have become known as the least conventional and most entertaining in town. And Derr says those ads