By Sean P. O’Gorman, Attorney at Law
I am a lucky guy. I have a great law partner, a wonderful wife, two fantastic children and I get to do what I have always wanted to do every day of the week. If I had a single wish I would wish that everyone would be so lucky.
I also count as part of my good fortune, the fact that we are practicing law in the Historic Piccadilly Market Building, on sunny Greenwood Blvd. parallel to the great Union Pacific Railway. We arrived in Maplewood after 18 years of practicing law at Watson and Laclede. I tell people that we used to practice law in a building but now we practice law in a community.
When my car is acting up, I take my keys across the street to Gary at Marshall’s Auto and it is fixed before I have to go home. I look out my front window and I can see the back of the mayor’s house, I can see homes of three of my clients without turning my head and I get to count the cars on the trains that go by!
Before lunch any given day we might meet with a business that needs help with purchasing a building, a mother who needs help collecting child support, a client preparing to go to court on a contract dispute a family that has fallen on bad times and needs to file for protection of bankruptcy court; a student who should have been in class rather than.… well you get the picture. We have the opportunity to assist a wonderfully diverse group of folks in all sorts of circumstances. All of this before lunch!!
Lunch, by the way, is a problem at O’Gorman and Sandroni. How we decide on lunch is not a pretty thing to see! There are so many choices: from firing up our grill in the parking lot to deciding on either Cousin Hugo’s, or Schlafly’s, or Maya, or The Wood, or The Post or wherever. Suffices it to say that giving three lawyers the number of choices we have here in Maplewood is a dangerous thing. It somehow makes lunch better to know the owners, the servers and even the chefs; to walk down the street and wave to most of the people.
After lunch we keep practicing law, but usually in a more modern way: checking in with our clients in other parts of the country and the world by phone, e-mail or Skype. We might use the latest electronic data bases to provide up to the moment case law for clients decisions or use trial preparation software to help prepare a client for a deposition. Maplewood may be a small community tucked up against a big city but it provides the support system we need to compete. The professional architects, web designers, web hosting companies, professional photographers, comprise a remarkable resource for us and for our clients.
I received some advice from Barry Greenberg when we were considering moving to Maplewood – “Join the Chamber of Commerce.” Invaluable advice! We joined, I was appointed to the board and I ended up as President in a whirlwind of events and directors and new members. Being a member of THIS chamber is special for thousands of reasons.
Somehow it is hard for me to believe that we have been in Maplewood almost 10 years. We certainly have seen a lot of changes. The school across Piccadilly replaced by town homes, the oddly underutilized Deer Creek plaza transformed into a vibrant business center, the intersection of Manchester and Big Bend transformed. When Mayor White appointed me to the Maplewood Design and Review Board I came to see the process from an entirely different point of view. The Board reviews applications for exterior changes, including signs. Being at the front end of that planning process is, truly, an honor and a privilege.
When not engaged in Maplewood, I am a sometime adjunct professor teaching mass media law, a board member of the PTO; I sit on board committees’ of Crossroads College Prep, including search committees for principals and heads of schools.
To answer the question what is my favorite business in Maplewood depends on the season, but in this season by far and away the best is Mr. Wizard’s.… vanilla with pecans is my poison!
O’Gorman and Sandroni can be reached at 314.645-5900 or online at www.commonsenselaw.net
Thanks for being a part of our community!