Over 13 years as managing partner, W. Lee Thuston saw Burr & Forman expand from 166 attorneys to more than 300 as the firm extended its footprint across the Southeast. Along the way, he became the go-to matchmaker between Alabama and automakers, advising in negotiations that brought in manufacturing plants for Mercedes, Honda and Hyundai, along with thousands of high-paying jobs. Thuston and the manufacturing team at Burr & Forman have played a critical role in attracting major economic development projects to locate and expand in the South, resulting in $20 billion in capital investment and the creation of more than 25,000 jobs.
With a track record like that, it’s understandable that nobody at Burr wanted to see Thuston cut back his role at the firm. So, when Thuston started talking about succession planning, he found that nobody at the firm wanted to talk about it. “People would wave me off and say, ‘That’s years away,’” he says.
