Partner, Huddleston Bolen, LLP
by Jennifer Nugent
As a law student at Wake Forest University, Dan Earl had the opportunity to leave his home state of West Virginia and pursue a successful career in law in one of the other 49 states, but when the opportunity to return to his roots to practice law revealed itself, he couldn’t turn down the chance to come home.
Of his first summer in law school, he remembers the competitiveness of students trying to attain a good clerk job for experience. “When law firms recruit for lawyers, they try to get people they think are ultimately going to want to move to that state, so where a lawyer is from has an impact on how attractive he or she is in terms of recruitment,” he explains. Because he grew up in Bluefield, he was given the chance to work in Charleston or Huntington.
Today Earl serves as a partner with Huddleston Bolen, LLP, the same firm that gave him his initial taste of law practice during his first year of law school and allowed him to return home to be near his family. Earl specializes in corporate and health care law with an emphasis in physician group medical practices, a decision that arose from the need he found in his community in Huntington. “Health care is a significant part of the economy in Huntington and as a result there is a lot of need for legal issues surrounding the practice of medicine.”
Earl is active both in his community and within the firm. He is the only partner that sits on every committee within Huddleston Bolen and he’s the youngest attorney to have sat on the firm’s management committee. He also sits on the board of the Cabell Huntington Hospital Foundation and is involved with the Huntington Chamber of Commerce. Of the importance of volunteering, Earl says, “I think it’s good for any lawyer practicing in any community to have an understanding of the issues affecting the community as a whole. These organizations are able to give you some insight into the issues faced so that problems pertaining to them can be more easily addressed in a way that is best for the community.”
Earl feels blessed to have been exposed to the experience of a prestigious circle of professionals that makes up Huddleston Bolen, LLP. While he names Tom Murray and Chris Plybon as mentors for his law career, he says he has learned an immeasurable amount from the large host of attorneys within the practice. “I’ve kind of taken an approach,” he explains, “where I look at different people here that I’ve worked with, I see the good things that they do in their practice, and I incorporate those best practices into my own.”
Hard work and dedication, attributes instilled in Earl at an early age when he worked in his father’s manufacturing plant, have paved the way to the success that Earl now enjoys as a firm partner. His motivation for continued growth and success—for himself as well as Huddleston Bolen—is that he truly enjoys what he does. He also relishes in the constant challenge of his position. “You’re not dealing with the same things day in and day out. There’s always something new to learn and different people to work with.”
In his demanding, high-stress career, Earl is able to unwind with a round of golf at Guyan Country Club, a sport he picked up as a teenager, or in a tradition of consistently beating a good friend at racquetball. He also spends time with his son, Leo, and enjoys keeping up with successful sports programs from his two alma maters—West Virginia University football and Wake Forest University basketball.
In his career in law, Earl has learned two important lessons: there are two sides to every story and good service is a necessity for being successful. “The name of this game is, in large part, service,” he says of the importance of returning phone calls and performing in a timely and efficient manner. “When someone hires me, I want them to know that they’re going to get 100 percent—that I’m going to do everything I can within the law to get them the best results. I think that if any professional, whether a lawyer or business owner, can strive for that kind of service and do it consistently, they are going to be successful.”
Photography by Rick Lee
