Today on Conversations with Cassie I was honored to sit down and chat with Heath
Meherg from Griffith, Lowry, and Meherg. I was able to learn about what he does in his
career and what he does in our community. Let’s see what he had to say.
Q: Tell me about yourself.
A: “Obviously you know my name, Heath Meherg. I was born in 1980. Born and raised in
Cullman. I have been here my whole life. I ended up going to school at Cullman High School,
graduated from there and then from there I went to college, got my undergraduate degree
in economics, and decided to go to law school. I went to law school, got out and practiced a
few years and then decided to go back and get an LLM in taxation, which is a specialization
in tax law. I am married and have 2 kids. My kids are 10 and 5, one of them is about to be 6
this month.”
Q: What do you do here at Griffith, Lowry, and Meherg?
A: “Obviously we are lawyers and what we do is we try to help people when they need help.
So basically, in my practice here we do a little bit of everything, but we try and stay heavy
in personal injury, that is the majority of work that we do. Personal injury is when someone
gets hurt, like in a car wreck or they fall at some place or something that happens to them,
some product or a machine hurts them. That is the majority of what we do here. I always
tell everybody, if we cannot help you here then what we will do is we will get you someone
that is trained in a special area that can help you. We have friends and connections all over
the state of other lawyers that we can get folks to try to help them. For the most part we
enjoy trying to help folks and that is trying to get them to the place they need to be as far as
if there is a special area of law that we do not practice we will get them to those folks.”
Q: What made you want this profession?
A: “Initially, when I started, I had gotten an undergraduate degree in economics. I was
reading some stuff through my programs and it talks about the government and how the
governments functions and runs. I did well in economics and thought that was an
interesting path and scenario. I got to looking at other areas and decided I wanted to
continue my education and looked into the legal side of it. Obviously that kind of fit hand in
hand with some of the economic stuff so that is when I decided to pursue a career as an
attorney. I like to help people, obviously we have been successful with helping people
around here. It makes you feel good when you can help somebody. Sometimes you are
having to defend folks as well which is a different side. You are still helping them, but it is a
little bit of a different scenario than representing them in a car wreck or something and
trying to help them on that side. The good part about my job is getting to help people day in
and day out. “
Q: What is your favorite part about your job?
A: “My favorite thing about my job is seeing someone smile when you have helped them.
That is probably the most important. If I cannot see them smile, then it does not make my
job fun either. I like to cut up and have a good time and I want them to have fun through the
process and I want them to be happy at the end of the day. If they are not happy then I am
not happy, and I do not like to be unhappy. “
Q: What is the hardest part about your job?
A: “The hardest part about my job is telling someone something that they do not want to
hear. That is probably the worst part. You do not want to tell somebody bad news, but
unfortunately with this job you have to tell the people things that they probably do not
want to hear sometimes. That is part of my job and I always tell folks “look I am going to tell
you what you do not want to hear, but you need to hear it because if you do not hear it then
I cannot help you.” That is the worst part of it.”
Q: Did you have to go to college for this job?
A: “Yes, I have had years of college. Obviously, you must get an undergraduate degree
which is going to be about 4 years. From there you go to law school and that is going to be 3
more years. If you go past that, depending on what you are doing, it could be another year
or two from there.”
Q: How long did it take you to get where you are today?
A:” I have been practicing law for almost 12 years. If the question is how long did it take me
to get to this office—it took me 12 years. There is roughly 9 years of schooling that I went
through to get to this point. Not all that schooling was to practice law—because my
undergraduate was in economics. It was a long process, but I made it. The way I look at
things is if you had 2,3, 5, or 7 years of college that is a small-time frame for what I hope is a
long life.”
Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: “Hopefully, practicing law doing the same thing that I am doing now. You cannot always
tell what the world holds for you. With everything going on—I hope I maintain good health
and I can continue to do what I am doing, but you cannot ever tell.”
Q: What advice would you give individuals wanting to be a lawyer?
A:” If someone came to me saying they wanted to be a lawyer I would first tell them you
have to think really hard about it. It is not a decision I think you jump into and say alright
this is what I am going to do for the rest of my life. You need to work with someone that is
in this field and you need to shadow them for a while and make sure this is something you
want to do. You do not want to dedicate 7, 8, or 9 years of your life and then find out that
this is not what you want to do. That is a long time to dedicate if you decide that is not what
you are interested in. I would encourage anyone if they are wanting to practice law they
need to go and talk to some lawyers, shadow them, and see if that is what they are interest
in.”
Q: What can Cullman do to make a difference in young individuals’ lives?
A: “That is a good question. The best thing for Cullman is to teach good values to kids. Make
sure that they are polite and on time. It is important to teach them what hard work looks
like. I think in today’s society a lot of people do not understand what hard work is like. I
think if you do not work hard and are not willing to put in the time and effort then you will
not be successful. That is important for young kids. They need to understand what hard
manual labor is because if you do not understand that than you lose a sense of value, in my
opinion.
That concludes Conversations with Cassie. I am so happy to have had the opportunity to
chat with Heath. I really admired his answers and think that he is a great asset to Cullman.
Thank you for inspiring those around you and being someone young individuals in our
community can look up too. I, personally, learned so much from you. Tune in next week for
more Conversations with Cassie.
