When Christopher Gartman graduated from Cooley Law School in 2011 as firms nationally were still contracting from the Great Recession, he hung up his own shingle thinking it was his best option and turned to craft beer to help him figure out the rest.
The self-proclaimed “homebrew dork” started Gartman Law LLC in Milwaukee, Wis. in 2011 and was doing whatever it took to try to gin up business. That included putting ads for legal services on Craigslist and walking around the student union at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he earned his undergraduate degree, to hand out business cards while wearing a shirt emblazoned with his phone number, email address and the slogan, “I’m not your parents’ attorney.”
“But I wanted some kind of predictable income, so with the homebrewer pass, I just started knocking on doors around Milwaukee at all the breweries,” Gartman said.
The search ultimately led him to becoming a weekend tour guide for Milwaukee Brewing Co., a side hustle he maintained for several years while trying to grow his solo law practice.
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“I got paid cash tips and I got to take beer home. It was a good budget helper overall,” Gartman said. “I was gaining experience, meeting people, learning more about how a brewery actually runs.”
When his wife was offered an accounting position in London in 2015, Gartman dove into a full-time production position at Milwaukee Brewing with the goal of being able to hit the ground running to find a brewing position when he landed across the pond. A few years later, the couple found themselves back stateside, and Gartman faced a key decision whether to stay in brewing or go back to law.
Gartman, now a principal at Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone PLC, spoke with Crain’s Grand Rapids Business about his atypical path into the international law firm and how his brewing experience helps him work with clients as they navigate a highly regulated industry.
What role did you have at Milwaukee Brewing before you and your wife went abroad?
I was doing packaging and cellar work with a vision of when I get to London, I want to be able to tell people I’m an actual professional brewer. They trained me for three months (during) the summer before we left. Then I showed up in the U.K. and got a job at Fuller’s, the guys that make London Pride. I worked in essentially their gift shop within the brewery.
As part of the relocation for my wife’s job, I was what’s known as a trailing spouse, and they gave me a budget to do things — to acclimate to society, essentially. I had some free cash and used it on tuition for a brewing diploma program with the Institute of Brewing and Distilling to further expose myself to the industry.
Did that program help when it came time to look for a brewery job?
On the first day of class, I sat next to the guy that founded the Five Points Brewing Company, and two months later I was working odd shifts. A couple of weeks after that, I was a full-time brewer there. I did that for the next two and a half years while we lived there.
How did you end up in Grand Rapids?
We always knew our time was coming to an end in 2018 and that we’d have to probably move back to the U.S. Going back to Milwaukee wasn’t really a good option for my wife’s career, and my career was still all over the place. (My wife’s company) said, ‘It’s between Chicago and Grand Rapids. What do you want to do?’ I’d been to school in Lansing and knew a little bit about Grand Rapids. We knew we could afford a house here with a yard, and that was important to us. With three months’ warning before we had to move, we settled on Grand Rapids. I just started contacting everybody, every brewery — through email blasts, phone calls, Facebook messages. It was my initial objective to just hang a shingle again, but be niche beer regulatory advising.
What kind of reaction did you get?
I got a lot of non-responses. … But then Mitch Ermatinger at Speciation finally came out with a bunch of details. He was like, ‘If you want a brewing job, just go to Founders; they actually pay. And I’m good on the legal side, but there’s this guy named Joe Infante (at Miller Canfield) who’s really busy. You should call him. He probably needs help.’ I managed to reach Joe, and by that time, he’d already heard of me. The second day after we landed, I was in the office interviewing for a lateral associate position since Joe just happened to be hiring at the time.
Talk about serendipitous timing. Did you ever see yourself at a large firm like Miller Canfield?
I never necessarily wanted to join a big firm; that was never really an aspiration of mine. I liked the freedom that being small allowed. But here’s an opportunity to join something that was never even on my wishlist. A prestigious international firm is interested in me, so I’d be a fool to pass on the opportunity. I was a little nervous. Part of the decision was: Do I want to continue being a brewer, or do I want to be a lawyer with the expectations of a firm? There is no more both. It’s one or the other.
How does your past experience in the brewing industry shape your approach to clients?
We are small family business lawyers that happen to be in this highly regulated environment. Some clients are completely new to the industry and never worked in a brewery. They drink beer, and they know what’s good, but they’re new to doing it on a regulated level so they ask, ‘What do I need?’ I’ve gone through brainstorming sessions of, ‘Here’s what you need to get started from an equipment standpoint. Here’s good, better, best, cheap, pricier, expensive options for these things.’ A salesperson’s not going to give them that practical experience — they’re going to do whatever makes them money — but I can have that discussion with them.
We have to be very cost-sensitive, too. It’s no secret that craft beverage is a pretty low-margin business. They don’t have tons of resources to devote to lots of legal attention. Part of what sets our practice apart from others is that if someone calls with a trade practice question, they get an answer right away. It’s a 5- or 10-minute phone call, where others may have to do some research or make a few phone calls to figure it out. Eight times out of 10, I have it off the cuff. ‘Here’s how it went bad, here’s how it can go well, and understand the enforcement priorities of the various states and federal regulators.’ We can advise on that risk.
Crain’s reported how you successfully helped the owner of a Grand Rapids laundromat navigate the regulatory process after the state initially denied him a liquor license. How often are you helping people wade through the bureaucracy to find a way to make their business dreams a reality?
We’re really handy with weird problems. We can do the run-of-the-mill licensing work. That’s not necessarily rocket science, it’s just effort and details. When the weird stuff comes into play, like the laundromat or Class Cs wanting to flip to manufacturing so that they can take advantage of the wholesale market, … the Liquor Control Commission is actually giving my name out saying, ‘You’ve got a weird one. Call Gartman. He’ll figure it out for you.’
You’ve got to take a very non-black-and-white thing and shoehorn it into state code and administrative rules with an agency that loves black and white. They don’t function in the gray area. That’s the fun challenge. Sometimes you get it right the first try. Sometimes with the laundromat, you go a few rounds, but it was important to the client. We made it work.
Now that you’ve been at the firm for four and a half years, do you still miss brewing?
Oh yeah! As I get older, I don’t know that I miss the physical aspects of the work. It’s a young man’s job at the end of the day. You’re on your feet, you’re soaking wet all day long. … But the best part that carries over is we’re still in the industry, I just do something different for the industry. We still get to go to the events and have enjoyable conversations, share the learning experiences. … The social aspect, the collaborative aspect is what makes it really unique, and I still get to be there. If I had completely shifted industries, I’d miss it even more. But yeah, I don’t necessarily miss mashing in at 6 a.m.
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