When Fred Nance was a young associate at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP, he saw the chairman of the firm actively working — but not solely on client cases.
“I saw that the chairman of the firm was involved not only with the bar association but was involved with supporting the schools and development efforts, and I recognized that he wasn’t negotiating a deal,” Nance says. “When he wasn’t trying a lawsuit or he wasn’t attending a client meeting, he was out there trying to make the Cleveland community a better place. I started watching that and wondering what that was all about. I eventually saw that it’s about leadership, and it is about making the tide rise for everyone. It helps the organization that dedicates those resources to it, but it also just makes the community a better place to live, which is part of giving back.”
Seeing that at an early age has clearly encouraged Nance to not only work hard within the firm but to also give generously of his time throughout the community.
“The same skill set that made me successful as a trial lawyer or within my career as I was developing also ended up becoming leadership traits that I was able to utilize in different contexts — by different contexts I mean outside the firm in civic organizations.”
While he’s the regional managing partner for the law firm, he also serves on the boards of the Cleveland Clinic, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Foundation and the Greater Cleveland Partnership. He was recently named general counsel for the Cleveland Browns, and if you name nearly any major initiative in town — from the medical mart to the casino crusade — he’s likely had his hand in that, as well. But no matter which organization’s hat he wears at any particular moment, he’s learned that for any of these entities — for-profit or nonprofit — to succeed, you have to have strong leadership with a strong vision.
“All of these things happen because of leadership — people with vision, people who can first of all have the vision and then motivate others to see it and bring resources to bear it, to make it happen,” Nance says. “That’s what leadership is all about.”
