Member Highlight – Agent: Patrick Everman
Although he moved several times before the age of ten, Patrick Everman grew up in and considers himself a native of Vicksburg, Mississippi. He graduated with a B.A. in History from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2011 and earned his J.D. from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 2014. After law school, Patrick started his career in his hometown with Bailess & Rector LLP. In December 2017, Patrick moved to the Jackson area to join Balch & Bingham LLP, which is where he currently practices. At the LTAMS Annual Conference this year, Patrick was elected to serve a two-year term on the LTAMS Board of Directors as the Region 1 Director and as the Co-Chair of the Membership Committee.
At Balch, Patrick’s practice focuses primarily on commercial real estate, title matters, general corporate matters, commercial transactions, and mergers and acquisitions. Patrick says he cut his teeth in real estate by learning how to abstract his own title work under Ken Rector and Bobby Bailess in some of the more difficult counties (Warren, Claiborne, Jefferson, Sharkey and Issaquena). Although he regularly handles matters in other practice areas, real estate and title still make up about one-third of his everyday practice.
Over the last several years, Patrick has had a unique opportunity that has allowed him to cover a lot of interesting title issues. “We have a client that has spent the last few years acquiring over 100 independently owned wastewater systems around the state. While the legal work is largely regulatory in nature, there is naturally a real estate and title component that comes along with the real property assets of the systems. As you can imagine, the title associated with a one-off wastewater system is not of great concern to its owner, but it is important to our client and as an agent we have to ensure it is clean and insurable at closing. When it comes to title issues on these parcels, we have basically gone from cover to cover at one point or another on the agent’s underwriting manual.”
Patrick also routinely handles general commercial real estate transactions, financing and title insurance. In addition he has a steady practice of general corporate matters, commercial transactions and mergers and acquisitions. Patrick also represents several clients in the fast-growing addiction recovery and behavioral health industry – work he finds to be extremely rewarding. “Mental health, and especially addiction recovery, has always had such a stigma in this country. It has been great to work with motivated and successful leaders in that industry to support them in forging a path forward which opens up more opportunity for those in need to have the access to get help.”
Patrick’s office is located on the 14th Floor of One Jackson Place in downtown Jackson. He lives in Brandon with his wife, Liz, and son, Oliver (10). Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his family, walking his senior dogs Penny (13) and Benny (12), watching (and attending) professional and college sports, cooking and live music.