Women's Tribute: Lisa Ramsay Cole

When Lisa Ramsay Cole graduated from McKenzie High School in 1982, she thought her future might be in medicine or another science-related field.

Instead, she built a decades-long legal career that eventually led her to become president and managing shareholder of Lewis Thomason, one of Tennessee’s largest law firms.

Lewis Thomason is a four-office firm that employs 120 attorneys, operating in Knoxville, Memphis, Nashville and Sevierville. From her base in Nashville, Cole oversees the business side of the firm while also serving as its general counsel, helping guide everything from legal ethics to long-term strategy.

Her work ranges widely. On a typical day, she might advise attorneys about cases, help resolve professional responsibility questions or meet with the firm’s leadership team about finances, staffing or operations. Cole oversees a structure that includes the firm’s chief financial officer, chief marketing officer and chief human resources officer, as well as leaders in the firm’s Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis offices. Beneath that are departments responsible for billing, technology and administrative support.

Cole’s path to leading the firm began decades earlier in her hometown of McKenzie, Tenn., where her family emphasized the importance of service and academics.

Her father, Dana Ramsay, served as McKenzie’s postmaster and was one of only five brigadier generals in the National Guard from the town. Cole later named her son Ramsay in his honor.

Cole’s grandfather once headed the mathematics department at Bethel College, and math was a common thread across several generations of the family.

At Bethel College, now Bethel University, Cole studied broad area natural science, graduating cum laude in 1987. With a love for science and mathematics, Cole considered attending pharmacy or optometry school. She opted to wait a year after college before committing to either profession.

Cole moved to Nashville that year to work in the Tennessee Department of Health and Environment. There, Cole spent time alongside attorneys in the department and began to see how the legal profession could combine her interest in science with her natural inclination toward working with people.

“That was my first exposure to, really, what lawyers did,” she said.

The experience changed her plans entirely. Cole enrolled at the University of Tennessee College of Law, earning her law degree in 1993.

“Honestly, I think it was God’s plan for me all along,” she said. “He just waited until that moment to drop the bombshell on me.”

After her first year of law school in 1991, she joined Lewis Thomason, working as a law clerk in the firm’s Knoxville office. She joined the firm full-time as an associate attorney in 1993 after finishing law school and passing the bar exam.

She moved to Nashville in 1995, bringing her closer to West Tennessee and to the hometown of her husband, Jonathan Cole, whom she met in law school. He is also an attorney in Nashville.

Over time, Cole built a career representing employers, health care providers and insurers in civil litigation. Much of her work involved medical malpractice defense, employment law and workers’ compensation cases.

Cole stayed with the firm as her career advanced. In around 2008, she became managing shareholder of the Nashville office, and in 2013, she was chosen to lead the entire firm after the previous president was elected to a judgeship in Knoxville.

Throughout that time, she said she was fortunate to work for a firm that embraced diversity and the uniqueness all lawyers bring to the table. This diversity, she said, makes her firm better suited to support clients from many different walks of life.

“I was blessed to work for a firm that absolutely supported women, from the time I walked through the door until today,” she said.

Still, the profession presented challenges familiar to many women. Early in her career, Cole said she was sometimes mistaken for a court reporter or paralegal rather than the attorney handling a case. Opposing lawyers occasionally underestimated her ability in the courtroom.

She rarely challenged those assumptions directly, instead relying on preparation.

“There were very few people who could outwork me,” she said. “If somebody underestimates you when you walk into the courtroom, and you’re twice as prepared as they are, that only works to your client’s advantage.”

Balancing career and family also required careful choices. Cole and her husband have two children, Anna Grace and Ramsay. Both have followed their parents into law — Anna Grace now practices in Nashville, while Ramsay is a student at the University of Tennessee College of Law.

“I guess my husband and I made the practice of law seem like a very rewarding career,” Cole said.

Seeing both of her children enter the legal profession has been meaningful, she added, even though she once joked that having a doctor in the family might come in handy as well.

While raising her children, Cole worked part-time for more than a decade so she could be present for their activities and school years. For 12 years, from the time her daughter was one year old until Cole became firm president, she maintained a reduced schedule while continuing to build her legal career and client base.

“I never wanted my career to take away from the time that I needed to spend with my family,” she said.

During that time, she became an equity shareholder in the firm and continued expanding her practice.

Cole said she has been fortunate in many ways — with her family, education and career — and she believes those blessings come with a responsibility to give back.

Much of that effort connects her back to McKenzie. She serves on the board of trustees at Bethel University, and she occasionally returns to speak with local students and community groups.

She also provided legal guidance when the McKenzie High School Alumni Association was formed, assisting organizers with nonprofit structure and corporate documentation.

“To whom much is given, much is required,” Cole said, quoting a Bible verse that has long shaped her outlook on life.

After decades in the legal profession, that principle continues to guide Cole’s career and her responsibility to serve others, mentor younger attorneys and support the communities that helped shape her.