Longtime Lawyer Says Law Firm Bombing Changed His View on Life
Lawyers in a North Georgia law firm are moving back into their old building nearly one year after a bomb blast damaged their offices and severely injured one of their colleagues.
McCamy, Phillips, Tuggle & Fordham moved to temporary offices in the City Hall at Dalton, Ga., while repairs were made in their historic building, according to the Daily Citizen and the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The injured lawyer, Jim Phillips, still has not returned to work, although he is back home after spending a few months at a burn center in Augusta.
The bomber, Lloyd Sylvester Cantrell, was killed in the Oct. 17 bombing. Upset over the firm’s representation of his son in a bitter property dispute, Cantrell rammed his SUV into the building, and then tossed a makeshift bomb through a window.
Name partner James Fordham has worked at the firm for 40 years, according to the Times Free Press. He has kept a broken clock from his office that shows the time of the blast, 9:55 a.m.
Fordham told the Times Free Press that the tragedy changed his perspective on life.
“It makes you realize how fickle life can be; you really don’t know,” he said. “Mr. Phillips gets up that Friday morning to come to work and then he’s blown up. It makes you think about that, it really does.”
