Our city's legal profession lost a devoted bar member on Dec. 31, 2019. Evan Harris Pontz, a longtime partner in Troutman Sanders' labor and employment practice, died at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore at age 49 of complications from a double lung transplant. 

Evan practiced law at Troutman for his entire professional career. Having grown up in Philadelphia, after graduating from Lower Merion High School in 1988, Evan came to Atlanta to earn his bachelor's degree from Emory University in 1992. He went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree with honors from the University of North Carolina, before coming to practice law with Troutman Sanders in 1996.

Those with the good fortune to have known Evan know that it was with arms stretched wide and long that he embraced everyone and everything. Evan believed in facing every task, big or small, with the right attitude. Whether he was born with it or acquired it through circumstances, he had the uncanny ability to influence his own life and the lives of others with his positive attitude. I witnessed so many examples of this over the 23 years I practiced law with him. Evan's exceptional ability to disarm and influence others with his genuine interest and caring demeanor was a calling card and very useful to his career. 

For Troutman, Evan conducted workplace trainings for countless clients, hatched the idea of our HR Law Matters blog, and led our annual workplace seminars. Each year's seminar achieved record-breaking attendance and it was largely due to Evan's efforts to provide targeted, meaningful guidance to the attendees that made the events so extraordinary. Evan's enthusiasm and demonstrated engagement was contagious.

Georgia Supreme Court Justice Hardy Gregory used to assess someone by asking about the radio presets on a person's car. Evan Pontz learned about someone by inquiring about sports loyalties and food preferences. As for his own personality, his Twitter bio describes his outward expression of his inner awareness of who he was in this world: father, husband, labor and employment lawyer, trusted HR adviser, baseball fan. His life demonstrated and combined those priorities—even tweeting about how baseball helps us be better lawyers. 

Evan's outlook on life required him to give things a personal touch. He could not have been professionally satisfied without his pro bono work, which he viewed as our obligation to the public. He wanted to meet someone where they were and help them. And when involved in labor arbitration or litigation or just to negotiate an employment agreement, he first wanted to meet everyone, including opposing counsel, face-to-face. That attitude endeared him to everyone he encountered. 

While all the time demands of work, family and community might have swallowed everyone else, Evan's tireless attitude was apparent to all. Evan used all 24 hours on the clock to talk to others—even the window of 1-4 a.m. was open, if it was important to connect. His agreeable demeanor never let anyone feel like their request was a burden. 

When beset with fearful health conditions, Evan met each challenge with courage. When he left for Baltimore to await his lung transplant, it was with strong determination and hope that spread to us all. Though the initial results following the transplant in May were promising, complications arose; yet even then, Evan's positive attitude endured. He could always find the silver lining, even in the face of tragedy.

It was Evan's resolute attitude that his colleagues saw when he and his wife, Lanie, lost two infant children over a five-year time span. With sturdy acceptance and hope, they channeled their grief into helpful concrete tasks—one being to sponsor annually Jake's Journey & Sawyer's Strides March for Babies—and they compassionately supported other parents who had suffered a similar loss. Today, Evan's 12-year-old twins, Alyssa and Fletcher, are the living demonstration of their father's hopeful and grateful legacy.  

Albert Einstein wrote, and Evan Pontz believed, that "weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." Our living tribute to Evan must be to recognize how a willing attitude will always sustain us through tragedies, like his passing, and will carry us forward and past our own challenges ahead. 

Richard Gerakitis is a partner at Troutman Sanders.