Clay C. Long hadn’t really planned on being a lawyer. After he lost his parents at a young age while growing up in Demopolis, Alabama, he lived with the family of a Methodist minister for a year. He entered Birmingham-Southern College planning to become a Methodist minister himself. But as he said, he never does things the easy way or ends up doing what he meant to do.

“As the Methodists would say, I fell from grace. I was an English major, and I thought maybe I’d be an English professor.