Brook Bristow hopped out of litigation after nearly a decade, exhausted and looking for a new craft. So he poured himself into his passion and an entirely new practice area, and in 2016 founded Bristow Beverage Law in Charleston. Today, he says that life has never tasted better.
The self-proclaimed “attorney-at-lager” recently spoke with Lawyers Weekly reporter Heath Hamacher about a large selection of topics, including his practice and the “street cred” he earned serving as a certified beer server and craft beer master.
That conversation has been slightly edited for clarity and brevity. 
When did you first realize that a change from defense litigation was brewing?
One day after work, I was exploring the beer label on whatever I was enjoying at the time, and reading some of the legal copy, and thought to myself, ‘I wonder if this could be a thing in South Carolina.’ It turns out, yes, it could. Once I had that ‘a-ha’ moment, I started a beer news blog as I got more interested in craft. I then went to work for a wonderful law firm in Greenville, Bradford Neal Martin & Associates, who focused on small business law. It was an amazing environment for me to grow as a person and a lawyer. Getting to work with small businesses gave me many of the tools and confidence I needed to strike out on my own in 2016. During that time, I authored two pieces of legislation that really opened up the doors for South Carolina breweries. By then, the industry was growing, and I was able to go out on my own. I had enough business where I thought, ‘Well, maybe this can work. But if it doesn’t, I’m sure someone will come get me.’” But I’m still here.
Beverage lawyers don’t appear to be that plentiful. How many do you figure practice it exclusively?
While there are certainly a good number of attorneys who might touch the industry a little bit through various practices, there are very few nationally who do it exclusively. A lot of us do know each other, as the club is small, and do often collaborate on questions as many lawyers would in a single office.
Your website is colorful. Did your advertising degree from the University of South Carolina help you make it so?
I still think my undergraduate degree does give me some perspective in how I want things to be seen. I was always a copywriter though, and not a designer or art director. But I still love to see some pops of color, while keeping a relatively simple design scheme. I think some bright and brash appeal is needed in web design, particularly amongst law firms, when nine out of 10 websites look the exact same.
I see your paralegal and office manager have the titles “chaos coordinator” and “smooth hoperator.” How’d that come about?
They came up with them on their own, and I think they’re great. Jamie [Abodeely] was originally going to be the Office Ninja but decided due to her having to be the gatekeeper of communications, Smooth Hoperator made more sense. In Jennifer’s [Hladek] case, her resume said “chaos coordinator.” And I absolutely loved it, because that does often describe what she has to do as our paralegal and licensing coordinator.
What’s the attraction to beer, particularly craft beer?
For me, it was something that I just always had a taste for once I was of age. And my palate has evolved over time in terms of what I enjoy. But, for me, a lot of what makes beer great are the people. I’ve made some of the most wonderful friends who are in the industry. We often say that beer people are good people. And in my experience, for the most part, that’s most definitely been true.
Is there a typical day in the life of what some dub a “beer lawyer”?
To be fair, we do wine and spirits as well. In fact, these days, spirits is slowly creeping up in terms of what I work on most days. It has gone from 2 percent of my practice in 2020 to 20 percent in 2021, and is still growing.
No day is really the same, especially given my schedule. I have a 1-year-old son, who I watch in the mornings a few days a week and have since he was born, so I’m not grinding all of the time. In starting this law firm, it was important to me to have what I never had at bigger offices: a better work-life balance.
As to work, I generally answer email in the morning, but the calendar is usually set a day or so before. The last few weeks were dedicated to hustling through alcohol licensing renewals for Charleston County and Dorchester County businesses. Yesterday, it was doing compliance filings across the country for two larger companies that we work with. Tomorrow, it’ll be research projects. Today, it’ll be trying to solve some licensing issues for a few businesses who need assistance. Later in the week, we’ll be working on helping a client merge with another company and working on some federal label approvals for another. It really is a nice blend of work, so variety is never an issue.
Sounds like you’re a jack of many trades.
We’re Swiss army knives, not butter knives. For most of our clients, we’re effectively their in-house counsel. We have to at least know a little about a lot, because the number of issues that will need to be covered is fairly immense. Generally speaking, we work in about six different areas: business and corporate, intellectual property, licensing and compliance, operations and trade practices, contracts, and labels and formulas. And all of those areas have many different components, so it’s always interesting. But, once in a while an issue pops up that doesn’t fit into any of those boxes—like the time I was asked by a client if he could have free-range chickens roaming his brewery property. That was a very interesting bill entry.
Do you think some clients find you more credible because of this “street cred” you earned working in the beverage industry?
Absolutely, yes. There is no doubt that knowledge is power. That is one thing I can appreciate about any type of law—whether traditional or not—is that you are constantly learning how to be an expert on any number of topics. For me, I never set out to be a beverage attorney. There wasn’t any book or treatise I could read about how to do this. It just happened and I learned as I went. As legislation was being passed, I started to be contacted by various brewers who were looking to start up and wondering how they would be impacted and if I could help them. And because alcohol is a fairly small industry, it snowballed from there. Now we represent hundreds of clients from small startups to national brands, which is still pretty crazy to me. I think being able to build relationships and speak the language of your clients are of utmost importance to anyone building a practice, particularly in a niche area like mine. Then again, maybe they just like my beard.
Is it fair to say that you’re having as much fun at work as the law allows?
I think for me, that’s the best compliment someone can give me working in law, and a law school classmate actually did say that. Something like “You’re the most successful person in our class.” I’m thinking, how is that possible? I’m not the richest. I’m not a partner. I’m not arguing at the Supreme Court. I drive a Kia. And he said, “You’re the most successful, because it looks like you’re having the most fun.” So true.
The post Q&A: Tapping the mind of a beverage lawyer 
first appeared on South Carolina Lawyers Weekly.