Alumni Profiles
Composing
a symphony
The
law waaaaay east of the Pecos
By
Bronson C. Davis
It was not easy finding Philip Kimbrough '77.
The tiny
address on the side of the door of the Boulevard Saint Germain building
simply listed 'Advocats.' A press of the buzzer yielded no results, a
door knob nowhere to be found. Finally, I asked a waiter in a next-door
restaurant about Monsieur Kimbrough. "Ahh, yes," he replied, realizing
my French was less than primitive. He walked to the door, and pulled down
the little bar over the addresses. Voila, the door released.
Up two flights
of stairs -- my wife Cathy and I decided to avoid the claustrophobic elevator
-- and again, no sign on the blank white door. We knocked and entered
a bustling, nondescript office absent the wainscoting and marble characteristic
of most American law offices, particularly those dealing in international
law. Philip Kimbrough appeared with a welcoming smile and a hearty handshake.
I asked
about the CIA-quality of his offices. "Lawyers in France are much more
understated than those in the United States," he said, laughing. "And,
we don't get any walk-in clients. But, if it makes you feel better, we
will be moving our offices later in the year to across from the Elysee
Palace. That's not for prestige reasons; we simply needed twice the space."
Kimbrough
& Associes is a 10-person law firm that specializes in cross-border investments,
international arbitration, joint venture agreements, and mergers and acquisition
issues. Their clients include IBM, Alcatel, and the government of Zimbabwe,
among many others. Philip has spoken at legal conferences in such exotic
locales as Singapore, Jakarta, Almaty, Kazakhstan and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
His business card states that he belongs to both the Paris Bar and the
Texas Bar. How did a boy who grew up on a dairy farm in Mansfield, Texas,
come to be an international lawyer in Paris?
"My mother
is French," Philip explained. "She and my father met and married at the
end of the Second World War. He had graduated from Texas A& M and returned
to Texas with his new wife to build a dairy business. By the time I went
to TCU, I had been to France 19 times to visit my mom's family. In fact,
my French grandmother came to live with us for five years.
"With some
other Mansfield High School students, I petitioned to the school to offer
French, which they did."
At TCU,
Philip studied French and International Relations and spent his second
year at the Sorbonne. He had so many advanced credits that he was able
to graduate from TCU in three years. This he now considers a mistake.
"I wasn't able to take advantage of many of the extracurricular activities
that TCU offered. There was no reason to hurry."
Nevertheless,
he started Harvard Law School in the fall of 1977, and continuing his
interest in language he started a French conversational group among the
students.
When he
graduated in 1980, he decided to accept an offer from an international
law firm, Coudert Brothers, to practice in Paris. He planned to stay two
years and then return to the United States. What he didn't count on was
the same fate that had befallen his father. He met and married Claire
Goure, a French accountant.
Two years
stretched to eight, and then the couple accepted an assignment with the
Coudert Brothers in Singapore. This enabled them to travel all over the
Far East. At the end of the two years, they were asked to extend for another
tour, but Claire was growing uneasy at being away from two aging grandmothers.
She proposed they return to Paris to start their own firm.
This gave
Philip some pause. "It would be one thing to lose the business, but what
if in the process of that I lost my wife, who was to be the firm's financial
officer." He overcame his concerns and Kimbrough & Associes began in 1988.
In fact, Philip credits Claire's money management skills with saving the
firm during their most difficult days surrounding the Gulf War in 1991.
International business dried up, and many people avoided Paris.
It's all
been expansive growth for Kimbrough since that year, and for the Kimbrough
family as well. Philip and Claire renovated a home outside Paris in Voisins
Mouroux that has been in his family since 1528, saving the original tiles
and beams. Their daughter Olivia arrived in April 1993, and son Jerome
a year later in the same month.
Philip's
passion for languages informs his parenting. Claire speaks French to the
children, and he speaks in English. He marvels at how they move effortlessly
from one language to the other. Philip also continues the tradition of
nurturing family roots across two continents. Every Christmas the Kimbroughs
are in North Texas, and Philip's parents spend up to four months a year
in France.
Now it's
up to Jerome and Olivia to find spouses in Texas to keep this Franco-Texas
connection rolling into the next generation.
Bronson
Davis is TCU's vice chancellor for university advancement.
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