Our philosophy is simple; in order to effectively manage the legal needs of the business, the attorney must understand the business! To truly understand the business you must be willing to sometimes trade the pinstriped suit for a pair of cover-alls, and get dirty. Alan's first day on the job at National Steel, the Director of Human Resources said to him "We don't need some shiny-pants lawyer in here telling us what to do. If that is your approach, you will get nowhere and you will never gain the respect of management. We need someone who can appreciate the professionalism of our employees, and is a down to earth equal and contributing member of our management team." Alan never forgot that pearl of wisdom, and has incorporated that philosophy into representing all his business clients. While at National Steel, Alan spent countless hours on Zug Island crawling around blast furnaces or the coke battery, in steelmaking watching overheard cranes precisely move ladles of molten steel from the basic oxygen plant to the caster, in the 80" hot strip mill following a slab from the reheat furnaces down the line through the roughing then finishing mill stands and finally to the coiler, or under the mill in the flumes, and finally in the cold mill as the steel was "pickled," annealed, galvanized and/or otherwise treated. During his career at National Steel, Alan spent time with just about every salaried employee, and hundreds of hourly employees in every area of the plant. While Alan was the Manager of Employee Relations, he Administered three basic labor agreements and managed daily operations of Labor Relations, Security, Fire, Print Shop and Mailroom departments, supervising a staff of twelve.

“Alan was an exceptional employee and lawyer who was self motivated and ever watchful of company rights. Alan managed the legal business of the business in a very professional and humane way. His counsel was sought out by many within the company and he was respected by all. I highly recommend Alan. Since Alan has recently gone into private practice, I have recommended people to him. The feedback I have received has been outstanding and I will not hesitate to recommend others to him for his professional counsel and guidance.” – Leon Judd, Vice President – Human Resources, National Steel Corporation

“During my career at National Steel I had the opportunity to work with Alan DeGraw during a significant "salaried workforce reduction" opportunity in 1995. His guidance and direction through this emotional activity resulted in minimizing legal activities against the parent corporation. Our selection criteria and methodology for the "new organization" was simple, concise, effective and non-disruptive to the plant operations.” – Dennis Radford, Steelmaking Maintenance & Projects Manager, National Steel Corporation, Great Lakes Division