Ryan Scott

Ryan, joined our firm in 2006 and has been a significant part of our growth and success.

Ryan grew up in Northeast Arkansas in the small town of Pocahontas. He graduated from the University of Arkansas, cum laude, with a double major in political science and communication.

Ryan also holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the Sam Walton College of Business. While in law school, Ryan represented the University of Arkansas School of Law as a traveling negotiations team member, and was named to the Dean’s List in the spring of 2007.

As the chief litigation officer for Oliver Law Firm, Ryan manages the catastrophic injury team, in addition to serving on the Arkansas Bar Association Houseof Delegates.

We take immense pride in having Ryan as an integral part of our team!

Relationships keep Ryan Scott motivated to practice law

Ryan Scott and Teresa Paulino chatted about some now-forgotten topic as they took a walk on a sunny, summer day several years ago. More accurately, Terry rolled along as Ryan walked and pushed her wheelchair.

Terry was paralyzed from the chest down, and it was Ryan’s turn to hang out with her. 

Just part of the job? Not for most attorneys. But for Ryan the regular strolls with Terry represent one of the things he loves most about his work as a trial attorney and partner at the Oliver Law Firm: It was an opportunity to build a genuine relationship with a client.

“Terry lived just a couple blocks from our office,” Ryan recalls. “There were three of us in the office back then, and we would take turns. At least once a week, one of us would go to Terry’s house and walk with her around the block – as far as she could go without getting too tired. We just wanted to brighten her day a little. Get her outside for some sunshine.”

Terry was a client in the first really big case Ryan worked on with Sach Oliver. And as with so many clients through the years, she became like family to Ryan and everyone else in the firm. 

“We’re not a cookie-cutter firm,” Ryan says. “We’re not turning and burning. There’s no attitude of ‘Get them in, get them settled, get the money.’ I knew Terry’s husband. I knew Terry’s kids. And every client is like that. We get to know everything about them. They’re not just a client, and I really like that.”

Getting emotionally close to clients, however, comes with some risks. After all, most clients come to the Oliver Law Firm because of a tragedy – their lives have been damaged by some outside party and they need help seeking justice and restitution. The attorneys and staff at the Oliver Law Firm end up living that tragedy with them, sometimes for years, and that’s never easy.

“You have to love people and you have to want to help people if you’re going to work here,” Ryan says. “The days are long, and it’s hard. The stories are awful. I mean just awful. But to see that you can change people’s lives – to really help people out who otherwise would just be in a really bad place –that’s what keeps me coming back.”

Ryan also keeps coming back because of his long-time unique personal and professional relationship with Sach Oliver, the firm’s namesake. They first met in 2007 when Sach, just two years out of law school, served as a judge for a court competition at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Ryan had competed well as a student in the competition, and he and Sach struck up a conversation as they stood outside the Student Union at the end of the day. 

Sach needed a law clerk, so he asked Ryan to come interview the next week for the position. He did, and they have worked together ever since.

Ryan, however, almost missed the interview that landed him the job. Sach was working solo in an office in Bentonville, Arkansas, a converted daycare center on Southeast 14^th Street. And when Ryan couldn’t find the office – he thought the business card said the office was on Southeast 4^th Street – he called for directions.

Becky Nolan took the call, and a real-life Abbott and Costello routine broke out. 

“Hi, my name is Ryan Scott, and I have an interview with Sach, but I seem to be little lost,” Ryan said. “Can you tell me how to get to the office?”

“Oh, honey, I have no idea,” Becky answered in her sweet southern accent.

“Are you in your office right now?”

“Sure am.”

“So can you tell me how to get to the office?”

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, honey, but I don’t know.”

Turns out, all phone calls at that time rang through to an office in Mountain Home, Arkansas, which is where Becky worked as the receptionist for Sach’s partner at the time. She had never been to Sach’s office in Bentonville!

Ryan eventually figured out the address issue, got the job, and soon became a key figure in the firm. As an attorney, he operates mostly in the background, although he sits as co-counsel during trials and has become Sach’s go-to sounding board and advisor from the time they take a case until its conclusion. 

As the Chief Litigation Officer, Ryan operates mostly in the background, although he sits as co-counsel during trials and has become Sach’s go-to sounding board and advisor from the time they take a case until its conclusion. The brutal honesty back and forth on planning and strategy is crucial for a case to get maximum results on behalf of their clients. “I don’t want to be the guy,” Ryan says. “I want to be the guy that the guy counts on. So, I’ve always been the wingman?  “That has basically been my role since a few years after I started working with Sach,” Ryan says. “I know that he trusts me enough to ask me hard questions, and he knows I’ll be honest with him, even when it’s uncomfortable.”

Ryan has played almost every role imaginable with the firm, from legal researcher when he first started to his current role overseeing pleadings, motions, legal filings, and legal arguments. And while he enjoys the technical aspects of the legal work, he always comes back to the relationships with clients as his greatest joy. 

The soul of the firm, he said, is found in stories like the times when the Salvation Army still took food donation and the firm’s employees would make hundreds of bologna sandwich lunches each week to give away or the goody bags they put together and kept in their vehicles to give to panhandlers on street corners. 

And, of course, it’s found in the stories of helping clients, whether it’s a case that results in positive generational changes for the family involved or seeing a defense attorney – their adversary in the case – actually spending time and empathizing with the plaintiff.

“It’s an adversarial process, and it’s supposed to be,” Ryan says. “But at the end, you have to be able to say, ‘This is a human being, and I’m a human being, too.’ I really believe that’s what makes us special. It’s not just a file in a case. It’s a person.”

Education:

University: University of Arkansas, B.A., M.B.A.

Law School: University of Arkansas School of Law, J.D

Practice Areas

• 18 Wheeler Accidents
• Construction Site Accidents
• Personal Injury
• Product Liability
• Wrongful Death
• Car Accidents
• Aviation Accidents
• Combustible Dust Accidents
• Environmental Accidents
• Industrial Accidents
• Consumer Class Action
• Train Accidents
• Sexual Abuse