Shins Beware

Visitors to Larkin Hoffman shareholder Patrick J. Cole’s office often can’t help but pick up the hurley on display—which promptly falls apart in their hands. “The way that it broke makes it difficult to tell that it is, in fact, broken,” Cole says. “So when people go to pick it up, it surprises them, and they think they broke my favorite stick. It’s a fun prank to play on people.”

The bat-like wooden stick is used in the game of hurling, one of the national sports of Ireland. “The functional equivalent here is baseball,” Cole says. It’s one of his passions. As an American of Irish descent, he’s been familiar with the sport for years—in fact, his wife plays on the local Robert Emmets Hurling & Camogie Club’s championship-winning women’s team. 

So how did Cole break that hurley? On an opposing player’s shin, of course. “Which sounds a lot worse than it was,” he says. “He was fine and wasn’t upset with me about it. That is a big part of the game. People can get knocked around and bruised, but you don’t get angry, you assess the damage and the path forward, and then move forward. It’s a good lesson for life.”

Cole sees a few similarities between the sport and the law. “Both require a lot of teamwork to be successful,” he says. “You have to put in the hard work, and you need to have a solid game plan.” 

One difference? He’s never—as far as we know—broken any fingers while practicing law, as he has on the pitch. “When people ask me to describe the game,” Cole says, “I tell them that it’s a mix between hockey and murder.”