Brew, Ewe and a Law Office Too

In 2006, after 16 years of commercial litigation at large national firms in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Greenville, Sarah Day Hurley burned out. “I just wanted to do something different for a change,” she recalls.

So she quit, and pursued her lifelong dream of opening a retail business: Brew & Ewe. “Brew” for the café side (coffee, sandwiches, smoothies) and “Ewe” for the boutique side (gifts, particularly woolen items). “It was just a charming little place,” she says of the spot near Peace Center in Greenville.

Hurley served as an owner/manager, though her retail load lightened over time as she returned to practicing law at Turner Padget. But she had helpers in her mom and husband Tim, a philosophy teacher and lawyer. “Before opening, Tim went out to Portland and spent a week at a coffee school to learn how to be a barista,” she adds. The certificate that resulted now hangs alongside his law degree and Ph.D. “He’s just as proud of that as he is of his other degrees.”

Unfortunately, Brew & Ewe closed in 2016. “I was very sad when I shut it down, but I also had a sense of relief,” Hurley says. “Every weekend I would worry about stuff.”

In October 2019, the duo opened their own office: Hurley Law. They also brought aboard Jennifer Coon, a Brew & Ewe barista-turned paralegal. Their retail experience and all those weekends spent worrying now help inform the practice, Hurley says.

“Business disputes are very personal, and you’ve got all kinds of risk management issues to worry about: employees, shoplifting, compliance with regulations, paying taxes, insurance issues, their intellectual property. There’s so much that goes into it. It gave me enormous respect for people—especially immigrants—who open businesses.”