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Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
Indiana University McKinney School of Law, 1994
Why did you decide to enter the legal profession?
From the time I was a child, I looked up to lawyers as people who could right wrongs and defend others. Although my sense of the roles of lawyers became more nuanced over the years, I never lost that basic view.
Who is someone who has inspired you in your career?
Thurgood Marshall, in light of not only the cause he served in promoting civil rights but how he was able to be part of an effort to pursue a long-term strategy and not be deterred by setbacks.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
It is a round world, which means that avoiding meanness, arrogance and lack of sympathy in dealing with others puts one in [a] position to ask for the same dispensations from others. It’s not just karma; you can make your own path easier by being a person worthy of being treated well by others.
What makes a good lawyer/judge?
Objectivity, candor and projecting a sense of fairness. And I would emphasize the first of those. I often ask myself and my team members to be “ruthlessly objective” when we are studying a problem. The best solutions flow from being clear-eyed about risks, motives, hurdles and interests of all the persons and issues involved.
What is something you wish people knew about lawyers?
That most lawyers put their clients’ interests above their own. The essence of most lawyer jokes is that lawyers are unduly self-interested. There are certainly many that are, but most lawyers on most days spend most of their thought energy promoting the interests of others.
Tell us about a “lesson learned” moment you’ve had in your career.
It is really the same moment every time it happens. I have often seen clients fail to address a sticky issue head-on when they learn of it only to have it bloom into a much more significant problem. It is human nature to not want to take the pain until you have to, but it is a good lawyer’s job to provide candid context about why the future pain might be so much greater and why it is better to face it now.
Tell us something surprising about you.
I attended the game in which Wayne Gretzky scored his first professional goal—with the Indianapolis Racers on Oct. 20, 1978.
If you hadn’t pursued a legal career, what would you be doing?
Teaching. I teach at the IU McKinney School of Law as an adjunct professor, and it is one of the things that keeps me most engaged.
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