About Alison Macor

Alison Macor Articles written 49

A former film critic, Alison Macor has been working as a freelance writer and editor for more than 25 years. She’s followed filmmakers to Sundance and shadowed top breast cancer surgeons and trial lawyers. She’s written for Texas Monthly, Vogue Knitting, Thomson Reuters, and Humanities Texas, to name just a few. Alison also holds a Ph.D. in film history and is the author of three non-fiction books, including the forthcoming Making The Best Years of Our Lives: The Hollywood Classic That Inspired a Nation. She lives in Austin.

Articles written by Alison Macor

Can I Discuss Politics at Work?

Understanding the legal and practical aspects of talking politics at work

So how do you really feel about the election? You might want to reconsider sharing potentially polarizing opinions at work or on social media—particularly if they become supercharged. Free Speech for Public vs. Private-Sector Employees When it comes to speech protections based on the First Amendment, matters are different depending on whether you’re a public or private employee. “Unlike private employees, public employees actually have some First Amendment protections,” says Melinda …

How We Do It

Five millennial attorneys talk law, life, AI and the generation gap

You don’t have to tell millennial attorneys that change is a constant. From the Great Recession to the pandemic, they’ve lived it their whole careers. Civil litigator Kimberly Chojnacki was in her first year of law school when the bottom of the legal market fell out. “I saw older students sobbing because offers were being withdrawn,” she says, “and people were suddenly unemployed when they had already bought a house on their future salary.” None of this has made them averse to …

‘Do You Want to Be My Friend?’

And other topics tackled by Kirsten Barron and her co-host in their workplace-focused podcast 

A year or two into their podcast Crina and Kirsten Get to Work, co-hosts Kirsten Barron and Crina Hoyer discovered something surprising. While the podcast focuses on topics of interest to women in the workplace, their audience was more diverse than they thought. “There are some people, particularly men, who listen to our podcast to learn how to talk to each other,” says Barron, a business and employment attorney with Bellingham-based Barron Quinn Blackwood. She and Hoyer heard positive …

Safeguarding the Vote

Julie Braman Kane co-founded an organization that sends out legal professionals to keep an eye on elections

Not long after co-founding the Voter Protection Action Committee in 2010, Miami trial attorney Julie Braman Kane flew to Georgia to offer legal expertise during a statewide election. Assigned to a community polling location outside Atlanta, Kane discovered the local volunteers had been working together for years, some even decades. They had the Election Day routine down to a science, even setting up a fryer so they didn’t have to leave to grab lunch. Kane was the outsider, and a new volunteer …

Flourishing

Carlos Quintana’s immigration practice was forged by fire

Wrapped in a serape, Leonardo DiCaprio sits quietly in Carlos Quintana’s plant-filled San Antonio law office. His gaze is unblinking, as Quintana explains how they met when Leonardo was just a few months old. The snow-white Chihuahua, still a puppy, is named for the actor—specifically for the character Arnie Grape in the 1993 drama What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. “Doesn’t he look like him?” Quintana asks, gesturing to the beige circles under the dog’s small eyes. When DiCaprio’s …

A Guaranteed Fight

Brenda Doroteo’s immigration experience helps her connect to clients

As a young girl in the United States, Colombia native Brenda Doroteo often served as her immigrant family’s go-between. “I was always translating for my parents,” says Doroteo. “Going to the grocery store, asking if they had a product. Growing up, it was a lot of making sure that my parents were comfortable.” Today the 39-year-old strives to bring that same comfort to her clients as an attorney. After leaving Tulsa-based Rivas & Associates, where she focused on immigration, last …

Preventing Elder Abuse: Early Steps and Warning Signs

How to help prevent it at elder care facilities, and what to do if you suspect it in New York

When Eric Einhart was a student at New York Law School, his grandmother called to check on him. “Are you OK?” she asked. He told her he was fine. She said she’d just received an attempted scam call from someone saying that Einhart had been arrested in Canada and needed bail money. “She had the wherewithal to recognize what was going on, hang up on the person, and contact me to confirm I was OK,” Einhart says, “just in case there was the slightest possibility of it being true.” …

Karen Burgess' Happy Place

That would be in front of a jury

If you happened to be walking the halls of Austin’s federal courthouse last October, you might have heard the chorus to “Luckenbach, Texas” spilling out of Judge Dustin Howell’s federal courtroom. It wasn’t a recording of Waylon Jennings’ 1977 hit. It was Austin litigator Karen Burgess singing live in front of the jury. “Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas, with Waylon and Willie and the boys…” Burgess has many strengths, but she’s the first to admit vocal prowess isn’t at the …

The Superpowers of Don Scaramastra

The Seattle attorney says all lawyers have the ability—and obligation—to help others around them

As a law student at the University of California, Berkeley, Don Scaramastra quickly realized the responsibility that comes with having a J.D. “It gives you the ability to do things for the betterment of society or the people around you that no one else can do,” says Scaramastra. “Having a law degree, particularly at a sizable firm, is like havinga superpower.” Scaramastra considered working for the government and civil legal aid programs before landing at Garvey Schubert Barer (now …

Community Spirit

Like his attorney dad, Paul C. Perkins Jr. always finds time for doing good

Each time Paul C. Perkins Sr. spoke at Orlando’s Shiloh Baptist Church about raising money for various causes, his namesake would look on with pride. “He was always telling jokes and making everyone laugh,” says Paul C. Perkins Jr. “I didn’t even realize he was giving back.” Perkins Sr. was a notable Orlando trial lawyer and civil rights activist. In the early 1950s, he and Thurgood Marshall defended four Black men wrongfully accused of sexual assault of a white woman in a case …

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