About Alison Macor

Alison Macor Articles written 54

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

Dream Career

How Soulmaz Taghavi’s connections with immigrants shaped her pathway to the law

As a young teen in the early 2000s, Richmond native Soulmaz Taghavi visited a theme park in Iran with her cousins who lived there. Guests had to thread their way through orderly lines to get to each ride, even if there wasn’t much of a crowd. At one such ride, seeing an opening in the queue, Taghavi ducked under the rope to save time. “What are you doing?” her Iranian cousins demanded. “A girl doesn’t do that.” Having spent many summers in Iran, Taghavi was no stranger to the …

More at Stake

Jack Siegel repped his biggest client—Mom—against CVS

Ask Jack Siegel why he became an attorney, and he responds with characteristic directness. “I’m a five-foot-eight-inch Jewish kid. I was never going to be an athlete,” he says. “This is what I do instead.” To be more exact, what the 39-year-old employment litigator does is win. “I just don’t go into cases thinking I’m going to lose,” he says. “The way I see law is, it’s a fight. Am I going to get my ass kicked? Or am I going to outfight them?” That’s what he did in the …

'A Niche Within a Niche'

Artists, galleries and more make up Sammetria Goodson’s practice

Early on a Thursday morning in mid-November, Sammetria Goodson settles in at GoodWork, a solar-powered coworking space not far from the Dallas Farmers Market. It’s a space that, according to Goodson, “is full of creatives and has a great vibe.” This could also describe the 40-year-old attorney’s solo practice. “I work with artists from studio wall to collector wall,” says Goodson, whose client list also includes galleries and independent curators, as well as “multi-hyphenates,” …

Tenaciously Civil

Former Judge Marilea Lewis believes in strength—and also in being nice

A few years ago, Marilea Lewis and T. Hunter Lewis, who practice family law together, were speaking on stage at the State Bar of Texas’ annual conference in Dallas. Hunter spoke first, referring to his colleague as Judge Lewis, a nod to her more than two decades on the bench in Dallas district courts. As he continued his speech, Hunter switched to Ms. Lewis, and then to Marilea. By the end of his talk, he had settled on another word: Mom. Marilea Lewis laughs at the memory of sharing the …

'You Fight for Your Side'

Texas attorneys who switched from prosecution to defense talk about what stays the same: getting the job done

Former Travis County prosecutor Rick Flores was up for a promotion to the district attorney’s office when he decided it was time for a change. Switching sides had been at the back of his mind for a while. “I had a lot of people reaching out to me,” he says—including friends and their roommates who would call when they found themselves in trouble. “I’m not the person you want,” he would joke. “I’m the guy trying to put you in jail.” But Flores began to realize the opportunity …

Vital Force

Dallas litigator Victor Vital makes it his business to parachute into cases and stick the landing with juries

On the second-to-last day of March, with much of the country scrambling to adapt to shelter-in-place orders issued in response to the spread of COVID-19, it’s business-almost-as-usual for Victor Vital. He is dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and lightly patterned yellow silk tie as though heading off to court. Instead, he’s working from his home in De Soto, as he has for the previous three weeks, and as he will do for the foreseeable future. He sits at a desk in his spacious home office, …

Gone Hot

Anne Bibeau’s budding hemp practice

“There’s a lot of risk involved,” Anne Bibeau says, “but it’s also exciting.” The 48-year-old Vandeventer Black partner is talking hemp.  Vandeventer Black first established its hemp industry niche in early 2019 as industrial hemp production became legalized nationwide. When some of the firm’s corporate clients began to ask questions about entering the industry, the partners realized the firm was uniquely positioned to answer them. For one, the firm is seasoned in counseling …

Dodge Challenger

A dodgeball fundraiser is just one of the ways David Gail gives back

When a tornado ripped through Dallas last October, David Gail’s home was one of more than 900 buildings damaged. It was a scary experience for the 39-year-old attorney, his wife, Sara, and their three young sons. But Gail is quick to distinguish between his family’s temporary situation and the plight of the homeless children helped by Vogel Alcove. “We have the means to fix our house,” notes Gail, who was back in his office three days after the storm. A partner in Weil, Gotshal & …

Courtroom Drama

A role in Inherit the Wind set theater kid Danielle Hatchitt on a path that led to the law

At an age when most kindergartners are learning how to cut and paste, Danielle Hatchitt was learning how to play dead for a live audience. At 5, Hatchitt auditioned for a production of Macbeth at the prestigious Alley Theatre in her hometown of Houston. Her tryout for the role of a murdered child required crawling slowly across the floor. She and the other child actors were instructed to move like snakes in peanut butter. Hatchitt was one of the last to make it across the floor. Afterward, she …

Pony Express

Cara Parmigiani pulls the strings of a traditional general practice

Here’s a tongue twister: Cara Parmigiani’s pet project features pony puppets. Say that four times fast.  And these aren’t just any puppets. They, like Parmigiani herself, are graduates of Seton Hall Law School, and they have the small, framed diplomas to prove it. Tristan and Pascal run the firm Pony & Pony (poniesatlaw.com), and, like their creator, they believe in the law. “They think that the law should be fair, and they’re always surprised when it isn’t,” says Parmigiani. …

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