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

The Wild One

For 20 years, Melinda Singer was the Evel Knievel of family law attorneys

Whether in work or life, family law lawyer Melinda Singer is aware of time, tempo and speed—but mostly speed. Twenty-two years ago, Singer channeled that love of speed into riding motorcycles, a hobby she picked up from her then-husband, who encouraged her to learn to ride. After a few trips across the Eastern Seaboard, then up to Montreal, it was on to the big leagues for Singer: trekking across the Italian Alps, riding at altitudes of more than 10,000 feet through the Dolomites in …

Strike Force

Dawn Estes tears it up, both at her women-owned powerhouse and with the band

Dawn Estes likes to say she’s seen the inside of pretty much every prison in Texas. Oklahoma and southern Arkansas, too. It’s true, though not in the way you might think. As a teenager growing up in Big Spring, she was part of a group of high schoolers who sang with a local church group. Estes and about a dozen other teenagers performed gospel songs a cappella for prison trustees and inmates. During one trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas, Estes and a girlfriend ducked out and rented a jet ski. …

Conversation Starter

Karen Gross is carving out an online space where kids can learn to agree to disagree—with civility

Some might say Karen Gross’ activism was inspired by an oversized—albeit fake—marijuana joint. As an undergraduate at the University of Texas in the late 1990s, the future criminal defense attorney was involved with a student organization that held debates and staged conversations around current events. The 6-foot-long papier-mâché joint was used to advertise a panel discussion on marijuana legalization. The group also sponsored a soapbox series on the West Mall. Students would stop by …

Being Mark Lanier

The Houston attorney’s talents include a strong work ethic, natural connection with juries, technological savvy, deep faith, photographic memory—and even acting chops

Mark Lanier was having a week. Within a 36-hour span, he would touch down in four cities—attending a pretrial conference in St. Louis for an asbestos case, sitting in on a hearing in Cleveland dealing with the opioid epidemic, then heading home to Houston for a morning meeting of The Lanier Law Firm’s section heads. That afternoon, he would fly to Nashville to moderate a panel at Lipscomb University, his undergrad alma mater, and attend a dinner honoring his former Greek professor. The only …

‘You Helped Me Change My Life’

These are the words that get Sujata Ajmera out of bed every morning

On an average day, Sujata Ajmera fields dozens of phone calls from stressed-out clients. Will this Iranian national be able to travel to the U.S. to speak about his groundbreaking research? Can that Indian immigrant accept a promotion to a slightly different role without jeopardizing years invested in his permanent residency process? Will this professor conducting artificial intelligence research be able to remain in the United States long enough for his work to yield results? On the days when …

Doug Alexander and the Art of Persuasion

The appellate attorney helps shape the law—and sometimes ‘translates’ it for judges

It was the slang heard round the state. Doug Alexander wasn’t trying to disrespect the Supreme Court of Texas, but in 1999, frustration got the better of him as he was arguing for the appellant in City of Fort Worth v. Zimlich. He swore. Kind of. He said frickin’.  While this may not seem shocking to most sensibilities, it is the sort of word seldom heard in the hallowed halls of the state Supreme Court. Days later, Texas Lawyer trumpeted the faux pas in its weekly briefing of legal …

The Other Arnold

Arnold Shokouhi made the journey from revolutionary Iran to Cowboys Stadium

His name is Arnold; he immigrated to the U.S. at a young age; he was a winning bodybuilding competitor. Oh, he also got a J.D. So not that Arnold. Arnold Shokouhi, 35, a banking and mortgage attorney and managing partner at McCathern in Dallas, came to the U.S. as an infant. His mother, Mahin Resapour, fled Iran shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution. “She literally escaped through tunnels and back roads through northern Iran, Iraq, into Turkey,” Shokouhi relates. “We got put in …

Constructing a Career

How John Warren went from sweeping construction sites to representing builders in court

It started with Lego. Construction attorney John Warren’s career path may have been set from an early age, when a childhood fascination with building blocks and backyard forts gave way to horse barns and more complicated projects.  “I’ve built stuff all my life,” says Warren, whose mother and father worked in real estate and engineering, respectively. “My dad and I built a lot of things together, and any time we’d build anything, we’d sit down at the kitchen table and draw up …

A Little More Than Luck

An oral history with a half-dozen attorneys who got their start back when a lawyer could cut his or (occasionally) her teeth on trials

Everything might be bigger in Texas, but some lawyers remember when “mega-firms” were few and far between, and so were specific practice areas.   It was also a time when loyalty to one law firm was the norm. “If you were at a big firm, you died there,” recalls Houston trial lawyer Steve Susman. We spoke with a half-dozen of Texas’ top attorneys on topics ranging from why jury trials are vanishing to what it’s like to argue before the Supreme Court.   For some, being a lawyer …

A Forensic Revolution

Gary Udashen leads the way to help Texas’ wrongfully imprisoned

In 2000, Dennis Lee Allen and Stanley Orson Mozee were convicted in the 1999 murder of the Rev. Jesse Borns Jr. in Dallas. Among the most compelling evidence was the testimony of jailhouse informants who claimed to have heard Allen and Mozee confess. The two maintained their innocence. More than 10 years later, the Innocence Project of Texas and the national Innocence Project in New York took their case. In the old prosecution files, the team discovered letters showing the informants had agreed …

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