About Beth Taylor
Beth Taylor was a senior editor for Super Lawyers for more than 20 years, and has won dozens of awards for headline-writing and editing throughout her career. Previously, she was an editor and covered courts for The Orlando Sentinel. She also worked for go2net and KIRO-TV in Seattle, where she wrote for and edited their websites. In addition, Beth edited The Kitsap Business Journal and Media Inc. Beth has written travel books, including Around Seattle With Kids for Fodor’s and Seattle Day By Day for Frommer’s, and online travel guides for Google. Her travel writing has appeared in publications including the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle. Beth has a B.A. in communications/journalism and a master’s degree in political science.
Articles written by Beth Taylor
REDEFINING CORPORATE CULTURE
Memphis lawyer Arnold Perl on the shift from ‘workers’ to ‘human resources’Q: Were there any early influences that shaped your career? A: Debating changed my life. In undergraduate school, I was very involved with intercollegiate debating as president of the University of Illinois Forensic Association. It made me much more critical about words and phrases and the use of language and rhetoric in public debate, and helped me develop independent and critical thinking skills. I’ll forever be grateful to those at the University of Illinois who gave me that opportunity. …
The Good Seed
Don Downing grew up around Missouri cotton, soy and rice farms. So when a genetically modified seed ended up in the U.S. rice supply, he got the call.Long summer days spent swinging bats and helping out on the family farm—these are the images that come to mind when Don Downing thinks back on his childhood near Kennett, Mo. “I lived and breathed baseball back in those days,” Downing recalls. “My dad would bring me to the Cardinals games once or twice a summer. After one of the trips, I asked my dad, ‘How are the Cardinals going to find me down here?’ He said, ‘Son, if you’re good enough, they’ll find you.’ Well, I guess I …
Her Own Way
Judy Snyder tells how the Civil Rights Act of 1991 transformed the nation—and her practiceQ: Are there any funny or interesting stories you like to share? A: When I was in the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office—you have to keep in mind I’m 5-foot-2; I’m not a large woman—I remember one case [where] I was prosecuting a young man who had broken into one of the offices of City Hall. He had smashed one of the street-side windows, entered the office through the window and had removed, among other things, a typewriter. Now, you have to think back to the old-fashioned, …
Bette Epstein’s Estate Secrets
The Reed Smith lawyer tells why her practice area is anything but routineQ: As an estate lawyer, you must hear a lot of family squabbling. A: A lot of what [families] fight about are items of tangible personal property, which may or may not have any value. The money, the property—that’s kind of easy to divide up. But where there is one deer head, one piano, one favorite piece of art or piece of jewelry. … Jewelry disappears. There’s a lot of time spent over jewelry that has disappeared that you’ll never find again. Q: What was that about a deer …
B. Gerald Johnson: Civic Booster
The co-founder of Pacifica Law Group helped shape SeattleQ: If you hadn’t gone into law, what would you have done? A: In college, I was torn between journalism and law. I was the chairman of the daily newspaper at school and was also a stringer for The New York Times. But I also thought I would want to return to Seattle, and the opportunities for journalism, even then, were such that a career path in which I was going to be really serious about that probably led through New York or Washington, D.C., or someplace else. So it was more of a homing …
Stuart Z. Grossman V. Curacao
Bank of America, BP, and possibly the Netherlands are also on notice from the Coral Gables personal injury attorneyQ: Were you always interested in the law? A: I was the first person in my family to graduate college. I did not have some Uncle Phil or my dad to use as a role model for being a lawyer. Q: So what was the reason? A: I grew up in the ’60s era that changed the world as far as the concept of equality was concerned. I think that I honed some sense of justice then—if not in my conduct, then certainly subliminally, and just psychologically was always drawn to those stories, to movies about …
Engineering Solutions
Richard H. Steen’s mix of strengths makes him a powerhouse at the negotiating tableQ: What drew you to the law? A: One of my uncles was a lawyer—he was a law professor—and I had an interest, which really developed through high school and college, in social issues and legal issues. My undergraduate work was in engineering, which is nothing like the law, but as I got to be maybe a junior or so, my thoughts turned to staying in school, and law [was] something that interested me. I decided that I wanted to take a shot. I had a passing interest in politics as well. I thought …
When a Click Is More Than Just a Click
In the world of click-fraud investigations, Dean Gresham’s name is at the top of any search engineDean Gresham began handing out “attorney-at-law” business cards when he was 8 years old. Growing up with big plans in a little town, he drew inspiration from his uncle, a prominent maritime attorney in New York City. “It was small-town Texas,” Gresham says of his hometown of Jasper. “I always wanted to move to the city and do something important.” Three decades later, Gresham, of counsel at Payne Mitchell Law Group in Dallas, is no longer typing his own cards. At age 37, he has …
Michael T. Reagan Makes His Case
The Ottawa appellate attorney is all about the detailsQ: What do you like best about appellate law? A: I get to work with a wide variety of great lawyers. There are, most of the time, already lawyers in the case, and most of the time the cases are of some size and have sufficient interest to warrant somebody taking an appeal. I’m lucky. On the more substantive side, appellate lawyers are, in my view, part of the world of the appellate courts. Appellate lawyers are not appellate judges, but nonetheless the appellate judges and the lawyers …
The Fixer
Nothing makes estate lawyer Ruth I. Rounding madder than witnessing injustice. Colleagues at Kohnen & Patton say (good-naturedly) that her middle initial stands for “Irate”Q: When you started practicing, was the reality different from what you had envisioned? A: I think what’s different is that you can’t just yell and say, “Look, here are all my facts; this has to be fixed; this is the way it is; I’m right.” You have to be more subtle and compromise … build a case and think about what case the other side has, and maybe think about it from their point of view. The judge has to justify his decision or the IRS agent has to make his numbers or the …
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