About Joel Warner
Joel Warner is a Denver-based journalist. He is author of The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History, and co-author of The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny. He currently serves as managing editor of the investigative news outlet The Lever, and his writing has appeared in Esquire, Wired, Men’s Journal, Men’s Health, Bloomberg Businessweek, Popular Science, Slate, and Grantland, among many other publications. His work has earned accolades from the James Beard Foundation Awards, The Best American Sports Writing anthology, as well as the Society of Professional Journalists for his Super Lawyers feature “Tackling Giants.”
Articles written by Joel Warner
The World Turned Upside Down
How New York lawyers are dealing with a pandemic that’s put the law on holdIt’s an early morning in late May, and business litigator Michael C. Rakower sits in his home office in the leafy suburbs of Westchester County talking to other housebound colleagues from Rakower Law via videoconference. He checks on the progress of cases, determines pressing tasks, and gets status updates of the sort he used to get via casual hallway conversations back when the firm’s Madison Avenue office was open. “It’s actually more structure than we used to have,” he says. …
Pot of Gold
Can cannabis become big business?In 2009, after an associate told attorney Michael Hiller how medical cannabis helped alleviate symptoms of her mother’s pancreatic cancer, he considered entering the new legal field. But a partner was concerned it might alienate existing clients. In 2014, after the partner left, Hiller took the jump. Now cannabis represents a quarter of his firm’s business—from commercial enterprises and treatment providers to pro bono cases for medical marijuana patients. And instead of being repelled by …
Distinguishing Herself
How Jean Chou took a virtual Park Avenue address and made it realIn 2010, barely a year out of law school, Jean Chou launched her own Manhattan-based law firm focusing on real estate transactions. It didn’t matter that, until that point, much of the 26-year-old’s experience in the field consisted of navigating small-time tenant-landlord disputes at the Queens Housing Court; Chou was eager to make a go of it. She paid $100 a month for a virtual midtown office space so that she could list “100 Park Avenue” on her letterhead, and set up shop in her East …
New York Cannabis Industry: Legal and Branding Issues
In 2009, after an associate told attorney Michael Hiller how medical cannabis helped alleviate symptoms of her mother’s pancreatic cancer, he considered entering the new legal field. But a partner was concerned it might alienate existing clients. In 2014, after the partner left, Hiller took the jump. Cannabis became a major part of Hiller's legal practice, from commercial enterprises and treatment providers to pro bono cases for medical marijuana patients. And instead of being repelled by the …
Beyond Masterpiece Cakeshop: First Amendment vs. Anti-Discrimination Law
On December 5, 2017, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where it embodied a fundamental clash between two cherished principles: the First Amendment's protection of the free exercise of religion vs. the rights of states to protect certain classes of people — in this case, the LGBTQ+ community — from discrimination. Six months later, by a 7-2 vote, the Court overturned the lower court's ruling against Masterpiece Cakeshop. “I was …
Persistent as Hell
Paula Greisen isn’t going to wait around for someone else to enact changePaula Greisen sits in the gallery of a federal courtroom in downtown Denver, legs crossed and hands splayed out on the wooden bench on either side of her, radiating impatient energy. She’s watching a preliminary hearing in the federal lawsuit Masterpiece Cakeshop Incorporated et al v. Elenis et al. It’s one of two cases being dubbed “Masterpiece 2.0,” following up on Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the blockbuster 2018 Supreme Court case over Colorado cake …
Masterpiece Theater
Parsing the recent Supreme Court decision on gay rights and religious freedomIn 2013, Paula Greisen, a civil rights and employment attorney at King & Greisen in Denver, received a call from the Colorado chapter of the ACLU. The Colorado Civil Rights Division had found probable cause that Jack Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, had discriminated in 2012 against a same-sex couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, by refusing to bake them a wedding cake, citing his religious beliefs. The case was likely to go before an administrative law judge, …
Rights and Bites: The Growing Field of Animal Law
A growing number of attorneys are devoting all or part of their practice to animal law, while more state bars are launching animal law committees. The range of cases is growing, too Custody disputes and trusts Disputes over “no pet” housing policies Animal cruelty incidents Police shootings of companion animals Injuries sustained by aggressive animals Much in the same way that, 50 years ago, the environmental law movement became a force to be reckoned with, animal advocacy supporters say …
Rights and Bites
The growing field of animal lawWhen Jennifer Reba Edwards tells people she’s an animal attorney, she gets some odd looks. “How do you get paid?” they ask. “Do the animals pay you?” Not yet—owners and other humans still write the checks. But that doesn’t mean business isn’t booming. Edwards, who runs the Animal Law Center in Englewood, Colorado, is one of a growing number of attorneys devoting all or part of their practice to animal law, even as more state bars are launching animal law …
Shredded
On the slopes and the courtroom, Ellie Lockwood leaves the competition behindEllie Lockwood can see the snow-topped peaks of the Rockies from the windows of her firm’s 19th floor office in downtown Denver, and, every fall, as the seasons begin to shift, she feels their pull. “I always have this weird feeling like I am supposed to pack up and go to the mountains,” she says. Born in Cleveland, Lockwood began skiing at about 2 years old and relished going with her parents to ski resorts in nearby New York every winter weekend. Then, as a young teenager, she tried …
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