About Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker Articles written 8

Articles written by Maggie Koerth-Baker

Head Above Water

John Morton's life with Parkinson's and in the pool

John Morton has never been one to back down from a challenge. In the courtroom, he's known as a crack personal injury lawyer, with more than 26 years' experience at Hunter & Morton in Alexandria, representing clients who've been injured by negligent health care providers, offshore accidents and defective state highways. Out of the office, he's a champion swimmer who qualified for the Olympic trials in 1976, participated in triathlons for 20 years, and coached local high school swimmers with …

Moving Out of the Crosshairs

Former state senator Gary Johnson on leaving the public arena  

Politics is hard work—especially when you only have 24 hours in the day. Between 1996 and 2000, Gary C. Johnson served as a Kentucky state senator (this following almost 20 years as the county attorney for Pike County) and the chairman of the state Democratic Majority Caucus, all while maintaining his nationally recognized, eponymous firm. It wasn't easy. He describes his political experience as working full-time at a part-time job while having a giant target on his back. The experience did, …

The Kindness of Strangers

How Scott Dickens was changed by his experiences in Costa Rica  

It's hard for Scott Dickens to take off his lawyer hat, even in the sweltering heat of Quepos, Costa Rica. Dickens, who specializes in business and personal injury litigation and products liability at Louisville's Fultz Maddox Hovious & Dickens, found it difficult not to think of all the potential claims floating around the impoverished neighborhoods of Quepos when he arrived there in spring 2006. "So many aspects of their way of life are below our standards in terms of safety," he says. …

What I Learned From Bert T. Combs

Twenty years later, Debra Dawahare remembers working with the late governor  

Of all the co-counsels a young Kentucky attorney in the mid-'80s could have, Bert T. Combs might have been the best. That's what Debra Dawahare of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs discovered when she worked with the former governor on Rose v. Council for Better Education. Dawahare was only a second-year associate in 1985 when Combs, then in his 70s, called her into his office to discuss the case. Despite the prestige of working with a former governor, the case—which challenged the way the state …

The Empty Chair

How Robert Glass helped save an innocent man from death row

After more than 35 years as a criminal defense lawyer, Robert Glass of Glass & Reed in New Orleans has stories to tell. He was instrumental in freeing feminist Ginny Foat from a murder charge in 1983, represented rap star Corey “C-Murder” Miller in a second-degree murder conviction appeal in 2006 and has handled numerous less glamorous and pro bono cases for clients who couldn’t afford the justice they deserved. But, despite all that, Glass’ favorite legal moment came when he had …

The Ultimate Sports Authority

Got a sporting dispute? Carolyn Witherspoon can handle it

If you bring the ball, does that make you team captain? Which is more fair, the coin toss or paper-rock-scissors? And what about shirts vs. skins? When sporting disputes progress beyond these age-old debates, solving them becomes more complicated than simply plying the warring parties with punch and pie.    That’s a fact Carolyn Witherspoon knows well. In the world of grown-up sports, Witherspoon fills the role of “the parent”––when two sides can’t work it out themselves, they …

The Supreme Court of Rock

Jeff Weintraub shreds with his band Sky King

Maybe it was Memphis. Or maybe he was born with rhythm. But when the teenage Jeff Weintraub picked up his first guitar, it sure felt right. Like many of his Memphis peers in the 1960s, Weintraub was in a garage band with several of his friends, playing standards by the Kinks, the Beatles, and Paul Revere and the Raiders. Calling themselves the Bounders, they rocked local venues and competed in battles of the bands at ’60s clubs like The Bitter Lemon. And, before college became the band’s …

A Dream Come True

How Tom Williams played a part in preserving MLK’s legacy

Tom Williams couldn’t believe what he was seeing. On vacation with his wife in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1997, Williams was eager to check out the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. The Williamses walked down the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial, hoping to take a commemorative photo at the monument to King. Which was how they discovered that the monument didn’t exist. Despite searching high and low, Williams couldn’t find …

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