About Nancy Rommelmann

Nancy Rommelmann Articles written 28

Nancy Rommelmann writes for Reason, Bari Weiss’s The Free PressThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. She is the co-host of the podcast, Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, and writes the Substack Make More Pie. Her most recent book is To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder. She lives in New York City.

Articles written by Nancy Rommelmann

Mixed Judicial Arts

Former Superior Court Judge Peter Polos now passes judgment on MMA fights

A look at the CV of the Honorable Peter Polos—Air Force ROTC, former Superior Court judge and litigator—shows a man invested in the basic concepts of fairness. “I am definitely rule-oriented,” he says. “I can’t even tell you how upset I get when something is unfair.”  He’s still a judge, by the way. Not in superior court, from which he retired in 2010, but as a licensed judge in mixed martial arts competitions.  He’s a longtime fan. In high school, Polos swam and played …

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

Steve Cohen began law school at 58; now, at 68, he’s on the Rising Stars list

Steve Cohen has worked in advertising and publishing, served in the Navy, written seven books, co-chaired Hillary Clinton’s White House task force on early childhood literacy, and launched a number of startups. At age 58, he started law school. Last year, he cofounded the firm Pollock Cohen. This is his first year on the Rising Stars list. He’s 68. The first really rich guy I knew said to me that he returns every phone call within 24 hours. And the first phone call that’s returned is from …

Capitalizing on Offshore Wind

How New York can become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy

Last December, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for New York state to have a 100% carbon-neutral electricity supply by 2040. “New York must be the most progressive state in the nation moving to renewables,” he said during a speech at New York City’s Hunter College. Good timing. With politicians trying to outgreen each other—even stalwart Republicans like Sen. Lamar Alexander and Rep. Matt Gaetz are proposing conservative solutions to climate change—being ambitious when it comes to wind, solar …

A Long Way from the Mole Hole

Five legendary Georgia attorneys on practicing law for half a century

Most became lawyers by accident—although one, with tongue firmly in cheek, says it was destiny. Another chose law because he’d heard it was less anti-Semitic than other professions—but anti-Semitism was still prevalent. So was sexism and racism. Bobby Lee Cook remembers segregated drinking fountains in courthouses. Miles Alexander of Kilpatrick Stockton says, “I’m very careful not to use the term ‘good old days’ when I talk to students who have just passed the bar. Most of them …

Dina Alexander Leans In

The real estate attorney helps guide Portland through its growing pains

In 2002, shortly after Dina Alexander returned to Portland following stints with real estate firms in hot, techy markets (Seattle 1996; San Francisco 1998), Robb Ball, founding partner of Ball Janik, the firm that wooed her back, stopped by her office. He was going on sabbatical and had a small favor to ask: “Can you cover this work while I’m away?” “This work” turned out to involve the South Waterfront Central District, a parcel of land running alongside the Willamette River south of …

X-tracurriculars

Three attorneys who decompress by revving up

By the time this magazine is published in late January, many of us will have slacked off on our New Year’s resolutions to exercise more. Not Adam Grant.   The shareholder at Alpert Barr & Grant in Encino will be busy in February swimming a 6.2-mile loop around Lake Conway in Orlando, biking 261 miles during the next day and a half, and finishing up on the third day with a mere double marathon run of 52.4 miles. It’s called “Ultraman Florida” and it’s for those who think Ironman …

Sullivan for the Plaintiff, Angeli for the Defense

How two employment attorneys from across the aisle joined forces

As a student at New York University School of Law, Dana L. Sullivan never took an employment law class. “I had no interest in it,” she says.  By her second year at the University of Michigan, after taking a class taught by feminist legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon that examined early case law in sex discrimination, Courtney Angeli knew the field was for her. “I took every [employment] law-related class my school offered: individual employee rights and responsibilities, labor law and …

Boutique Buddies

Four of Oregon’s top attorneys, from different practice areas and boutique firms, have been getting together for decades

The lobby of the Arlington Club, a private Portland organization founded in 1867, is both grand and subdued, and nearly silent on a late Monday morning in early March. On the third floor, however, laughter fills the Field & Stream Room. That laughter continues almost without cease for the next 90 minutes. “I’m a water guy,” says Ward Greene, after the waiter asks what he’ll drink. “That’s because it’s free,” says David Markowitz. Attorneys Greene and Markowitz, along with Ed …

Mission: Control

Aviation attorney Michael L. Slack, a former NASA engineer, shoots for industry reform as well as client compensation

“I didn’t care about anything other than the space program—that was my world,” says Michael L. Slack from his office in Austin, recalling how he grew up in front of the television watching the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions; and how, just weeks after he graduated from high school, Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. Steps Slack planned to follow in. The trip from space-struck kid to one of the nation’s top aviation litigators includes stops at NASA, Belize and an airstrip where …

When You Say “I Do,” But Now You Don’t

Family law attorney Tom Bittner tells his clients, “It’s never going to hurt me like it hurts you”

The fifth floor conference room of Schulte, Anderson, Downes, Aronson & Bittner has one of the best views in Portland: a wall of windows that overlooks the Willamette River—deep teal this afternoon and running fast—and 100 miles to the east, Mt. Hood covered in snow. “The firm has some nice conferences in here,” says Tom Bittner, rolling the office chair he’s in right up to the window, like a kid getting close to the TV. Quick to mention that after 25 years of practice he is …

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