About William Wagner
William Wagner is an award-winning writer and editor who’s been at it for thirty-plus years. He has written for everything from Sports Illustrated to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and also is the author of a book about the Chicago Cubs titled Wrigley Blues. Wagner has contributed to Super Lawyers since 2005 and has thoroughly enjoyed interviewing and profiling an array of fascinating attorneys.
Articles written by William Wagner
Unwinnable
Kathleen Zellner lives for impossible cases, including Steven Avery's
To the media from around the world and the crime buffs packed into the gallery, the shackled man sitting before the judge—a convicted murderer sentenced to death—is clearly doomed; the clock is simply ticking down to his execution. But his lawyer, a dressed-to-the-nines dynamo, knows better. And when she convinces the real murderer to confess on the witness stand, the courtroom erupts. Amid a chorus of gasps, the man’s chains are undone and clank to the floor, and he and his lawyer walk …
Mr. Bursch Goes Back to Washington
John Bursch has had 14 U.S. Supreme Court cases, and won 10 of themThe first thing you need to know about John Bursch, the 44-year-old owner of Bursch Law in Caledonia, is that no detail is too small to obsess over when preparing a case. Type A barely begins to describe him. Take the consideration he gave to acoustics before arguing his first case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011: “You stand very close to the bench, but then it spreads out to the point where, even with your peripheral vision, you can’t see the justices on the ends,” he says. …
Batting Cleanup
Personal injury lawyer Patrick A. Salvi is a powerhouse in the courtroom and as a ballclub ownerThe Salvi name pops up in a lot of places. At concession stands. In the University of Notre Dame’s football record book. At baseball stadiums. On harps. And, of course, you’ll see it on the door of one of the most successful personal injury law firms in Chicago. Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard, the brainchild of Patrick A. Salvi, has been in business since 1982, accruing millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for clients along the way. “I feel like we make a difference,” …
Dean Strang Has the Mic
Making a Murderer has brought him, and the justice system, to the national stageIt’s showtime at the Chicago Theatre, and a throng has turned out to see America’s newest sensation: Strang & Buting. They take the stage amid spirited applause. The venue is known for hosting musical acts, not suits from the legal community, but this isn’t a show in the traditional sense—it’s serious business. In fact, the stakes couldn’t be higher. To most, Dean Strang and Jerry Buting are the lawyers who defended Steven Avery, whose controversial murder trial from a decade …
Q&A with Dean Strang
The Making a Murderer lawyer talks about Brendan Dassey's overturned sentenceDecember’s issue of Wisconsin Super Lawyers magazine will feature a cover story on the career of Dean Strang. Strang made a name for himself as a Madison criminal defense attorney, but was propelled to celebrity status this past winter with the release of Netflix’s Making a Murderer, a documentary series following the trials and incarcerations of Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery, who Strang helped defend. Strang been using this newfound fame to shed light on the criminal justice system, and …
‘Why Not Text?’
How Jacob Stuart Jr. got the state Bar to agree to a 21st-century kind of solicitationJacob Stuart Jr. is a bit of a rarity when it comes to lawyers: He’s also the owner of a software company. It was precisely Stuart’s love of the law that led him into the realm of tech startups last year. His company, George Stuart Legal Supplies, is developing software to obtain the cellphone numbers of Floridians who have been arrested or received traffic tickets, then solicit them via text message. Stuart himself isn’t a techie—he majored in philosophy and religion at Emory …
Amped
Perpetually moving bankruptcy attorney James Sprayregen can’t be outworkedJames H.M. Sprayregen is a man on the move. His corner office at the Chicago headquarters of Kirkland & Ellis has no desk, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead there’s a treadmill with a large standing desk attached to the front. “I can get a workout in while I’m doing conference calls,” the 56-year-old restructuring and bankruptcy attorney says nonchalantly. “It’s very convenient, and I stand up a lot anyway.” Then there’s his work schedule, which puts him on the …
Don’t Tell Karen McNulty Enright She Can’t Do Something
Unless you want it doneWhen Karen McNulty Enright was a student at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, in the 1980s, she decided to get her pilot’s license—not because she had any great desire to fly, but because she wanted to prove a point. “My friend and I took aviation classes on a dare,” Enright recalls with a mischievous grin. “The class was all guys, and someone challenged us to join it. Our instructor, also a male, was an old Navy pilot, and he basically said that the two of us wouldn’t last. That was …
Treating the Whole Patient
Li-Hsien “Lily” Rin-Laures is an M.D., but these days she’s healing biotechsThe hard part of telling the story of Li-Hsien “Lily” Rin-Laures, M.D., is deciding where to begin. Maybe at age 13, when she enrolled in Johns Hopkins University? At 21, when she earned a medical degree from Northwestern University? At 25, when she tacked on a law degree from Harvard? Or perhaps at 34, when she became general counsel of publicly held Hyseq Pharmaceuticals Inc. Any of the above would be headline material, but the logical place to start is in the here-and-now. Today, …
Intercepted
CareerBuilder’s Alex Green started in the NFL before redirecting to the lawThe date was October 4, 1987, and Alex Green was living the dream: He was an NFL safety for the Dallas Cowboys: “America’s Team.” Never mind that Green was a “replacement player,” the result of a labor dispute that sent the regular NFL players from the locker rooms to the picket lines. On that autumn day at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, he intercepted a pass thrown by New York Jets quarterback David Norrie, thereby securing for himself a place in the NFL record book: Green, Alex; …
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