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
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; …
Living the Law
Defense attorney Patrick Dowd learned the craft from his father’s generation of ‘Rat Pack’ lawyersPatrick Dowd looks decidedly youthful, yet he speaks in the wise tones of a legal graybeard. The math doesn’t add up. Which prompts a question: “How old were you when you became a lawyer?” Dowd leans back in his chair and says matter-of-factly: “Oh, about 9 or 10.” While childhood friends were busy putting baseball cards in the spokes of their bikes, Dowd was being introduced to the family business: law. He listened to and learned from his father, Michael, and his uncles, James and …
Win-Win
Collaborative lawyer Sandra Crawford brings consensus to family lawSandra Crawford keeps a small piece of paper on a windowsill next to the desk in her Chicago Loop law office. The paper, tattered around the edges from frequent handling, bears the following quote by Abraham Lincoln: “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses and waste of time. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be …
The Heart of Being a Lawyer
Lorna Propes rode a wave of cultural change to become a lawyer—and the law’s gain is, well, the teaching profession’s gain, tooLorna Propes says she is a product of opportunities that arose in the late 1960s. “I like to think of it more broadly than the [women’s] movement,” says a smartly dressed Propes, 64, from behind a big wooden desk at Propes & Kaveny, the firm she founded in 2000. “It was really the civil rights movement. “It started in the 1960s and focused on racial discrimination, which was broadened to include gender discrimination. This isn’t to say there weren’t women who went to law …
Patented Path to Success
The quick rise of Meredith AddyMeredith Addy, 40, is a shareholder and director at Chicago-based Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, one of the largest intellectual property law firms in the country. Specializing in patent law, she represents some of the most prominent companies in the pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, audio and navigation industries. She's also a major player in an array of legal organizations, ranging from the Richard Linn American Inn of Court to the Amicus Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law …
The People’s Lawyer
Allan Karlin's work reverberates through the halls of powerSome of us learn it from the Bible ("To whom much is given, much is expected"). Some learn it from comic books ("With great power comes great responsibility"). Allan Karlin, who grew up in a well-to-do suburb of Chicago, learned the lesson from his mother: "With privilege comes responsibility," she told him. He now practices what she preached in Morgantown, W.Va. "It's a place where you can have a law practice representing people in a lot of different kinds of cases," says Karlin, 62, whose …
The Diversity That Leads to Diversity
Cardelle Spangler helps employers help employeesCardelle Spangler, an African-American woman, represents employers in race and gender discrimination suits. How does she handle the irony? “There’s no irony to that at all,” says the 38-year-old Spangler, a partner in the Chicago office of Winston & Strawn. “There are two reasons for this. One, this is an opportunity to make the work environment better for everyone. “Secondly, I’ve been very lucky in my career to have worked for good clients. Part of being a good client is …
Going Public
For William J. Quinlan, counsel to Gov. Blagojevich, father knows bestGov. Rod Blagojevich doesn’t implement a single initiative without first consulting William Quinlan. “On a personal level, I like the fact that you can make a difference in people’s lives, and a direct difference,” says Quinlan, a native of the northwest side of Chicago. “Many times [in private practice], you have people coming to you and saying, ‘Look, I’m getting sued by this person’… You’re dealing with it after the fact. Here, working for a chief executive, you’re more …
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