About Beth Taylor
Beth Taylor has been a senior editor for Super Lawyers since 2003, and has won dozens of awards for headline-writing and editing throughout her career. Previously, she was an editor and covered courts for The Orlando Sentinel. She also worked for go2net and KIRO-TV in Seattle, where she wrote for and edited their websites. In addition, Beth edited The Kitsap Business Journal and Media Inc. Beth has written travel books, including Around Seattle With Kids for Fodor’s and Seattle Day By Day for Frommer’s, and online travel guides for Google. Her travel writing has appeared in publications including the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle. Beth has a B.A. in communications/journalism and a master’s degree in political science.
Articles written by Beth Taylor
Flip the Script
When Luke Ellis gets a case, the first thing he does is tear it apartQ: I understand you pride yourself on changing the narrative of a case. What exactly does that mean? A: You really have to start from the beginning, look at the evidence and take everything apart, because a lot of times the true narrative of the case is not what’s apparent in the police report. I worked a year ago or so on a case [involving] a young woman. She was 18. The bus was late. It was night. It was raining. She ran across the street against the light near a crosswalk. The light was …
WHY KEVIN J. CURTIS DOES WHAT HE DOES
The Spokane litigator is all about protecting libertiesQ: You interned in the prosecutor’s office at law school, but decided on defense. Why? A: I wasn’t really cut out to be a prosecutor. I just had a little more empathy for the defendants than perhaps I should have had for the culture of those offices. And I didn’t find it extremely challenging from an intellectual standpoint. It may well have been the position that I was in at the prosecutor’s—misdemeanors—you’re just reading police reports and working off the interviews conducted …
‘America’s Lawyer’
Mike Papantonio, law partner of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., says trial lawyers without some rage in their hearts aren’t doing it rightQ: You are a plaintiff’s lawyer, author, environmentalist and TV commentator—plus, you do a radio show with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Let’s start with lawyer: What makes you so successful? A: If you get the best trial lawyers to tell you a fundamental part of being a little better than average, [they’ll say] there has to be some rage. I have watched young trial lawyers come up. They can have a technical ability, but if they don’t have some underlying sense of rage about injustice, they …
She Speaks the Language
Kimberly Bessiere Martin could have been a spy but she became fascinated with products liabilityWhen Kimberly Bessiere Martin came out of the University of Alabama in 1991, with a degree in international relations and a fluency in Russian, the CIA came calling. But after nailing one interview with the intelligence agency and going through another in D.C., a few weeks later she was accepted into law school. “I felt that was probably more of what I wanted to do,” says Martin, now managing partner of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings’ Huntsville office. “It’s just a new language. … I …
The No-Comfort Zone
McCathern business lawyer Jesse Hoffman likes to tackle questions that haven’t already been answeredQ: You went to the state AG’s Office straight from law school. Any surprises? A: Everything. Law school teaches you a lot about how to think like a lawyer. Funny I’m saying that—I always thought that was the most worn-out statement in law school; you hear it all the time—but it’s completely true. When it comes to the practice of law—from the business of practicing law to the actual dynamics of a case, the anatomy of a case and how to litigate a case—I really don’t feel like you …
The Atticus of Attica
From rioting prisoners to Black Panthers to animal-rights defenders, Michael E. Deutsch has been on the front line of the fight for civil rightsQ: What were the roots of your civic activism? A: I didn’t really become an activist until I got to law school. I graduated [Northwestern] in ’69, right at the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Then I became a law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. The Chicago conspiracy trial was going on; these anti-war activists were put on trial for crossing state lines to encourage riots—basically to encourage demonstrations against the war. It was a very colorful …
'We've Got to Do Something About These Kids'
How Kathleen Gasparian launched a program in Louisiana to help unaccompanied immigrant childrenLast summer, Kathleen Gasparian attended a church fundraiser where the buzz was all about the surge of unaccompanied children—fleeing narcoterrorism, violence and poverty—making their way from Central America to Louisiana, only to face deportation. “Everybody kept coming up to me and going, ‘We’ve got to do something about these kids,’” says the founder of Gasparian Immigration in New Orleans. “On the drive home, I turned to my husband and said, ‘Oh no, I think I’m the one …
From the Barre to the Bar
Rebecca A. Nitkin traded in her pointe shoes for a criminal defense practiceRecently a man walked into a house where a woman was home alone, then started talking crazy about black magic and computer chips in his head. The terrified woman fled and contacted police. Rebecca A. Nitkin was outraged—about the first-degree burglary charge against her client. “It’s one of the worst charges,” she says, “because it’s somebody breaking and entering into your home with the intent to commit a violent crime.” All the man was guilty of, Nitkin argued, was going off his …
The Candy Man’s Lawyer
John R. Climaco helped Sammy Davis Jr. battle financial failures, negotiated with Cesar Chavez on behalf of the Teamsters union, and took on the tobacco industryQ: Your clients have ranged from Sammy Davis Jr. to Liza Minnelli to the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Tell me about working with these celebrities. A: I began representing Sammy in the mid-’70s—met him through a friend named Richard Wayman, who had formed the Highway Safety Foundation. Sammy was interested in highway safety as a result of an accident between Las Vegas and Los Angeles where he lost his eye. Sy [Marsh] used to be Sammy’s agent. They subsequently …
Anything You Can Do, She Can Do Better
Vicki L. Gilliam holds her own fighting for clients like Brandy Nicole Williams and the Ramapough TribeVicki L. Gilliam, like most of us, doesn’t particularly like getting up and going to an office building. So she came up with an ingenuous solution: She simply doesn’t have one. The idea to have her firm’s employees work remotely formed when one of her paralegals moved to Memphis. “In five minutes, my tech guy was able to connect her into our server,” says Gilliam. Then came the roadwork that dragged on for months. “People couldn’t even get into the office. I had to drive around …
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