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
‘If You Run Big, Dangerous Things, You Have an Obligation to Run Them Safely’
The philosophy of Constellation Energy’s Charles BerardescoWhen Charles A. Berardesco was 8, his uncle already had a fix on his career path. “One day, I must have been jabbering—we ate dinner every Sunday at my father’s family’s house, an Italian get-together,” says Berardesco, who still looks forward to platters of macaroni and sausage when he visits his parents. “[Uncle Roy] finally looked at me and said, ‘Boy, you talk a lot; you’ll probably turn out to be a lawyer.’… I thought, ‘OK, that sounds good, I’ll be a lawyer.’ As …
Manhattan Transfer
Real estate lawyer David Alan Richards transfers everything from Kipling books to airOn his 21st birthday, David Alan Richards opened a card from his parents and read Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If,” promising heady rewards for young men of impeccable character: Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it/And—which is more—you’ll be a Man my son! Forty-three years later, Richards may not have had everything in the Earth, but he did have a Kipling collection valued at $1.5 million. “Most people cannot believe that a book collection can be worth that much,” says …
The Ride of a Lifetime
Through nearly four decades of litigation, Jon Muth says it’s the people along the way who countWhat drew you to law in the first place? I had it pretty firmly in my mind by the time I was in ninth grade, and in part for all the wrong reasons. I had an aunt and uncle who were intellectual property lawyers, with a very successful practice in Washington, D.C. My aunt at one time was the No. 2 person at the patent office in charge of trademarks and copyrights. My uncle was one of the best chemical patent trial lawyers in the world. I kind of liked their lifestyle. They had a nice house, they …
Dianne Jay Weaver, Weaver & Weaver, P.A., Jacksonville
How Weaver went from being called “The Skirt” to landing nearly twenty $1 million-plus verdicts. No one’s snickering nowHow did you become interested in law in the first place? When I was 13 or 14, the grandfather of my best friend in junior high was a premier trial lawyer. On breaks, my friend and I used to go and watch some of his cases. I watched him take the jury from being totally indifferent to just looking at him whenever something happened to see if he approved or disapproved. It was so fascinating to see this happen. I went home and told my parents, “I’m going to be a trial lawyer.” And …
Q&A With Charlie Wiggins, Wiggins & Masters, Bainbridge Island
How a ‘military brat’ ended up setting his sights on the state Supreme CourtYou grew up in a military family, right? What was that like? Have you ever seen the movie Brats? It’s a great portrait of growing up in the military. One of the interviewees says, basically, family was very important to my dad, but it was very apparent to everybody that the military had first priority. I think that is one of the major influences of growing up in the military: It gives you this sense that service is important, and service becomes just a huge part of your life. That’s not to …
Q&A With J. Alan Jensen
J. Alan Jensen is firmwide chairman of Holland & Knight’s family business group. He is a father of seven, an animal lover and a marathon runner who practices estate, tax and family business law at the firm’s Portland office. Did you always want to be a lawyer? I was sent to college with the assignment to become a doctor but developed a hearty dislike for zoology. My father and grandfather were both dentists, so they just assumed I would become one. Law was not a highly regarded …
Rx for Hospitals: Q&A with Robert P. Roth
Robert P. Roth practices medical malpractice defense at Portnoy & Roth in Bloomfield Hills. He recently became a troubleshooter for Hospital Corporation of America, the nation’s largest hospital chainWhat do you know today about the practice of law that you didn’t know coming out of law school? There is no such thing as automatic justice. As an idealistic young person, you think that justice prevails automatically. You want to believe there’s a system out there that makes it happen somehow. The corollary of that is that you, as an attorney working within the bounds of professional conduct, can truly impact outcomes by your knowledge base, your experience, your hard work. You don’t …
Q&A: Charles Pillans III
Bedell, Dittmar, DeVault, Pillans & Coxe, JacksonvillePillans, who descends from a proud line of Florida "crackers," has been practicing commercial litigation and criminal defense for more than 40 years. He loves the law, but in another life might like to be a pianist. First, he'll have to learn to play. Your firm is 144 years old; its building has stood for more than a century. Are you a history buff? I'm an unusual person in Florida: I'm a fifth-generation Floridian, on my father's side. They moved here before it was a state, around 1840, …
Q&A: Robert K. Dawson, DawsonBrown, Seattle
The 55-year-old litigator is hooked on adrenaline—whether it be in the courtroom or hurtling through the air attached to a bungee cordWhat was your childhood like? I grew up in the country. There were lots of cows and time spent floating down rivers. It was kind of a Tom Sawyer upbringing. My father had a lot of occupations. Early in his life he was a gambler—a pool shark. He was later a salesman, a carpenter, ran a hardware store—he did quite a few things. Up until third grade we lived in Seattle, then we moved to Lochsloy. What did you learn from your dad? He paid his taxes, every penny of them. The most money he …
Q&A: Barnes Ellis, Stoel Rives, Portland
Ellis reflects on 44 distinguished years in law. Though his practice tends toward the complex—consumer class actions and corporate governance—his formula for victory is simple: common sense, respect and a dash of humorWhat was it like growing up in your hometown of Marblehead, Mass.? People are very deep-rooted there. Two years ago, I went back to my Boy Scout troop's 50th reunion, and on the list of names, seven out of 10 still lived in the area. Also, one lesson I learned from my parents was to love your siblings because, as life unfolds, they may be your closest friends. That's certainly how it's worked out for us. When and why did you decide to become an attorney? I decided in my senior year of …
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