About Erik Lundegaard
Erik Lundegaard has been a senior editor at Super Lawyers since 2005 and its editor in chief since 2013—during which time the magazine has won close to 100 journalism awards around the country. His freelance writing has been published by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Slate, Salon, MSNBC.com, The Christian Science Monitor, The Seattle Times and The Believer, among others. He has a B.A. in English from the University of Minnesota, studied Mandarin Chinese in Taipei, Taiwan, and lives in Seattle, Washington, where he is a long-suffering Seattle Mariners fan. In his spare time, he is working on a book about the movies of James Cagney.
Articles written by Erik Lundegaard
Mr. Schpak, The Next Generation
How Andrew Schpak is helping save Hollywood … the theaterAndrew Schpak, a 29-year-old employment law associate at Barran Liebman, grew up in Los Angeles, where his father is a teacher and his mother designs and manufactures props and jewelry for movies and television. If you’ve been to the movies in the last 30 years, you’ve probably seen her work. She made the championship belt for Rocky, the tiaras in The Princess Diaries, and the pirate coins for Pirates of the Caribbean. Her talent meant one thing to young Andrew: “There were only two years …
Q&A With Murray Schwartz
Murray Schwartz of Schwartz & Perry has been practicing for 60 years. He currently focuses exclusively on all facets of employment law, including employment discrimination.You graduated from Brooklyn Law School ... in 1949? I guess you don’t know anyone else who did, am I right? True story. They wrote an article about me in one of the bar association newspapers, and [afterwards] I called up and said to the writer, “You have it wrong. You have it down as though I’m 57 years old. I’ve actually been practicing for 57 years.” She says, “Oh, I’ll change it, Mr. Schwartz!” I said, “Don’t you dare.” (Laughs) The LSAT was first administered …
Sullivan’s Travels
What happened when Wyoming's Michael J. Sullivan returned to the land of his forebearsShortly before he began his stint as the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, former Wyoming governor Michael J. Sullivan was interviewed by New York radio host Adrian Flannery, whose audience is mostly made up of Irish-Americans. Sullivan is, in fact, Irish on both sides of his family. "On my father's side, my great-grandfather was from a southwestern Irish peninsula in County Cork, where they were mostly miners," Sullivan told Flannery. "[But then] the mines ran out and the potato famine came along," …
Q&A with W. Henry Jernigan
W. Henry Jernigan, whose practice focuses on the defense of complex litigation involving corporate disputes and product liability claims, is managing partner of Dinsmore & Shohl's West Virginia offices. We spoke earlier this year. What drew you to the law? I had a close friend whose father was a lawyer and I was impressed by how much stock he placed on integrity. He was always looking for ways to accommodate the interests of, not only his clients, but the people on the other side, so …
Q&A with Robert F. Bauer
Robert F. Bauer, chair of the political law group at Perkins Coie, served as general counsel to Obama for America. He spoke with us in December. How did you become general counsel to Obama for America? When [Barack Obama] came to the United States Senate in 2005, his staff was organizing his operation and invited me to meet him. It was a natural consequence of [that] representation. Did you talk about a presidential run? Not at the time. We were just talking about a broad range of …
Q&A with James H. Landon
James H. Landon is a corporate tax and employee benefits attorney at Jones Day who has carved out a niche practice as the man to see when U.S. museums are negotiating for big exhibits from foreign collections. We spoke last fall. Super Lawyers: What drew you to the law? James Landon: I was influenced by some of the people I knew in Birmingham who were lawyers and who seemed to be just good, thoughtful people whose conduct and professional activity I admired. Birmingham? Was this …
Q&A with Philip Harris
Philip L. Harris received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983. At Jenner & Block, he focuses his practice on the defense of substantial and complex product liability, mass tort and commercial cases for large corporations. Super Lawyers: When did you first think about becoming a lawyer? Philip Harris: Definitely in high school or early in college. My career plan was to go into politics, which I ended up not doing, thankfully. Why politics? I've always …
Q&A with Linda Woolf
Linda S. Woolf graduated from the University of Baltimore Law School in 1985, worked for three years at Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, and was one of 16 lawyers who jumped ship in 1988 to start Goodell, Devries, Leech & Dann. She is now its managing partner. Super Lawyers: What drew you to the law? Linda Woolf: Its logic and orderliness and use of language. I was an English major with a writing concentration. I don't know if you've seen Avenue Q but one of the songs is "What do you do …
Q&A with Brian D. Winters
Brian D. Winters of Quarles & Brady has degrees in economics and philosophy. In the 1970s he taught in France and in the 1980s he was a successful Republican campaign manager and college professor. It wasn't until the ‘90s that he thought seriously about law school. Many lawyers know they're going into the law at the age of 7. But not you, right? This sounds sick but I really wanted to be an economist. I went off to college at 16. Cornell. Plan was to major in economics [but] I …
Q&A with Arnold S. Jacobs
Proskauer Rose's Arnold S. Jacobs, a '64 Cornell Law graduate who has been called "the dean of securities law" by Crain's New York Business, took Donna Karan International and Bear Stearns public. He defended William Casey, when he was head of the CIA, in a securities fraud matter. He represented the biotech company Celgene in a more than $1 billion equity public offering. Oh, and he set a world record by writing a law review article with 4,824 footnotes. Let's start with the 4,824 …
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