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
Growing Diversity
Justin Sanders and Reginald Roberts raise scholarship funds and awareness for an African American trailblazerA few years ago, Dean Andrew T. Guzman and some of his staff from USC Gould School of Law visited the law offices of Sanders Roberts on a mission. For the last two decades, since both Justin H. Sanders (’00) and Reginald Roberts Jr. (’01) had graduated from Gould, minority enrollment was down. Guzman wanted to reverse that. “Part of what he needed,” remembers Roberts, “was a financial component that could help bridge the gap for minority students—African Americans in …
What Makes a Good Personal Injury Case?
Three things: injury, liability and, yes, someone with the ability to payWhat do attorneys look for in a good personal injury case? Two Texas attorneys use the same metaphor: They look for a three-legged stool. The legs are constructed from three questions: Is someone else at fault? Are you injured? And can someone pay? You need to be able to say “yes” to all three questions to have a solid case. The first leg is all about liability or fault. “If you said to someone, ‘I was drinking at a bar and on the way home I ran a red light and hit somebody,’ well, …
How Real is 'The Queen's Gambit'?
Chess champion and IP litigator Philip X. Wang talks Beth, Bobby Fischer, and why he’s never been checkmated in a tournament gamePhilip X. Wang is an intellectual property litigator at Russ August & Kabat in Los Angeles who happens to be the 2011 California state chess champion—holding the title of International Master, a rung below Grand Master, according to the World Chess Federation (FIDE). He was also on the cover of our 2019 Southern California Rising Stars magazine. So when Netflix’s new series, The Queen’s Gambit, broke big, we had to know what he thought of it. You’re an international chess master …
The Floodgates
Charity S. Bird on the rash of closures and Subchapter Vs during the pandemicWhen Charity S. Bird became a trustee for Subchapter V bankruptcies, she figured it would lead to a couple of clients a year at best. It had such a small debt limit, after all: just $2.7 million. Plus, the economy was strong. Then COVID-19 hit, the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) was signed into law, and the debt limit for Subchapter Vs was raised, at least temporarily, to $7.5 million. “That opened the floodgates,” she says. “In one week alone, I got assigned …
'We Are So Screwed'
A Kentucky bankruptcy attorney talks about the COVID-19 falloutIn 2007, when Charity S. Bird was a two-year associate with an Atlanta law firm, she was going through records and securities in a failed mortgage broker’s office and kept coming across the names of big banks: Goldman Sachs; Bear Stearns. At one point, she turned to the senior partner on the case and said, “The big banks are going to have to fail. This is not going to work. I mean, this is a nightmare.” The partner stared at her. Finally, he said: “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever …
'I Can Fix That'
It was a long path to the law for T. McCall Stern; she wouldn’t trade it for anythingT. McCall Stern grew up in Brandon, Miss., with the attitude that anything her three brothers could do, she could do, too. They certainly made her prove it. “I learned to swim,” she says, “because my older brother threw me in the pool and said, ‘There you go.’” Then there’s the story of how she learned to drive a manual transmission. Buckle up. Her father ran an auto-body shop and gave her a vehicle when she was in high school. “He thought it would be funny to put me in a 1985 …
New York State of Mind
Four New York lawyers talk about how the COVID pandemic is affecting real estate, estate planning, employment and bankruptcy lawHow is the COVID-19 pandemic affecting your practice area? Real Estate “In my 35 years of practicing law in New York state, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m getting multiple calls and emails, daily, from people and companies looking to get out of their commercial and residential leases. Even the purchasers of luxury condos are looking to rescind deals and are no longer willing to consummate their multimillion-dollar real estate transactions. It’s impacting everyone—from …
The Room Where It Isn't Happening
How long can Broadway stay shuttered? A Q&A with entertainment attorney Loren PlotkinIn the 1970s, Loren Plotkin, a banking and real estate attorney, was asked by producer Barry Brown to be the lawyer for a revival of the Stephen Sondheim-Jule Styne musical, Gypsy, starring Angela Lansbury. “He was opening a door for me and I wanted to walk through,” says Plotkin. “I promised I’d learn everything I could and hopefully not mess it up.” He didn’t. Since then he’s worked on such Broadway hits as Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights and Hamilton. We spoke to him about the …
The Road Ahead
Will downtown real estate bounce back after COVID-19?Shortly after Memorial Day, Phillip N. Coover, a real estate attorney and partner at Ice Miller in Chicago, did something he hadn’t done for months: He got into his car and drove to the office. “I had to grab a document with an original signature for a closing on Monday,” he says. “It was strange. One, I got to downtown Chicago in 19 minutes. It usually takes me 45. It was just very eerie. No one was around. … I’m just going by blocks and blocks of businesses that are not making …
What Are the Advantages to a Subchapter V Bankruptcy?
“Subchapter V is better than a regular Chapter 11,” says Charity S. Bird, a bankruptcy attorney at Kaplan Johnson Abate & Bird in Louisville, Kentucky. "You don’t have to pay quarterly fees, you don’t have to get a consensual plan through, your creditors don’t get to torpedo it if they want to. You’re able to propose a plan and the only person that you have to make happy with your plan is your Subchapter V trustee.” Deciding if Subchapter V Is Best for Your Small Business So …
Find top lawyers with confidence
The Super Lawyers patented selection process is peer influenced and research driven, selecting the top 5% of attorneys to the Super Lawyers lists each year. We know lawyers and make it easy to connect with them.
Find a lawyer near you