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
‘A Hole in the Constitution’
Linda Klein on the story behind the 25th AmendmentAside from the 1st and 2nd (Masterpiece Cakeshop; the lastest mass shooting), not many amendments to the U.S. Constitution have gotten more ink this year than the 25th, which—along with establishing procedures for filling vacancies in the vice presidency—established procedures in case the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It was ratified 50 years ago this year: February 10, 1967. In May, several of those behind the amendment came together at the …
The Listening Tours
Linda Klein on her year as ABA presidentWhen I was president-elect of the ABA, I went around the country, mostly to smaller towns, meeting with lawyers. I did listening tours. I knew that access to justice outside of the cities was a big problem. Chief Justice David Gilbertson in South Dakota gave a speech in which he talked about how something like 65 percent of the lawyers were in four or five towns in South Dakota. I said, “Well, I got that beat; I got Atlanta, which has 70 percent of them.” But I was so moved by what they …
The Mickey Mantle that Never Was
And the secret of the simplified Chinese characterI was retained as an expert witness by an insurance company to look at a baseball card claim. They knew I’m addicted to baseball; it’s pretty much my religion. They said, “We just got this $400,000-plus claim on a move from New York to Florida and it smells a bit.” First of all, if you’ve got the cards that this person claimed, you wouldn’t be entrusting them to a moving and storage company; you’d be doing it yourself. Basically he had the laundry list of the most desirable …
Potco
How the personal became political (and big business) for Rod KightRod Kight wouldn’t call 2009 a good year. He was going through a divorce when, in July, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. The cancer was caught soon enough that with surgery, chemotherapy and frequent checkups, he would survive. “Chemotherapy makes you feel like you have the flu. You’re nauseated. You’re achy,” Kight says. He remembers one time his brother came over. “He looked at me like, ‘Hey, man. How are you? Can I do anything?’ He didn’t know what to do. So he …
Another Inconvenient Truth
Victoria Cook’s viral Facebook post helped expose gender bias in documentary filmmakingIt was January 2, 2016, and Victoria Cook, an entertainment attorney at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz in Manhattan, found herself typing a lengthy Facebook post. “I was mad,” she says. “I have a tendency to rant on Facebook, so it was a rant. It was an early morning rant.” A month earlier, the shortlist for the Academy Award’s best documentary feature had been released, and, “as usual,” she says, “there were very few women” on it. At the same time, there was ongoing …
Pilot Program
Bronze Star recipient Clinton T. Speegle is using his Iraq War aviation expertise to help institutions write drone policyThe following is from an interview with Mr. Speegle last summer. It has been edited and condensed. I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day anymore. My wife says it’s just because I don’t want to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I was in a town called Taji, north of Baghdad, and was platoon leader of an attack helicopter platoon. We were one of the units tasked with providing a mission called 24 Hours Eyes Over Baghdad. Twenty-four hours a day, two AH-64D Apaches circled Baghdad. Things went …
Stephen Manning: 'The World is Watching'
Oregon immigration attorney is named top legal innovator of 2017Last month, Stephen Manning, an immigration attorney based in Portland, Oregon, was named the top legal innovator of 2017 for North America by the Financial Times for his Innovation Law Lab. The Times calls it “a platform that uses data analytics and intelligent project management tools to determine where lawyers can win immigration and refugee cases.” Founded in 1888, the Financial Times began its Innovative Lawyers program in Europe in 2006, in the United States in 2010, and in …
Ron Meshbesher: ‘I Love Practicing Law’
Remembering a candid Q&A with the legendary Minnesota criminal defense attorney from 2010The family of Ron Meshbesher announced this week that the legendary Minnnesota attorney is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In March 2010, we spent several hours with Meshbesher in his Minneapolis office having a wide-ranging and candid conversation on the law and its discontents: from the Piper kidnapping case to the changing terminology used in court. Some of the Q&A, including Meshbesher’s role in the 2009 Coen brothers’ film, A Serious Man, made it into the 2010 Super Lawyers …
The Searcher
IP attorney Robert Cumbow shares his lifelong love of moviesSince May 2003, when Graham Dunn moved to its current location on the northernmost pier along Seattle’s waterfront—12 years before it merged with Miller Nash to form the current firm—intellectual property attorney Robert Cumbow hasn’t bothered switching offices. If you’re on the southern side of the building, he explains, you get the morning sun, which, even in Seattle, necessitates closing the blinds. His office faces north, so he doesn’t have to do this. He flicks the blinds to …
Our Cousin Vinny
Move over, Atticus: Lawyers have a new favorite cinematic lawyerThe conversation about great lawyers on film used to begin and end with Atticus Finch—with maybe Lt. Daniel Kaffee, Sir Wilfred Robarts or young Abe Lincoln tossed in for good measure. No more. During the last year, Super Lawyers asked attorneys from across the country to name their favorite legal movie, and To Kill a Mockingbird, with Gregory Peck as the thoughtful, pacifist Southern lawyer fighting racism in 1930s Alabama, didn’t come out on top; it didn’t even place. The winner, by …
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