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
John Paul Stevens: Brilliant and Kind
Recollections on one of the U.S. Supreme Court’s longest-serving justicesWhen attorneys and clerks discuss Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the longest-serving U.S. Supreme Court justices who died yesterday in Fort Lauderdale at the age of 99, one word that comes up frequently is “kind.” Another is “brilliant.” “Justice Stevens is always so kind to the advocates,” said civil rights attorney Paul Hoffman in a 2007 feature on Southern California attorneys who have argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. “If all the judges were like him, it would be a …
Found in Translation
In Taiwan, Amy Y. Hsiao translated for kids and presidentsShortly after Amy Y. Hsiao arrived in San Diego to attend California Western School of Law, she was invited to a friend’s house on a weekend afternoon. A few guests from Taiwan were there as well, and as soon as their kids saw Hsiao, they got excited and started shouting. “Rita! You’re the hostess! Rita!” The kids weren’t confused; they were fans. From 2007 to 2008, Hsiao, with dyed red hair, co-hosted the educational TV show ABC Jump! in which her character, Rita, helped …
‘Nobody Knew the Danger Yet’
Xiaomin Chen recalls 9/11In 1988, Xiaomin Chen immigrated to the U.S. from China to get a master’s degree in law. As a teenager during the Cultural Revolution, he’d worked the rice fields in a small town bordering Fujian and Zhejiang provinces; but under Deng Xiaoping, universities and law schools reopened, providing opportunities that hadn’t existed before. After earning his Chinese law degrees, Chen arrived in the U.S. in 1988 to get an LL.M. Eight years later, in 1996, he and three other Chinese partners …
Kelly Andersen at Mount Shasta’s Summit
The Oregon attorney cycles and scales mountains in his free timeKelly Andersen, a personal injury-plaintiff attorney in Medford, Oregon, has loved the outdoors ever since herding cattle on horseback as a child in the Manti-La Sal National Forest. Now in his 60s, he continues to cycle long distances (including STP, the annual 200-mile ride between Seattle and Portland) and climb mountains. Here Andersen reaches the summit of California’s Mount Shasta in July 2017. https://www.youtube.com/embed/_7fV5D2qiZQ Andersen’s story was featured in the 2018 issue …
Justice Kennedy: Renaissance Man, Decent Person, Mock Trial Enthusiast
How the lawyers of Super Lawyers have seen the court's longtime swing voter over the yearsJustice Anthony Kennedy, who was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Reagan in November 1987 and sworn in during Reagan’s last year in office, announced this week that he’s retiring from the court at age 81. President Trump will nominate his successor. Through the years, Kennedy’s name has come up many times in our magazine. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst On the lighter side, in our frequent query, “Which Supreme Court justice would you take to lunch?” Justice Kennedy received …
Inside the White House, with Shawn Holley and Kim Kardashian
How the LA attorney and her client helped free Alice Marie JohnsonOn June 6, President Trump commuted the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old grandmother, who had already served nearly 22 years in federal prison for a first-time drug offense related to cocaine distribution. Ms. Johnson’s cause had been championed by, among others, Kim Kardashian, who, with her attorney Shawn Holley of Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert in Los Angeles, visited the White House the previous week. Ms. Holley spoke with us about those events on Monday. …
'The Trees are Gone'
Lymari Santana returns to Puerto Rico for the first time since Hurricane MariaLymari Santana was born in Augusta, Georgia, while her grandfather was stationed at Fort Gordon, then she and her parents moved back to their native Puerto Rico when she was 5 or 6. In college, she joined the Army ROTC, and after law school she went on active duty as a JAG officer in the Army from 1995 to 2000. She’s now a top family law attorney with Mack & Santana Law Offices in Minneapolis. She’ll be featured in the next issue of Minnesota Super Lawyers, out July 3. Here’s her …
‘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 …
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