About Rebecca Mariscal
Rebecca Mariscal is an editor on Super Lawyers’ staff. She serves as editor for Southwest, Mountain States, Oklahoma and Indiana magazines, as well as being a writer, fact-checker and proofreader. She studied communication and journalism at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota where she was also a senior reporter for the university’s news site TommieMedia. She has previously worked for newspapers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Her work has been featured in the Pioneer Press, Duluth News Tribune, Star-Observer and more.
Articles written by Rebecca Mariscal
Estate Planning Tips for Blended Families
Remarriage following divorce is extremely commonplace today. With almost 40 percent of first marriages ending in divorce, blended families are becoming more and more common. Blended families are made up of spouses with children from previous relationships. The extra pieces in this family dynamic can lead to additional considerations when it comes to estate planning. Complications of second (or third) marriages can require an expert understanding of estate planning and estate tax laws. Estate …
‘You’ve Got This’
How Joy Beitzel supports survivors of sexual violenceWhen her clients step up to the stand in civil court, Joy Beitzel tries to be a calming presence for them. She knows these clients, survivors of sexual violence, have had control taken away. Beitzel and her coworkers at the Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault do everything they can to help them reclaim it. “I have been able to tell clients, ‘You can just look at me if that feels best. You don’t have to look at the attorney or the other party,’” Beitzel says. When they lock …
Pri-Tal’s Travels
One lawyer’s meandering journey to Antarctica and backBy the time Ben Pri-Tal found out he was accepted to Tulane Law School, he was on a ship headed for Antarctica. He had to find a satellite phone to call back to defer. “I said, ‘Well, I think I’ll take another year before I get back,’” he recalls. He’d already been traveling for a few months by then. Pri-Tal was no stranger to the road, having visited Europe and Asia and lived in South Africa and the Middle East. This trip was prompted by his decision to switch career paths from …
How State Law Protects Victims of Revenge Porn
While revenge porn is relatively new as a legal concept, there is no shortage of cases. Attorney Andrew Stengel’s New York firm gets a call every day from another victim. The law that passed in New York in 2019 concerning revenge porn was several years in the making, with advocates fighting since 2013 to get the protections in place. Now 48 states have similar revenge porn statutes, from Texas to Vermont to Pennsylvania. “One of the most important things about these laws is that it’s a …
In Translation
How David Gair went from teaching to tax lawDavid Gair was 16 years old when he left the U.S. for the first time, boarding a plane to spend the school year as an exchange student with a family in the small town of La Almunia, Spain. He quickly discovered his Spanish II education wasn’t enough. “Man, it’s trial by fire,” he says. “I had a headache for the first month I was there, just because it was so much information in my brain.” Even so, the experience enhanced his love for Spanish and he eventually earned a master’s …
A Little Bit of ‘I’ll Show You’
How Judy Langevin learned to do good where she canIt was at Berkley in the late 1960s that Judy Langevin decided she wanted to save the world. It was a common notion among the students there, amidst the Vietnam War and the growing civil rights and women’s liberation movements. “I can remember sitting on the steps of Sproul Hall and watching students being beaten by cops with clubs and being dragged, and the blood from their injuries ending up on the concrete of Sproul Plaza,” Langevin says. “I can remember walking across campus and …
Not Just a Job—a Cause
Kostan Lathouris’ promise to represent tribal interests and sovereigntyFrom a young age, Kostan Lathouris would join his grandmother Loretta to make the two-and-a-half hour drive from Southern Nevada to the Chemehuevi Reservation in southeastern California. There, they would sit in the back row of their tribe’s council meetings, listening as the agenda unfolded. After the meeting, the two would gather with family and debrief about the issues. Lathouris with his grandmother at his graduation. “I got my sense of civic duty and responsibility and integrity from …
‘That Freedom to Advocate’
Aida Macedo’s search for the perfect practiceIn 2018, Aida Macedo was on the partner track. She’d spent the past six years at Miles, Sears & Eanni doing plaintiff’s litigation, handling multimillion-dollar personal injury, wrongful death and products liability cases. “I really enjoyed it. They taught me how to practice law in a way I think everybody should be taught, which is in a strategic, smart, and slow-paced way,” she says. The firm supported her pro bono immigration and prisoners’ rights cases, too. “It’s not easy …
Moving Forward
Three young attorneys on the outlook for the futureOf all the challenges facing the youngest generation of lawyers, one of the biggest has been navigating disruptions during the very first days of their careers. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, Derrick Maultsby Jr. of Frost Brown Todd in Pittsburgh had to take his Bar exam remotely. In addition to abiding by the standard clothing rules, he had to be on camera at all times and was even told not to touch his face. “I was able to take it in a corporate office setting, but I felt for people who …
The Unicorn
Jessie Pellant turns a wild idea— a hybrid law firm/creative agency—into realityWhile working in intellectual property law at a large firm in the early 2010s, Jessie Pellant repeatedly tried to push the idea of reaching out to creative agencies to synergize between a client’s legal work and brand work. “We’re getting cease and desist letters for our client brands that were never researched and cleared, never vetted after they spent $20,000 on their branding package,” she says. “And I was like, ‘There needs to be a better system for this.’” Her idea wasn’t …
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