About Ross Pfund
Ross Pfund is the managing editor of Super Lawyers. He is the editor of the Minnesota, Colorado, Massachusetts, Louisiana and Southwest magazines. An award-winning editor and writer with more than 20 years of experience, he has a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota. His work has also appeared in the Star Tribune and the Norman County Index. As a child, he knew he was cut out for a career in journalism because he never once stuck his hand into his father’s printing press.
Articles written by Ross Pfund
Furcal's Pinch Hitter
The Braves’ Rafael Furcal strides to the batter’s box at Turner Field on Oct. 7, 2004. It’s game two of the best-of-five 2004 National League Division Series (NLDS), the Houston Astros have already won game one, and the score is tied 2-2 in the bottom of the 11th inning. The pressure is intense, but Furcal calmly smacks a two-run homer to win the game. He’s engulfed at home plate by teammates and showered with cheers by fans — the hero of the moment. Lawyer William Head sees the sweet …
Flying With the Hawk
Cheryl Leb protects the legacy of Ben HoganWhen Cheryl Leb was a kid, she met legendary golfer and native Texan Ben “The Hawk” Hogan. She was only 10 or 11 years old at the time and not much into golf. But her father was a member at Shady Oaks Country Club, where Hogan practiced, relaxed and basically reigned supreme. These days Leb can barely remember meeting Hogan — as a child she likely never thought she’d someday be working to preserve his legacy. “Mostly what I remember about Mr. Hogan is what my dad said about him,” …
From JD to DJ
On weekdays, litigation attorney David K. Greer stands before judges, clients and opposing counsel. But once the weekend hits, Greer speaks to a considerably larger audience as a DJ for Mix 97.1, an FM pop station in Columbus. While pursuing a journalism degree at Ohio State in the early ’80s, Greer got his first radio job at a small 500-watt AM radio station in Delaware, Ohio. Luckily, the pressure wasn’t too extreme: “I didn’t have any experience, they just put me on the …
The Life Aquatic
When Bob Fanning’s wife Carolyn had a heart attack in 1998, he knew it was time for them to move into the next phase of their lives. Fanning retired from his near-half-century law career at the firm he founded, Dallas’ Fanning Harper & Martinson, and asked Carolyn what she wanted to do. “I’d like to get a boat,” she said. So in 2001, the Fannings moved themselves permanently onto a 54-foot yacht, the Bar-Mar VI (named after sons Barry and Marc, who now run the firm) and …
Breaking the Code of Bureaucracy
George Parker Jr. was just on vacation. The ofcounsel attorney with San Antonio’s Bracewell & Giuliani was listening to a lecture given by Teddy Draper Sr., a Navajo code talker during World War II, at the Anasazi Heritage Center in 2002 in Delores, Colo., near Parker’s vacation home. Draper told the story of how he and about 400 other Navajo who enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps were called upon to create an unbreakable code based on the Navajo language. They were successful, and with …
Steve Stodghill, Master Thespian
Most lawyers, if they were called up out of the blue by Luke Wilson and asked to act onscreen with him as his character’s lawyer, might be worried about flubbing their lines or looking at the camera. Steve Stodghill, however, was worried about being typecast. “I wanted to think about the big picture,” says Stodghill, a commercial litigation partner with Fish and Richardson in Dallas. “I didn’t want to get stereotyped as a lawyer.” Despite the fact that his character, Otto …
Out to the Ballgame
Talmage Boston’s new book explores baseball’s most important yearOn the night of Wednesday, October 27, 2004, Talmage Boston knew his life would never be the same. The Boston Red Sox had just defeated the St. Louis Cardinals to win their first World Series in 86 years. “I told my kids that life has changed,” Boston, a Sox fan since he was 6, says. “You spend your whole life thinking that this could never happen, that some things aren’t meant to be, believing in the Curse of the Bambino. And then it happens.” That’s how much of a baseball fan …
Curb Your Prosecution
On the night of May 12, 2003, Juan Catalan took his 6-year-old daughter to Dodger Stadium to see the home team play the Braves. The Dodgers blew a lead and lost 11-4, but a few months later, something much worse happened. Police arrested the 24-year-old Catalan and charged him, based solely on the word of an eyewitness, with the murder of a 16-year-old girl in Sun Valley — on the night of May 12. Catalan remembered that his cousin had worked in the mailroom of the Norton & Melnik law …
Does That Star Spangled Banner Yet Wave?
R. Rex Parris, personal injury attorney, namesake of the R. Rex Parris Law Firm and allaround good guy, was just there to receive an award. He and his wife were at a Lancaster awards dinner in April in honor of local boy scouts and veterans of the war in Iraq. Parris himself was to be recognized as the Distinguished Citizen of the Year. But then there was a benefit auction for an American flag that had seen action in Iraq. And Parris wife had an idea. “My wife whispered to me that I …
Mr. Lewis Goes to Washington
John Lewis’ pro bono case lands him in rare companyJohn Lewis was nervous. The 33-year-old Jones Day associate was used to the stresses of the courtroom in his job as a commercial litigator. But nothing could have prepared him for the pressure of standing before the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Arguing in front of the country’s highest court is a pretty good feat for a guy who was just getting his legal feet wet on his high school’s mock trial team (not so far) back in 1989. “Our school went around competing,” …
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