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
Fishing for Dollars
The Bilzin Sumberg trial attorney put his passion to good useMitch Widom knows a thing or two about fishing. After getting hooked on the sport at age 16, he has been casting his line ever since. For over a decade, he’s organized fishing trips for a group of close friends to such exotic locales as Brazil, Costa Rica, remote Alaska and Guatemala. “It’s a passion,” Widom says, “though my wife would probably say it’s an obsession!” But when he and his wife, Alicia, learned in 2004 that their oldest daughter, Taylor, had Crohn’s disease, a …
Who Wants to be Dan Blonsky?
He gave Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? a shotDan Blonsky has always been great at remembering what he calls “formerly useless information.” So when he saw an article in the Miami Herald about how to apply to be on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in January 2000, he decided to give it a shot. “The show went on the air in late ’99 and got a lot of attention and publicity,” Blonsky says. “I’d seen it a couple of times, and it seemed like they were just giving away $32,000” because of the ease of the first questions a …
Fever Pitcher
David T. Mitrou is no stranger to the excitement of baseball. He’s played the sport all his life: as an undergrad at Ithaca College and as a five-time all-star with the Revere Rockies who were then of the Boston Baseball League, which fields the area’s top amateur competition. But nothing could have prepared him for the rush he felt when he stepped onto the Fenway Park pitcher’s mound in front of 30,000 screaming Red Sox fans. “You got the sense of what it’s like to be a …
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 …
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