About Trevor Kupfer
Trevor Kupfer is a senior editor on Super Lawyers’ staff. He is editor of the Illinois, South Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin magazines, in addition to being a writer and fact-checker of Super Lawyers’ other projects. He has a degree in journalism from an accredited program (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) and has written for such newspapers and magazines as Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, Volume One, Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times, Global Food Forums, and various publications under the groups Tribune Media Services, Capital Newspapers, and Conley Media. He has served on crime and courts beats and, in college, he aided an investigation through the Wisconsin Innocence Project.
Articles written by Trevor Kupfer
Flight Plans
Chad McGowan’s forays in planes and a brewery“A banker, a risk manager, a computer guy, a landscape architect and a lawyer walk into a bar,” says Chad McGowan. “And they end up buying it.” The founding partner of McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips in Rock Hill lived that punchline when he and four friends opened a brewery in 2014. It started around his kitchen table, as the quintet decided to try the so-called best beers in the world. This led McGowan to revisit his home-brewing hobby from law school, and enter local …
Brew, Ewe and a Law Office Too
Sarah Day Hurley’s stint in retailIn 2006, after 16 years of commercial litigation at large national firms in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Greenville, Sarah Day Hurley burned out. “I just wanted to do something different for a change,” she recalls. So she quit, and pursued her lifelong dream of opening a retail business: Brew & Ewe. “Brew” for the café side (coffee, sandwiches, smoothies) and “Ewe” for the boutique side (gifts, particularly woolen items). “It was just a charming little place,” she says of …
Tackling Giants
Suzanne Bish’s record-breaking, decade-taking race discrimination caseGeorge McReynolds called Stowell & Friedman in 2005 after the firm’s landmark settlement with Merrill Lynch in a case alleging gender discrimination, which ultimately yielded $250 million on behalf of nearly 900 female financial advisors. McReynolds, who was calling about alleged race discrimination, had followed the case. And he said he had one that was even more severe. At the time, Suzanne Bish had been working with Mary Stowell and Linda Friedman for about a year, getting …
Turning Down the Crescendo of Stress
How Ty Kelly launched a mental wellness resource group at Baker DonelsonIn October 2023, one of Ty Kelly’s family members had a mental health crisis. “It basically took over my life,” Kelly recalls. “How do I take care of them and get them the resources they need? There wasn’t anyone to help, so I had to do research, find various places, call doctors, figure out when they can get in, figure out what their insurance covers. It was all-consuming. How can I hope to bill hours while also solving the most mammoth problem I’ve ever needed to solve? It …
Woodwind Energy
Patti Epstein Putney’s love for music eases the stresses of work“We as lawyers need to stay in touch with our creative sides. It’s critical, honestly, for my well-being,” says Patti Epstein Putney, a medical malpractice litigator at Bell, Moore & Richter in Madison. “I always tell younger lawyers, whether it’s athletics or dance or whatever your passion is, don’t give it up just because you’re a lawyer working long hours. How we are defined is not just by our profession. It’s by the things that make us who we are.” For Epstein Putney, …
The Law of Lawyering
Michael Downey lives and breathes legal ethicsThere was a moment early in Michael Downey’s career when he wasn’t sure if he was best suited for practicing law or teaching it. The classics major was working in civil litigation when he met with Dan Keating, then associate dean of WashU Law, to discuss which path to pursue. “From that conversation, I started getting involved in legal ethics,” Downey says, “then started doing a lot of lawyer discipline-related activity and, really, things just kind of grew from there.” Two decades …
The Stakeholder
Kate Hedgeman carved her nonprofit niche after seeing the need firsthandGrowing up, Kate Hedgeman got a sense of service thanks to her father, an Albany police officer. “It’s one of the top ways you can give back to your community,” she says, “and it’s a pretty thankless job.” One memory stands out: When Hedgeman was 8, by her estimation, she and her father were eating in a restaurant when a man had a heart attack in the parking lot. “[My father] got up from the table and started CPR until the fire department and EMS came,” she recalls. “It was …
Dishing on a Dish
Bill Panagos’ go-to icebreaker itemEvery item in Bill Panagos’ office has a story. And after 43 years in intellectual property, including with the Army TACOM, BASF, Lear and S.C. Johnson, Panagos has acquired several. Among the most interesting is a mirrored dish in the conference center at Panagos Kennedy in Troy. “It’s an icebreaker I use to talk to inventors about why their cutting-edge stuff might not be tomorrow,” he says. “It puts a humility to the entire thing.” Many have guessed it’s a Vulcan neural …
Can’t Stand the Heat, Get to Litigation
Before law, Chelsea Clark gave cookery school a tryWhen Chelsea J. Clark finished high school, she sought to become a chef. “My family thought I was crazy, but it turned out to be the greatest learning experience for many different reasons. I learned to adjust to a different culture. I learned so much about teamwork, and what I’m cut out to do and not cut out to do,” she says with a laugh. The civil litigator at Bruner Powell Wall & Mullins in Columbia signed up with Tante Marie School of Cookery in Surrey, England. “For a time, it …
Flexible Benefits
How yoga makes Michele Dinterman a better attorneyIn 2016, as Michele Dinterman was about to begin her career at Niles, Barton & Wilmer in Baltimore, she was looking for relief. “So I decided to take a yoga class,” says the civil litigation defense attorney, “and I ended up loving it.” So much so that Dinterman decided to take the teacher training as well. “I was essentially learning to litigate at the same time as becoming a yoga instructor. It ended up being incredibly impactful on my life in a ton of different ways. And it …
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