1. Did you ever think that you’d be a star? If yes, doing what?

I used to tell my mother that when I grew up, I was going to be “rich and famous.” And we used to joke that she was going to live to be older than Methuse­lah, and we were going to be room­mates in the old folks’ home. Well, I’m not rich, I’m not famous, and although my mother lived to be nearly 89 years old, she missed Methuselah’s record by more than 800 years. So we never did get to be lit­tle old lady room­mates. Fail­ure on all three counts, although I did have the 15 min­utes of fame allot­ted to me by Andy Warhol dur­ing the six years that I lit­i­gated Con­ser­va­tor­ship of Wend­land. I don’t miss being chased around by reporters in search of an out-of-context sound bite.

2. Tell us about the last time you had a roman­tic dinner.

These days, I’m really enjoy­ing try­ing out new recipes and dishes here in the home I moved into this past Sep­tem­ber, and serv­ing them to my boys. Sophie advises and assists. We often light the fire and enjoy talk­ing together as we linger over our meal. They give me input on which dishes they like or don’t care for as much. Who needs romance when you have two sons as hand­some, intel­li­gent, and sup­port­ive of their mother as mine are?

3. Tell us about your worst job interview.

Law stu­dents are encour­aged to secure sum­mer clerk­ships with pri­vate firms as a way of gain­ing expe­ri­ence and net­work­ing. Many lawyers begin their careers with the firm where they served as a law clerk, and that was the case with me. I worked part-time through­out law school and set­tled in as a new attor­ney with the firm where I had been employed part-time dur­ing my last semes­ter and the fol­low­ing sum­mer while I stud­ied for the Bar Examination.

In search of such a clerk­ship between my sec­ond and third years of study, but preg­nant with Mattie-Boo, I bor­rowed a suit­able navy blue mater­nity dress from my sis­ter for inter­views. I met with the then-District Attor­ney of San Joaquin County. We talked over a cup of cof­fee in the base­ment of the Cour­t­house where he blew cig­a­rette smoke in my face as I responded to his ques­tions about my back­ground. That elim­i­nated his office as a poten­tial place of employment.

The next day, I was inter­viewed by a pri­vate prac­ti­tioner in a small com­mu­nity adja­cent to Lodi. He was a big guy with a big appetite for hunt­ing many dif­fer­ent kinds of prey and a huge desk. As I sat oppo­site him, I was dis­tracted by the stuffed ducks and geese dan­gling from the ceil­ing. Some of them appeared to be swoop­ing toward us. That attor­ney was the embod­i­ment of the term “blow hard” and called me “honey” dur­ing the inter­view. I decided at that moment that I would live in a card­board box under a free­way before I would work for him … or any­one like him. Later, in pri­vate prac­tice, I defeated him sev­eral times. Once he slammed the door of the cour­house so hard as he exited that the judge came back onto the bench to see what all the com­mo­tion was about and sent the bailiff to inves­ti­gate. And, in fact, he once ver­bally assaulted me dur­ing a depo­si­tion. As I walked out of his office behind my clients, I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, observed his wife star­ing at the parade in hor­ror as we passed her desk, and truly feared that he was going to phys­i­cally strike me. From the out­set of the depo­si­tion, he appeared ine­bri­ated, but I wasn’t sure until he flew into a tirade, dur­ing which I told my clients to go quickly to the park­ing lot, and, after mak­ing the record, I fol­lowed them. I learned later that after­noon that he had been in the restau­rant next to his office imbib­ing dur­ing the lunch hour. Remark­ably, he is still prac­tic­ing law in this county, although, in my opin­ion, he shouldn’t be.

4. Tell us about your stu­pid­est date.

I went on a sin­gle date with a guy who turned out to be into swing­ing. He kept call­ing me for weeks after­ward, but I just let the calls go to voice mail until I started dat­ing another guy who hap­pened to be at my apart­ment one evening when the swinger called. I’m not exactly sure what the new guy said, but they had a talk … and the swinger never dared call again.

5. How much in com­mon do you think you should have with a roman­tic partner?

At least more than chil­dren, a mort­gage, and reg­u­larly sched­uled trash pick-ups and oil changes.

6. Tell us about a favorite meme that you loved but no longer posts.

I was a reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pant in Friday’s Feast. I thought it was a clever, fun way to get to know other bloggers.

7. How did you get into blogging?

I used to build/maintain sta­tic web­sites. In early 2005, when Terri Schindler-Schiavo’s fam­ily lost their legal bat­tle to keep her alive, I was so out­raged and dis­ap­pointed that I felt the urge to write about it. That was the gen­e­sis for this site which was orig­i­nally enti­tled “Robert’s Legacy.” After a cou­ple of years, I began writ­ing about other top­ics, renamed this site and spun Robert’s Legacy off as a sep­a­rate site devoted to the case I lit­i­gated here in Cal­i­for­nia that dealt with many of the same issues as Terri’s. The prime dif­fer­ence was that, unlike Terri’s fam­ily, my clients pre­vailed. But lost their son and brother, nonethe­less, when he con­tracted pneumonia.

8. Do you share all your fan­tasies with a sig­nif­i­cant other?

What’s the point of hav­ing fan­tasies if you spoil the fun by telling peo­ple about them?

9. What change in your life would you like to hap­pen this year?

I will be hav­ing surgery on my right eye on Feb­ru­ary 22, 2010. If that goes well, the cataract and astig­ma­tism will be gone, and I will have 20/20 vision in that eye with­out the need for any cor­rec­tion. So please cross your fin­gers and say a prayer for my surgeon.

Click here to see the list of other par­tic­i­pants and read their responses.

Thanks for vis­it­ing Col­lo­quium … hope you will return soon! You can sub­scribe to Col­lo­quium by click­ing here!

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