February 2012 Archives

In 1999 appellate lawyer Brett Busby got a call that would change his life.

"[Retired Supreme Court] Justice Byron White invited me in for an interview for a clerkship," the partner at Bracewell & Giuliani in Houston told us in 2009, when he was featured in our Texas Rising Stars magazine. (He's since made our Super Lawyers list the past three years.) He got the job and discovered a passion for appellate law. He already knew he had a passion for something else: the violin. Those two interests converged in a most memorable way back then.

Appellate lawyer Michael T. Reagan in Ottawa, Illinois, told us in the 2012 issue of Illinois Super Lawyers & Rising Stars just what he enjoys most about his practice area.

In the latest issue of Southern California Super Lawyers magazine magazine, we talk with IP and business litigator Adrian M. Pruetz of Glaser Weil Fink Jacobs Howard Avchen & Shapiro. The Q&A, "Wanted: Shades of Grey," is online. The following is the second of two blog-exclusive excerpts from the interview. Part I can be read here. 

What are some of the biggest changes you've seen during your career?

Without question, the biggest change is all of us doing our own work on computers. When I started practicing we were speaking into Dictaphones and handing off tapes to secretaries and word-processing departments. I don't think anybody misses that. For one thing, it's pretty hard to dictate a brief. The draft you get back is a mess. Then you have to start reorganizing it. Compared to today? It took forever. It was totally inefficient. I just think the way that computers have streamlined the way attorneys do their work...

I mean, books? How many books does a law firm need anymore? You might have a few statute books and a few treatises, but your research is all totally up-to-date and online.

Any changes that you miss?