Episode 87: Andrea Sheridan Ordin
First Female United States Attorney for the Central District of California
00:56:23
Subscribe and listen on…
Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | PocketCasts | iHeartRadio | Player.FM Podcasts
Watch Full Interview
Show Notes
Andrea Sheridan Ordin -- the first female United States Attorney for the Central District of California—and only the third female U.S. Attorney in American history— discusses her path to this and other leadership positions in government. Among other roles, Ms. Ordin has also served as Los Angeles County Counsel, Chief Assistant Attorney General of California, and on the Los Angeles Police Commission. In this episode, she sits down with MC Sungaila to discuss her path to these different roles and offers leadership lessons.
This episode is powered by Trellis.
Relevant episode links:
Andrea Sheridan Ordin, Munger Tolles, Advancement Project, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
About Andrea Sheridan Ordin:
Andrea Sheridan Ordin
Andrea Sheridan Ordin was the United States Attorney for the Central District of California-only the third female U.S. Attorney in American history. She has served as Los Angeles County Counsel, as Chief Assistant Attorney General of California, as Assistant District Attorney for Los Angeles County, and as President of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Ms. Ordin was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to serve on the Christopher Commission that examined the Los Angeles Police Department's practices following the Rodney King beating, resulting in a sweeping reform of the LAPD.
She subsequently served as President of the Los Angeles Police Commission. Beyond her broad public-sector experience, Ms. Ordin was a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where she handled major litigation, including the aftermath of the 1994 Orange County bankruptcy, and conducted a number of independent investigations for corporate clients.
Ms. Ordin headed the Public Rights Division of the California Department of Justice for eight years under the leadership of John Van de Kamp, and with her guidance, the Office won landmark decisions in civil rights, environmental, land-use and antitrust law on behalf of the state and a broad range of state agencies, to which she was a counsel and advisor. Currently, Ms. Ordin is Senior Counsel at Strumwasser & Woocher LLP, a firm representing and advising a broad range of public agencies, citizen groups a private individuals and corporations in the public interest. She serves as special master to Judge Dolly Gee and Independent Monitor in Flores v. Garland, the Central District of California case which enforces the decades old consent agreement designed to protect accompanied and unaccompanied minors at the Border. Her awards include the American Bar Association Margaret Brent Award, the Mexican American Bar Foundation Precursor de Justicia Award, and the Los Angeles County Bar Shattuck-Price Award.
Transcript
I'm pleased to have joined us on the show with another trailblazing woman lawyer, Andrea Sheridan Ordin. She has played a number of first roles in a different role that we haven't yet heard represented as fully on the show in terms of US Attorney for the Central District of California and a lot of other important public interest in government roles. Welcome.
I'm happy to be here.
Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story, insights, and some guidance to the next generation. We will talk about all the various things that you've done in your career. First, how is it that you became interested in the law and thought it would be something you want to pursue?
It was something that came to me quite late in life. I had spent almost all of my childhood and young womanhood either going to be an actress or perhaps a writer. I was extremely serious up through my undergraduate. I was an English major but I did spend an enormous amount of my time in the theater arts department, doing little theater auditioning for television.
I put myself through undergraduate at UCLA first as a receptionist, then as a secretary, then as a legal secretary, and then as an office manager. I worked in a law firm all the way through my undergraduate and got to the end of my undergraduate career. I still wasn't getting work as an actress. I knew I had to have a day job. I had been working in a law firm, and they gave me a great deal of encouragement.
They said, "Take the LSAT." I did fine on the LSAT. I did fine in school. I was in the first big class of UCLA Law School of women, 12 of us out of 300. They had never seen such a big number of women before. Again, I was doing that to have a backup. I did start appreciating and enjoying law school. Professor Maria Schwartz gave us an enormous amount of encouragement both as men and women who might go into public service.
I worked with Professor Mel Nimmer, who was a national copyright expert. That was part of my theatrical, "Maybe I can get a job on the other side of the camera or at one of the agencies." It was a wonderful law school experience, very different at UCLA in those years than people at Harvard, Columbia, or Yale for a woman.
I enjoyed it but still wasn't working as an actress by the end of the third year. I interviewed and went to the State Attorney General's Office and was one of the first women hired. Fortunately, there had been and were some senior women. In fact, Joan Dempsey Klein started her career in that very same office and had left fairly to go on to become a Municipal Court Judge, then everything changed. It was people I worked with, with the issues I worked on in the consumer section, the antitrust section, and the civil rights section. I said, "This is what I meant to be. I want to be a lawyer."
It is nice when you find your niche in the law and the particular area that you are engaged and passionate about, and then you can blossom. That's one of the things that, obviously, in this show, there are people who are practicing on the bench, who are doing other things that don't involve the practice of law. Even within the practice of law itself, there are so many different things that you can do in many different areas that you can do it in. I don't know if everybody really realizes that. Law schools are getting better at showing the whole range of that. It's hard to imagine all of the different ways you can contribute to the law.
Even when I was growing up as a lawyer, we always had that sense that it's a great education and learning to think like a lawyer. We talked about all of those things. The only problem in nowadays world, I'm afraid, is that law school education has become so extraordinarily expensive that it is such a commitment to say, "I can do that for three years, and then maybe I will practice, or maybe I won't, or maybe I will use it in my business life." That, to me, is different than when I went to school.
That's true. It helps, in general, because law school is hard if you have some larger mission or idea of what you are going to do with all of this. There's a reason to persevere but also, from the financial standpoint, it's very expensive. It's harder to prevail, at this point, with that attitude.
When I came out of law school because of my part-time job, I came up with zero debt, and you know what happens to a young lawyer now.
The only problem in today’s world is that law school education has become so extraordinarily expensive.
It's nowhere near the same at all. From what I've heard from others, you have joined the podcasting. Talk about that era of graduating from law school. Most of the opportunities were in government for women wires at that stage. You've got the best experience and opportunities, much more so than private practice, even in the '70s and early '80s. That's good to have been able to discover what it was that you were interested in doing in the first job that carried on to a lot of other different public services that you've done. I'm really curious about the US Attorney position because that was tough. What does that look like?
There were a lot of stops beforehand. It's because of that high visibility that I did have in the very first job, seven years in the state AG’s Office doing Civil Rights, school desegregation cases in San Diego and Bakersfield, appellate decisions in the California Supreme Court in the consumer area, and Civil Rights discrimination cases. It was still a time when employment agencies were coding their applicants by Black, Hispanic, or Asian, so there were certain jobs people would not be sent for.
We sued one of the major employment agencies at the time. It was a pretty high-visibility job. After seven years, I left when I was nine months pregnant and took a true break. For a lot of different reasons, I didn't go back to the State AG’s Office. I spent some time with one of my clients, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and was doing administrative hearings and various things.
I was offered a job that, to the outside world and probably even to me, looked like it wasn't a real law job. It was to be the Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. The County Bar Association in those days was a true force in the legal community, and some of my bosses, including Warren Christopher and Frank Wheat, who had been the SEC Commissioner. It was an exciting time taking public issues also doing educational panels. I worked for John Van de Kamp, who was then doing a study on immigration. I staffed him, and we wrote our report on immigration. They were also doing a study of county government, and Seth Huffstetler and others were involved in that.
I suddenly had been seen in the past as a strong government lawyer but I had no idea about the private bar, none. It was a place where Patty Phillips or Patricia Phillips, who became the first woman to be a County Bar President, and a group of friends, Sam Williams was the one who had suggested I apply for the job. It was a great time. When John Van de Kamp was appointed by the board of supervisors to be district attorney, he had two appointments to make.
One of them was the Assistant District Attorney. He had come from the Federal Public Defender's Office. He was anxious to have more prosecutorial background with him, so he appointed Stephen Trott, who was one of the highest ranking but also most lustrous lawyers in the office, to be his number two person. He then appointed me to be as number three person. I had those two years in the District Attorney's Office again, at a very exciting time, and I also know many of the private bars, including Warren Christopher.
There was a commission chaired by Sam Williams, a partisan commission evenly divided. Carter had appointed these across the country and lots of interviews, all of those things. The commission nominated me and two others to Senator Cranston. Senator Cranston then interviewed me. One Saturday morning, I got a phone call from Senator Cranston saying, "I would like you to be the United States Attorney in the Central District of California." It was a gentler time that even Senator Hayakawa, who was Republican, signed off on me as well. It was a combination of a lot of work as a public lawyer and then having the bar association and the people that I had come to know and respect, and hopefully, was respected by that made the difference.
There are so many things in there. One of the things certainly that's a common thread or theme across a lot of the stories is the role that community service and bar service plays both in enriching your professional career but also opening doors in that way. You meet people that you otherwise wouldn't have met or worked with, although, in your other role, you're bar service and the Executive Director role. The second thing is being open to those opportunities. As you said, it didn't sound like a true legal job. You are taking that leap to something that was different and being open to that.
All the other jobs, as it turns out, melded into being a viable candidate against a lot of wonderful other viable candidates. It was a time when the women's movement was at my back. I'm sure it was not lost on Senator Cranston and certainly not lost on the administration that I was a woman and of mixed heritage. Although it was the fifth paragraph down that my mother was born in Ambrosio, Mexico, and became a naturalized citizen. All of those factors played into it at that time.
My early interviews were, "How do you get over the fact you are a woman?" The people who said that and did say that while I was trying to get jobs as an entertainment lawyer expected a real answer of some sort or another. After the appointment, there were also some questions, "Did you get this job because you are a woman?" I used to say, "We would hope that neither of those questions would become relevant."
It’s working towards a time when they would neither be necessary nor considered appropriate. I have a question, though. This was my plan B, this whole law thing. I thought I was going to go, and having this interesting entertainment is so great. How do you think that interest or skill in that area has played into or been an asset to a lawyer and then appointed?
That's a definite asset. The communication and the listening skills, the interest that most actors and actresses who treat it seriously and hope this is their life and their way in the world, learn great listening skills, often extraordinarily empathetic in terms of other people. Much of that path to the US Attorney's Office had to do with listening to, learning from, and being understanding to people. It was enormous. The presentation skills help, too. To me, the more serious part of being a creative artist or creative actor was enormously helpful.
It also led me to a funny and interesting side that Professor Bill Cohen, who then went on to Stanford to be a great Torts Professor there, had his own television short movie series where he would take lawyers on both sides of an appellate argument. They made movies that went to junior highs and high schools about various issues. I did several on due process in disciplinary proceedings. I did a couple on affirmative action. Those skills allowed me, at least finally, at the very end, to have some movie practice.
That's interesting what you said about listening. That's something I discovered as the most important thing in doing this show. You always think about people. It’s not about you. It's about listening and taking in things. That's the most important skill as a podcast person, creator, or host, and it was something I hadn't thought of. It is important for so many creative individuals.
I know from your other shows that one of the things you are concerned about, too, is the issues of leadership. That's one of the most important factors in strong leadership. If you have the presentation skills or the communication skills to then implement what you've learned through listening, then that leads leadership to be not only effective but a pleasurable experience.
It's interesting, too, in the different roles of being Executive Director, and having that Chief leadership role at the bar gave you a set of skills to apply in being a leader of the US Attorney's office, too. It's nice how all things cumulate and fold together.
It was a good time in many ways, too, because there was a willingness in the administration I was in to make changes and make that office open to everyone. It became the most diverse office that it had ever been, and certainly, the most diverse in the whole country. We had large numbers of men and women who were African American, Hispanic, and Asian. Many thought that office had not been open to them at the time. We reached out in terms of not only the diverse communities but people who sometimes came from small law firms and not just the big firms and from the JAG practice, and it became an extraordinary place.
It was the people in Washington, too, that encouraged it strongly with Barbara Babcock, who had served as the Head of the Civil Division, the Civil Rights leader through days of Yale now professor. That was the message that was coming from the President through the two attorneys general I served for. Also, diversity in terms of age. I rehired somewhat as a super annuitant Ernestine Tolan, one of the first women ever to be in the office and people write after three years of practice. It was a great time that cares about public service. I was adding up because I knew I was coming here. How many of our lawyers became judges? It's more than twenty.
Of the 91 that were on there during my time, more than 20 became judges, Court of Appeal justices, the Superior Court judge, and chief judges of the district courts. In fact, we also had three who became US Attorneys themselves, either in our district or other districts. They were an extraordinary group of people. In the private practice, you had people like Brad Brian, who is Chairs of Munger Tolles now, and many super lawyers. It was a great time.
What great energy in the office from all that, too, with all that talent and so many different experiences to bring to it. What advice or insight would you give to folks who might be taking on that leadership position? What tips for good leadership?
First of all, I don't know why some people moved to that position. You have to want to do that because a lot of leadership is, first and foremost, good management, and a lot of those tasks are not fun at all. I talk with great joy of all the fabulous people we hired. The occasional time when one had to discipline or say people weren't in the right job for them is not pleasant. The fiscal side of it, even in government, is not pleasant at all. We were on several freezes during that time. You have to have a certain amount of everyday management skills and want to do the task that isn't necessarily anything that we learned in law school.
Even though I was Executive Director of the bar, being in government, a lot of it is about having a mission statement. That's true in corporate life and law firm life as well. It certainly helps in government if there is a mission that you and the rest of your cohorts have signed off on it. I don't think too many people start, I certainly didn't, to say, “I want to run something.” Maybe some do but I certainly didn't, and not anything that is as bureaucratic as a large government law firm.
You are drawn to the accomplishments that an office like that can have and to truly be a part of the team that pulls it together. I mentioned before that Judith Ashmann, whom I had known, came to the AG’s Office after I did. We stayed friends, and she had been at the city attorney's office. I knew I needed more help in the executive management side of it, and she was good enough to come on over for a couple of years. She was part of that whole group that helped pull this all together.
Finally, selecting good people to be part of the leadership team is helpful as well.
The people there had moved up so fast, our team, our exec. I looked at two annual reports we had, and they moved up fast. We had Lourdes Baird, who was a six-month lawyer when I walked into the office. She had already been hired. Not only was she a great Judge but she was an extraordinary US Attorney afterward. There was Layn Phillips there, who then became a US Attorney in Oklahoma, Bob Brewer became a US Attorney in San Diego, a great lawyer. Irma Gonzalez was Chief Judge in the Federal District Court in San Diego. People who didn't become judges like Laurie Levenson, were one of the last lawyers that I hired. They became leaders quickly themselves.
I hadn't put that together that Layn would overlap with you.
A lot of leadership is, first and foremost, good management.
They are amazing. Molly Munger, who then went on not only to private practice but the Advancement Project. People who are still leaders of our bar are all about only 8 to 10 years younger than I am. They are leaders in their own fields very quickly.
That's amazing to think about how many. Everyone you are naming has accomplished so much on their own.
You've got lots. George O’Connell became a US Attorney up in Sacramento, too. It was an exciting, wonderful time.
Also, another theme in your journey that happens or can happen to some folks is that the times are so right for certain things. You are open to those and see those opportunities and put yourself out there for them and get carried along with the river that's happening in terms of where the law is changing, and opportunities are opening up.
Jobs like that are temporary. Even though it was a much kinder, gentler time, I even stayed a full year under the Reagan administration.
There's a short period in which to be there. You've done many things since then.
I took a wonderful break from actual practice and went back to UCLA Law School, where I was always very fun and was able to teach there. It was adjunct but it was a real job. I had both the Ethics course and my own course called the Government Lawyer. It was a seminar. My daughter says it was the best job I ever had because she was then, maybe about nine or so. She could come to work with me and play with friends there. I had moms who were else there, too. I was lucky enough to have John Van de Kamp invite me to come back to the State AG’s Office. I came back as Chief Assistant in AG.
I was in charge of the Public Rights Division, which is Civil Rights, consumer antitrust, all the environment sections, as well as a charitable trust. As much as I loved the US Attorney's Office and do and respect everyone that I ever worked with there, my favorite job was in the AG’s Office for those eight years. I could be a manager or part of the leadership team but I was a real lawyer there much more so.
I was able to handle cases and argue appeals in the US Attorney's Office. I never was a true trial lawyer. I was always an appellate lawyer. The only time I personally handled a case, I take one appeal a year, at least to have them see me there somewhere. Coming back to the AG’s Office, I was able to be a part of a true legal team presenting cases either before the Court of Appeal or sometimes even in trial.
I was going to ask you about that because you do love the work itself. Sometimes people who are good at that work will get promoted to supervisor and leadership roles, and then that means you don't get to do the work that you really love and are good at to begin with. It's nice to be able to do both as a lawyer in that AG office.
The perfect balance was in the State AG’s Office though that is too dependent upon John Van de Kamp being there as attorney general. It was temporary but eight years, at least. I went for the first time to a private law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where I spent a very happy nineteen years. Luckily, I was able to work on pro bono cases.
You and I've talked about my asylum cases and defended cases. I had my first and only jury trial with a team who were much more experienced trial lawyers than I, a three-week trial. It was a good experience and lovely colleagues to work with. My final government job was as County Counsel, which was only two years but, again, a very interesting time and one in which I enjoyed the group and working with them.
Now, you also serve on the LA Police Commission. Is that right?
I'm not presently there, but yes. Part of the time I was at Morgan, Lewis, I went down to 80% as Senior Counsel and then served on the commission. That is a 10-week to sometimes 15-hour-a-week job.
It’s demanding.
I did that and was on it when I was at Morgan, Lewis and went off it as County Counsel and then came back as President for one year of the commission. Now, I'm with Strumwasser & Woocher, a boutique litigation firm doing a lot of Public Interest Law, Public Policy Law, and Election Law. I'm fortunate enough to serve with Judge Dolly Gee as her special master and independent monitor in the Flores case, which is the case that has the responsibility to enforce the consent order for conditions for minors at the border. I have been doing that for a few years, among other things.
That's an interesting role, commonly held by those who previously served on the bench in some way but you have not. There is so much in the experience that makes you a good choice for that.
I have perhaps a more government speak in me based upon those periods of my life. Mediation between the government and the plaintiffs, who have also seen me on the public interest side, is helpful.
That's interesting for you, too, in the perception of both sides. In terms of your experience, there's something for each party in that to see and say, "She should understand this. She has more positions."
I found that in private practice, too. I never thought I had the skills to be a criminal defense lawyer but I did do standing corporate interests who were being sued in maybe antitrust or civil suits. I even represented the government during that part of that time, too, including the government of Australia once. The government-speak quality or maybe government listen was important.
Being able to bridge that with these two parties would be very important.
If you have judges do, when you are their special master, appreciate having you be able to do that so that it's not yet another temporary restraining order or move for enforcement.
It helps with the whole contentiousness in court thing. You can be the first stop for that to try to diffuse that. In all of these different opportunities and places that you have been, some of it seems like you said, "A-ha. This is going to be a narrow time and opportunity to do this because of political appointments or whatever. I'm coming to take that opportunity."
Did you also consider, as a result, “I have an opportunity to make a meaningful difference in this particular setting?” That seems like in each of them, you have an opportunity to have a whole bunch of important influence in areas that you care about. Is that something you consciously thought about when you decided to go to these different places?
I stumbled, fortunately, into the State Attorney General's Office. I didn't even read the papers in those days. If it wasn't in a script, in a theater, or at night, I was not much involved. Certainly not in the beginning. It was because of the people that I was surrounded by, Bob O'Brien, who was a Superior Court Judge for a very long time, Jack McLaren, and I told you about Sam Williams before.
Being around those people made an enormous difference. Even during the coffee in the morning, they would start talking about what was in the newspaper, their cases, and various things. By the time I left the State AG’s Office, I was drawn to more of the public service. There was no question. Not to say that I didn't think about other things. For all the jobs I held, I was also turned down for a bunch. I even miss interviewed by Motown at one point later in life.
It certainly helps in government if there is a mission and the rest of your cohorts have signed off on it.
That was your original dream.
I was not musical. I almost went with Western Center but that was public service. It is funny that there were a lot of things I thought, "Maybe this." No question about it that the idea that you could be doing the tasks that you like, and you are exactly right. I've found, especially appellate law, that they've had the combination of the research and the writing, and then also the communication, the oral argument. I looked forward to those oral arguments and those conversations. I liked the tasks. It was nice to be able to say, "This has meaning above and beyond just the task.”
That's everything, in retrospect, it seems to make sense and looks like there was some logic to it. It isn't always that way.
It only looks sensible going backward. There’s no question about that.
It does demonstrate that you are motivated, at least in part, by the opportunity to make a difference in that setting. The appellate is important for people to know about, too, because people think about Appellate Law and they think about private practice but the Attorney General's Office has in the government realm dive in appellate lawyer for the state.
Particularly under the administration of John Van de Kamp, and then, Strumwasser and Woocher were two special assistants at the same time I was there. That's how I got to know them many some years ago. There was a strong emphasis on having the Attorney General speak for California through the Public Rights Division and the amicus briefs that were prepared, whether it was Antitrust Law or Environmental Law.
It was Civil Rights. Marian Johnston in Sacramento was the Head of our Civil Rights Division. Some of the most exciting appellate cases about discrimination against women and disabled minorities were coming through during that time of the '80s. She was at the forefront of the little bit of editing for me in those amicus briefs. It was another very good time for the AG's Office.
The other thing that is neat about Appellate Law, anyway, is that you do move between different areas of the law. Where your practice moves are where the law is developing. It's almost always cutting edge to some degree, which makes it exciting, especially if it's in areas that you care about. It's always a thrill to begin to be nimble to move between the different substantive areas, boil it down, and be able to explain it to people pretty quickly. It does make it interesting because you are constantly moving wherever things are developing. In retrospect, do you have any advice for people who might be interested?
You can tell I am a true advocate for this as a career for any young person coming out of undergraduate and thinking about where to go. I advise thinking about law school but as I said at the very beginning of the program, it is not necessarily as wise a recommendation as it used to be because of the exorbitant costs of nowadays’ world. At my public school, all of us try and pitch in for scholarships and to help those things.
Coming out with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt is not sustainable in terms of nowadays’ practice. Still, they are not going to be what Big Law offers, and Big Law doesn't offer except to the top 10% or 20%. It is more important that it be something that you don't stumble into the way I did, luckily. You have to say, "I know where I'm going. I would like to do this," because it is such a commitment now.
To me, I did teach some during the various decades. I did see that the people who had trained through Liberal Arts, English, and certainly Philosophy tended to thrive more than some of the other backgrounds. The reading and writing aspect of it encourage as much ability to do that and yet work toward flexibility. Sometimes, I even saw in some of the extraordinary, great debaters, that not all of them are as flexible in terms of thought.
That was another area. I saw more than a few who thought that they might go into journalism and turned out to be superb Law students. Those are the areas that they would want to focus a little bit more on. After that, it is important to do well in school because the jobs that you would look for are going to want to see that.
That theme of journalism to become a lawyer. You have been on the show. You have that journey. Kalpana Srinivasan and Susman Godfrey had that interest and experience in journalism before becoming a lawyer.
One of my early jobs was as an Administrative Assistant at Newsweek Magazine as an undergraduate. It was a fortunate time because it was an understaffed office. I had Bureau Chief Simon Bourgin would give me other assignments that were more than just coffee, paper, and answering the phone. It was also a great learning experience there.
You need more hands on deck, as they say, "Here.”
It looks like you can do this like the chorus line, "I can do that."
Stepping up when that happens, sometimes people can be like, "I don't know if I can do that." Being on, just step into it.
Another thing I did learn as an unsuccessful actress is that the role is to say, "I can do that." You then rush off and hope that you can prepare yourself enough before you go in for the audition. Like any other skill or profession, you need preparation.
Having that, your first response is, "I don't know. I need to check to make sure I have all the things I need in a row for that," as opposed to, "I will go figure it out." That's a different attitude. Sometimes we can maybe limit ourselves a little bit by being too cautious about, "Before I say yes, let me check all of these things." In meantime, somebody else has raised their hand for that job.
As women, it is still true as much has changed since I started in 1965. The world has fortunately changed a great deal but nevertheless, I will wait until it's my turn. Sometimes, it is your turn when you don't think it is.
It can be hard to do that little step but as you said, it came from your prior training. You have to have that attitude for that or you won't have any opportunities to say, "Yes," and then go figure it out. I remember distinctly having that. I was a little bit more about cautious variety. There was one time when I thought to myself, "You can figure this out. Just say yes." I was thinking, in my mind already, "Here's how I would handle this. I don't have this experience but I will put this person on the team and this and that." You figure it out yourself and say yes because you can put it together.
The worst thing that could happen is that it doesn't come together. There are certain things you should not say yes to. We haven't even talked about failures. I've had more than a few, as I'm sure anyone who has done well has had more than a few. Perhaps it was beyond the expertise at the time, and you hadn't done it as well, you made a mistake in judgment, or whatever it is but you do learn from those as well and a recognition that it's not the end of the world. It may feel awful and terrible for hopefully, a short time but you continue to move forward from there.
Everybody likes to talk about successes but failures are sometimes either harder to talk about. It's important to acknowledge because if you are taking risks and growing, some things are not going to turn out perfectly. Part of it is to be okay with that. It will happen. That's a good reminder. That's important for people to think about, too. Sometimes people think, "This person was a positive thing after positive things." That's true but there were other things.
Sometimes you can't get those successes unless you've had other challenges that may not turn out exactly what you wanted them to. You talked a little bit about the people you were surrounded by and the various opposites who were pretty remarkable themselves. Maybe you could talk a little bit also about how that mentor and sponsor both of you? Have you done that in terms of others? What does that look like? How has that impacted your career?
It was crucial. We started with even way back when in Newsweek Magazine and perhaps somewhat out of necessity but his being willing to give me additional responsibility and work there. He put my name on the masthead for a while. Being mentored, whether they were professors, teachers, or colleagues, in some place like in the State AG, in the beginning, you are being mentored by colleagues in many ways. It's not necessarily someone who's had the 5, the 7, the 12, or the 40 years of experience beforehand.
That's crucial. It's the communication that we've lost so much of that during the pandemic, and everybody is wondering, "Will we ever get that back again?" Where you are together, and it's partially in those social environments. It was crucial all the way through the State AG's Office at the county bar, all of the seniors. One I didn't mention was Court of Appeal Justice Otto Kaus. We had something that was called hi-jinks, and it was performance. We were doing The Bible shows at many of our law schools. He would write the pattern for those shows.
Sometimes, it is your turn when you don’t think it is.
We saw each other informally, and when there were CLE programs to do, he was one of the people who suggested them. I got to work with Joan Dempsey Klein before. All these people in my life have made all the difference in the world at every stage. I like to hope that the same thing for me, whether I was at Morgan, Lewis, or the AG's office or any of those things, to try and be a true colleague and a person that could give advice, even with those titles. I'm still the Head of the office, and there's a certain amount of distance that occurs because of that.
In some offices, I know them now, and in their positions of leadership, in State AG's Office. One of the lawyers remembered well that she was thinking of leaving after about three years. I sat down with her and saw her as such a talent and so much ability that I said, "If you still want this, could you stay a little longer? You will even have more authority and will be able to do all of these various things." She remembers that conversation all these years later. I don't remember it too well myself. It is being able to reach out and talk to people about where they are in their careers and allow to share your own experiences. It's crucial.
By taking the time to do that, you may not realize what an impact you are having on someone until down the line they tell you, "I remember when you said X." Sometimes it's the right thing at the right time for someone that they need to hear. It's enough to keep them in the fold or move them forward with something. It's so pivotal for them. You don't realize that. That's so true. In a lot of things, you have an impact on people, and you don't recognize it but you don't do it to get the recognition. You do it for other people. It's nice to hear about it down the line.
You always like to think that you are contributing something positive to people. It's always nice to hear that, even if you don't know about it. Whether you are in a firm or a government setting, taking that time to think ahead about someone else's career and to sit down and have discussions like that with them is important in terms of whatever the next skills they need to develop. Looking ahead for them and with them is something sometimes we don't do enough of, especially in the firm setting that I have seen the most.
You are exactly in that Big Law environment, in which billable hours and a lot of those mentoring are terribly crucial. Certainly, when I was at Morgan, Lewis, for a long time, at the beginning about assigning a mentor and doing the various things. That's much more artificial than what naturally occurred in my life. It's still better than not, so that there is that sense. You don't sit around having coffee together as easily as we did in the State AG's office.
In those days, the old state building, which is no longer there had coffee on the tenth floor, and you would come, sit at round tables, and talk for 15 or 20 minutes. Sometimes the judges got the coffee in the same place. They would sit down and talk with us, too. That was invaluable in terms of understanding the way of the world of law practice and judicial practice.
Having that good relationship between the bench and the bar is important to the whole legal community as well. Having that opportunity to do that adds to the whole feeling of community, which is important. Thank you so much for joining the show and talking about your background and all of these larger questions we have been discussing in terms of mentoring the next generation. I have a few lightning round, last questions to go through. Which talent would you most like to have but don't?
What we talked about before, I would love to have been to a musical. I would love to be able to sing. That would be a jewel.
When I was at UCLA, Ken Graham had his annual law school musical.
I did it. I did a hula hoop but I didn't sing.
I did it, and I can sing. That's one thing I can do. I did the law school musical, and I got to sing. It was fun. It was nice to have that because it was a nice outlet. He put so much effort into that, too. There's much work.
He was a great talent for pulling it together and generating others who were less willing to get involved.
It was great community building for the law school and a great stress release because they were like, "This is different from what else I'm doing." It was nice. Who was your hero in real life?
I have a whole lot of heroes. That's why the lightning round was always hard because it's hard to narrow it down. In real life, I've named at least 10 or 12 of them as we have been talking, and that's it. If not for them, I certainly wouldn't have my life.
Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite as a dinner guest?
I did think of someone and was trying to think who I would do it to. You wanted someone alive. I certainly don't want to cook. If it's my guest, they are not coming to the house with my food. I came up with Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer Prize winner, the writer who also was born on January 4th, about the same time I was. She had an extraordinary early career in the White House as a baby Doctoral student but, nevertheless, still a little girl in so many ways.
Brilliant writing and teaching also had a real failure at one point in her life, and came back from that. Had he not already passed, I wouldn't have minded inviting her husband, Goodwin as well. That would be interesting because we were alive at the same time. She took the journalism and the academic path. She’s a fascinating dinner companion, a woman of resilience and intelligence. I thought that would be a good dinner for her.
She's a lovely speaker. Plus, she has so many interesting things to talk about in terms of all of the different historical work that she's done. You can have a window into so many different periods.
Plus baseball, and now I was a step one onto a fine baseball player. I don't pretend I know anything much about it but she loves it to such an extent that it would be fun, too.
The last question is, what is your motto, if you have one?
I don't, but I like the one, "If she persists, it perseveres." Persevere is good.
I was like, "She might not have a motto but I'm getting a theme." That was the theme, so I'm like, "You're very good self-awareness there."
This has been an absolute delight. I enjoyed it. One doesn't usually get an opportunity to talk about oneself but it has been a delight to get to know you as well.
Thank you so much. It has been a joy for me as well. I appreciate that you are doing this and having the discussion. You're very open. You are genuine, and it's a joy.
Thank you so much. Take good care.
Thank you so much as well. Thanks again for joining.
Good arguments in the future.
Always. You can take admonition.