A Refreshingly Unstuffy Lawyer Bio

Biographical profiles on lawyers on law firm web sites tend to be stuffy and boring. Mine included.

But someone recently called to my attention the refreshingly light-hearted bio of Martin D. Ginsberg, who if Of Counsel at Fried Frank in DC and a law professor at Georgetown University.  Here are a few excerpts:

•  “Professor Ginsburg attended Cornell University, stood very low in his class and played on the golf team.  He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School which, in those years, did not field a golf team.”
• “He withdrew from full-time practice when appointed the Beekman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and moved to Georgetown University in 1980 when his wife obtained a good job in Washington.”
• “From 1984 to 1987 he was a member of the ABA Tax Section Council, where he performed no useful service at all; celebrating that unique achievement, in 2006 the Tax Section gave Professor Ginsburg its lifetime Distinguished Service Award.”
• “In 1986, someone who probably prefers never to be identified endowed a Chair in Taxation in his name at Georgetown; no one appears willing to occupy the Ginsburg Chair, and it remains vacant.”
• ” In 1993, the National Women’s Political Caucus gave Professor Ginsburg its “Good Guy” award; history reveals no prior instance of a tax lawyer held to be a “Good Guy,” or even a “Decent Sort.”
• “Professor Ginsburg is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, a frequent speaker at tax seminars, mainly in warm climates, and the author of one exciting treatise (with J.S. Levin of Chicago) and a ghastly number of articles on corporate and partnership taxation, business acquisitions and other stimulating things.”
• “Professor Ginsburg’s spouse was a lawyer before she found better work.  Their older child was a lawyer before she became a schoolteacher.  The younger child, when he feels grumpy, threatens to become a lawyer.”

Ken Shigley admits to being a personal injury trial lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia. His politically incorrect répertoire of “redneck lawyer” jokes is based upon personal experiences earlier in his career that marred him for life.  Having launched his post-prosecutor career handling a lot of trailer park divorces and once trying a dog custody case in Justice of the Peace Court, he now specializes in tractor trailer wrecks and does research at truck stops. Neither of his children, even when grumpy, show any interest at all in becoming lawyers.