Besting the Bull
| Author | James Podgers |
| Pages | 10-11 |
Grewal is par t of a group
called Next G eneration
Lawyers, which tr acks and
promotes oppor tunities for
young attor neys.
The gap in experience
for associates and under-
represented attorneys i s
“a problem which aects
the profession, so each
of the elements of the
profession has to con-
tribute to the solution,”
Grewal says, adding t hat
as a judge he felt younger
attorneys “were not get ting
the opportunities they nee ded to prove themselves.”
Indeed, the opportunities t he rules yield can be impres-
sive. Reid Mullen was an assoc iate at Keker, Van Nest &
Peters in San Francisc o in 2011 when he got the chance to
argue a motion before Alsup on beha lf of Google in an IP
case brought by Oracle—his firs t argument in federal court.
When he sat down, the opposing attorney who st ood up was
none other than David Boies.
“It’s something I tell recruits when they ’re considering” the
firm, says Mullen, who is now a part ner. —Rebecca Beyer
Besting the
Bull
Attorney’s bullfighting dreams
come true during golden years
LIKE MA NY LAWYER S, James B. Pritikin
will tell you that he fac es a lot of bull in the
courtroom. But he might be the only lawyer in
the United States who also fac es the real thing.
Bullfighting is a hobby for Pritikin , a divorce
litigator who is a partner at Beerma nn Pritikin
Mirabelli Swerdlove in Ch icago. But he sees
a similarity b etween the two pursuits: “In a
bullring, you’ve got to watch where you walk ,”
he says. “You deal with the same excrement in
my field of practice. It’s two lawyers argu ing,
which isn’t much dierent from what I encoun-
ter in the ring.”
Pritikin’s fascinat ion with bullfighting
goes back a long way. He discovered the ritual
as a student at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, when he watc hed televised
bullfights from Mexico Cit y. “I fell in love with
the tradition and spect acle, and I said, ‘I can
do this.’ But then came the Army, law school,
marriage and law prac tice. Life passed me by.”
But sometimes dreams deferre d become
dreams ful filled. As Pritikin was approa ching
his 66th birthday, he was bemoaning his lost
opportunity to tr y bullfighting to his wife,
Mary Szatkowsk i-Pritikin, when she surprised
him with the gif t of a two-week course at a
bullfighting ranch in Sala manca, Spain.
“My first thought was: Am I too old for this?
My second thought was: Why do I have to wait
until June?”
That was 12 years ago. Now, at the age of 78,
Pritikin st ill travels to Spain once or twice a year
to hone his skills as a bullfig hter and to experi-
ence what he describes as an “adr enaline rush
that is more than anyt hing I’ve experienced
before.” And at an age at which just about any-
one else might think twic e about getting into a
ring with even the young 500-pound bul ls that
Pritikin fights—he looks the par t of a matador:
tall, slim, erec t posture and brushed-back hair.
Pritikin’s wife has never se en him in the ring
because, he says, “she doesn’t want to have an
actual awarenes s of the danger I’m in.” And the
danger is very real, even w ith smaller bulls still
learning how to fight. In 2010, he was gored in
the left leg, breaking hi s tibia and fibula and
Opening Statements
10 || ABA JOURNAL JANUARY 2018
Sharon Porcellio
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