In Memorian. Remembrance of Steve Susman

• Author: Parker Folse
• Pages: 5-6

HEADNOTES

Published in Litigation, Volume 47, Number 2, Winter 2021. © 2021 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be

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IN MEMORIAM

Remembrance of

Steve Susman

PARKER FOLSE

The author is a partner with Susman Godfrey,

LLP, Seattle.

Over our third pandemic cocktail last

night, my wife and I began talking about

Steve Susman. His presence in our lives

over 40 years was so strong that these con-

versations still bubble up like lava, unbid-

den, like every other force of nature, even

though his physical presence is now gone.

She said her dominant impressions of

Steve were cigars, wondrous but intimi-

dating intelligence, intense engagement,

and an extravagant sense of playfulness.

She didn’t mention the “I can’t unsee” im-

agery of Steve striding down the aisle on

a jolting bus ride in some remote location

on a firm retreat decades ago, clad only in

a Speedo and loudly laughing. But she has

mentioned that story to me so many times,

in a mixture of shock and wonder, that I

felt compelled to include it here for the

sake of completeness.

He gave up cigars too many years ago

to count, and replaced them with blunts.

He became slightly more modest in his at-

tire, though his Spandex bike shorts didn’t

leave much more to the imagination. The

incandescent intelligence and wild sense

of playfulness? That didn’t change at all.

Nor did his ability to stride like a titan

across the upheavals of the legal world,

until the current cruelties of life took him

down like some awful thunderbolt.

Where did the phrase “larger than life”

come from? I did some research, and went

down a deep rabbit hole with no clear an-

swer, because the phrase was such a per-

fectly blazing banner for Steve Susman.

But the time I spent in that fruitless chase

would have been a laughable thing to

Steve, who hated wasting his own time,

or anyone else’s, except when he was at

play in his own fields of Elysium.

He never said it, but it didn’t take long

to figure out that Steve believed his own

time, and that of his clients, was precious.

The early death of his own father seemed

to chase him, and his own regard for his

own brilliance was such that he measured

it out. And he constantly juggled so many

balls that time wasted was the risk of balls

being dropped, and damned if he was going

to let that happen.

Headnotes illustrations by Mary Woodin