I’m a Criminal Lawyer. That’s what I’ve done since 1977, and it’s what I do today. I took my law degree from Harvard Law School in Cambridge Massachusetts (Class of ‘77) after graduating Cum Laude in 1974 from San Jose State University in the Silicon Valley. Law School provided a truly wacky environment; my classmates ranged from our current Chief Justice, John G. Roberts, Jr., to the ubiquitous TV legal analyst Susan Estrich, and the flamboyant Bay State Congressman, Barney Frank. As I was entering the Law School in 1975, President Nixon had just recently resigned, and you could feel the palpable depression sinking in among those who really wanted to continue “wallowing in Watergate”. My own personal Watergate era was perpetuated in the classroom with courses taught by both Archibald Cox and Nixon’s personal lawyer, James St. Clair. Harvard was good at providing these kinds of surreal, alternative viewpoints.

Upon graduation, I first sampled life in the big law firms that recruited at the Law School, but changed course soon and moved back to my home town to set up my own solo practice. My ambition was to become a great trial lawyer, and big-firm litigation just wasn’t cutting it, with most of my days spent in depositions or buried in discovery paperwork. In 1977 the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977), allowing lawyers to advertise. That was all this entrepreneur needed to propel a fledgling law practice out of the chute, and within a short time I was standing in front of juries arguing cases like there was no tomorrow.

My practice soared and I enjoyed some spectacular victories early on in my career, shooting me into the local spotlight for over a decade. I handled everything from capital murder cases to representing other laywers handling capital murder cases. Although I did not participate or endorse in any way the making of any films, hollywood producers still managed to capture some of my cases (e.g, The River’s Edge).

Then I discovered technology. Still fascinated by the first computer I had seen at Harvard (it filled an entire 20×20 room), I succumbed in 1979 to irrational temptation and on a lark I purchased my very own Apple ][ personal computer. It came with something called an Assembler, and I dutifuly taught myself how to use it, learning 6502 assembly language in my “spare time”. Not long after that I learned a new high-level language known simply as “C”, and spent a great deal of time testing various compilers on the Mac and the new IBM PC. During this period I wrote a little telecomm product I called “Talking Heads”, and quietly uploaded it one night to CompuServe — my life has never been the same since. The product was an enormous success and brought me a lot of unsolicited attention. Amazingly, in 1987 I was invited to join Apple Computer as a Software Engineer, and for the next year I could be seen each morning handling my cases before judge and jury in Santa Clara County Superior Court , and in the afternoon sitting in my cubicle at Apple, coding.

After only a few months, I was recruited by Guy Kawasaki to head up the Macintosh Software Evangelism group, where it became my job to whip developers into a frenzy to create great products for the Mac. As it turns out, one of those developers attained considerable stature in the blogging community (hell, the business & technology community in general): Dave Winer. Dave probably doesn’t remember his Evangelist, but I sure remember him, and after hearing his name associated with blogging for some time, I finally got around to looking into it. One thing led to another, and here I am, blogging at last.

After leaving Apple and Silicon Valley, I moved to Washington state, co-founded Arabesque Software, and co-wrote a successful software product of my own (InfoWorld Product of the Year, 1994). Ecco Pro was one of those Windows organizers that people either hated or loved. Either way, we had a uniquely passionate customer base, and working at Arabesque remains one of the fondest memories of my professional life. For over a decade, I continued working in high-tech and wrote a lot more software. I held the position of Senior Vice President of Technology and Worldwide Product Development for a public software company producing enterprise-class software, and was invited to join Steve McConnell’s Executive Council for Software Excellence.

I had a great time living through the technology boom of the 90’s, and working alongside some of the giants in the industry who taught me much about the application of technology to the solution of real-world business problems. But the kind of problems I confronted in my law practice remained more intriguing to me, and ultimately I reverted back to the fulltime practice of Criminal Law with my technology experience providing a very relevant overlay. My current practice continues to be 100% Criminal Defense, allowing me to devote all my energy to the problems of a single client at a time. There’s nothing quite like the challenge of standing up against the full power and resources of a State pitted against one person and his lawyer.

My two parallel career tracks may seem disconnected at first glance, but they really are linked in powerful ways. The modern day criminal prosecution is heavily dependent upon technology at the crime scene, in the lab, and in the courtroom. In this post-CSI environment where DNA analysis is becoming routine, and Gas-Chromatograph Mass Spectrometry is used to convict drunk drivers, technological expertise provides unique advantages to the well-versed, Dual-Disciplined Criminal Lawyer, advantages that empower him or her to stand up against the State and meet the prosecution head-on with both legal and technology challenges. It’s a new world, and I’m deliriously happy to be a part of the new generation of Renaissance men and women lawyers re-inventing the art of Criminal Defense.

Update: Dave Winer writes that he does remember his old Apple Evangelist. Those early days were among the best times in my technology career. And yeah, Dave, I saw that you were a Berkman Fellow at HLS. Wish I’d known at the time!

RP