My BarStory - 35 Michael N. Ungar and Becky Ruppert McMahon

If you know Mike Ungar, you know he is humble about his career accomplishments, and his immense contributions to the CMBA as a Past President and tireless volunteer. As a long-time partner with Ulmer & Berne LLC, Mike has been named numerous times as one of the top litigators in the country. Even if Mikes doesn't want to toot his own horn, his good friend CMBA CEO Becky Ruppert McMahon is there to give credit where it is certainly due! 

Transcript

Becky Ruppert McMahon (00:05):
Hi, I'm Becky Rupert McMahon, chief Executive at the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. Welcome to another edition of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association's. My bar story. Throughout 2023, the C N B A will be hosting a series of podcasts that have created a living legacy in honor of our 150th anniversary. We'll be bringing you stories from the women and men within our bar membership who have truly made bar history. Now, let's get started with another bar story.

Michael N. Ungar (00:36):
I'm Mike Hugger. I am a partner here at Ulmer and Byr. I am the chair of the litigation department at the firm. And the best job I ever had, however, was in 2010 and 2011, I was the president of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. I believe I was then the third president of the unification of the Cuyahoga County Bar Association and Cleveland Bar Association.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (01:02):
Mike, I gotta tell you, I've been looking forward to this conversation because full disclosure to anyone who's listening to this conversation, we kind of know each other.

Michael N. Ungar (01:09):
Yeah. We kind of know each other.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (01:10):
We kind of do. And I gotta tell you, one of the things that I love about you, and there are many, but one of them is every time I see you at a bar related event or activity, you are wearing lapel pins as you are today. I do. One of them is a three Rs pin, and one of them is a legal aid pin close to your heart. And I, so I just wanna start there. Yeah. Talk to me about your love for three Rs and then we'll talk about your love for legal aid. Happy,

Michael N. Ungar (01:32):
Happy to do that. Gives me goosebumps to think about it. Of course, I get no credit for starting it. It's one of those things I say to myself constantly, I wish I'd thought of this. The fact of the matter is that one of my colleagues, mentors, friends, and my current opposing counsel only in this world, we'll probably talk about that. Hugh McKay really was the father of the three Rs program. And then of course, the Bar Association, the Bar Foundation, and hundreds, if probably not thousands of lawyers and judges and law clerks have made it what it is today. Probably one of the highlights of my year as bar president was I was invited and I was just riding coattails here, but I was invited to speak at the A b a national Convention out in San Francisco, which was a pretty cool thing to be invited to speak at.

Michael N. Ungar (02:25):
And it was about what we were doing in Cleveland. And in fairness, it was still in its nation stages at that point in time, but catching fire. And I had the opportunity to address a group of bar presidents and president-elect and, and executive directors and CEOs. You would think perhaps that the opportunity to prepare and present the remarks that I gave about the three Rs was the best part of that, and it wasn't. The best part was when it was over and I said, I'll stick around for a while. There was a line, there's rarely a line to talk to me after I give a talk. There was a line where people were asking for all my contact information so they could get more information to try to emulate it within their respective bar association. So that was, that was pretty cool. It's something that's been near and dear to my heart since the moment it started. And I will tell you to this day, you know, the warm and fuzzies that come with it come from being in that classroom and and touching kids' lives.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (03:25):
You've told me more than once, it's yes, you are going into the classroom and you are giving to those kids and they are getting, getting stuff from you, but you get a whole lot more back from that experience. You,

Michael N. Ungar (03:33):
You get out of it what you put into it, and it's an easy tug.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (03:37):
You've been at a, a couple different schools, haven't you?

Michael N. Ungar (03:39):
I've been at multiple schools, yeah. Over the years, each with its own personality, and I've enjoyed every, every one of them.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (03:47):
All right. La let's talk about legal aid and your love for legal aid. Sure.

Michael N. Ungar (03:50):
One of my favorite things to say about legal aid is that I still have in my attic where all my old papers are. I still have the first words that I uttered in Judge Raya Abel's courtroom in Boston. And she was a fantastic judge to be the very first judge I ever appeared before. And I said, may it please the court. I'm a Boston University 3 0 3 Supreme Judicial Court rule. Legal aid representative for Ms. Ollie Harris, who was improperly denied her social security benefits. And the rest, as they say is history. I was successful in our challenge to the denial of those disability benefits, which was all the more rewarding. But that was the first time I ever said anything in a, in a courtroom on behalf of someone for whom access to Justice was a long shot, to say the least.

Michael N. Ungar (04:43):
And ever since that time, and we were warned in, in, at least in the Boston University Clinical program, for which I got a couple of credit hours, but more importantly, I got instilled into my professional D n A, you know, the love of a Lifetime, which is the love for legal aid. And we were warned that, you know, and I thought it was hype to enhance the sense of adventure for what we were going to have, didn't ever think it would come true. People said, look, this, this program that you're about to embark on is something that is going to affect you for the rest of your professional career. And I'm thinking to myself, eh, I doubt that that's probably not gonna happen to me. That probably won't be true. And of course, I was dead wrong. And thinking those thoughts and the rest is, they say is history.

Michael N. Ungar (05:24):
So the connectivity and the connection between the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association and Legal Aid is a really important one. And I think it is one where you, if you're a president, you need to make sure that you're putting your proverbial money where your mouth is. Colleen will tell you, I demanded but I asked in a, my most polite but forceful way that Colleen Kotter not just be on the board of the C M B A, but be on my executive committee. And I relied on her then as I do now. And again, I think that connection between the Bar Association particularly is, look, the Bar Association now is embarking on a program that is, you know, incredibly important. We were just talking off camera about the nice publicity that it's getting and the important publicity that it's getting, because there is a whole segment of the underserved population, especially with respect to civil cases where other than right to counsel in the housing context, thanks to the initiatives of Legal Aid and the C M B A, you don't have a right to counsel.

Michael N. Ungar (06:25):
And it's very important that that underserved community that is not income eligible or asset eligible for Legal Aid services, also gets service. And I'm thrilled to see the C M B A, I guess I'm volunteering here, right? But I see the smile on your face, I think just heard that. And I know how this works, but, but I'm thrilled to see that it's happening. I have heard from the President of Legal Services Foundation, and I've heard it said by multiple folks who are involved in legal aid when, and I say it myself to young lawyers who are getting involved in legal aid cases, we're fond of talking about bet the company cases, right? Every, you know, the cream of the crop, the cream cases that you wanna work on, the cream deals that you wanna work on, real estate, corporate, transac tax transactional are, you know, are, are the, are the bet the company cases, right?

Michael N. Ungar (07:14):
Mergers, acquisitions, hustle, takeovers. You want the bet the company stuff for almost every single person that Legal Aid is representing, it's a bet, the company case, right? The company is that individual and his or her family who are oftentimes affected, especially in the housing context and the destabilizing effects of eviction that ha are visited upon a, a family that's subjected to that. Anyway, I won't get on my soapbox right now, but it too late. You're already on it. Really? Yeah, I'm already on it. But it's really important, right? And it's just a good, and it's a good feeling. Wh

Becky Ruppert McMahon (07:50):
When you look backwards, w when did this fight in you first start to, to develop?

Michael N. Ungar (07:57):
My grandfather came here at age seven or eight, and he didn't speak a word of English but folks took him under his wing and under their wing. And soon he was proficient in English. Soon he was proficient enough to graduate from high school. Then he went on to Wittenberg for a couple of years, then he went to the Ohio State University, and he became a lawyer. And that motivated me. I thought, you know, I, I can't say that at, at that point in time, I was thinking thoughts along the lines of, you know, the J f k quote for the, for those two whom much is given, much is required, or anything like that. But I remember thinking to myself, I called him, we called him Papa, remember thinking if that guy could overcome that and become a lawyer, and he was, what you would call a small time lawyer in a small time, relatively small time community doing trust and estates work in Toledo, Ohio.

Michael N. Ungar (08:52):
You know, woke up in the morning, looked forward to going to work. I figured that was pretty, pretty darn cool. My dad was not a, not a lawyer. My dad was from Toledo, Ohio. My dad was just a hard worker. I mean, he just, you know, what he lacked in, he didn't have a college education, but what he lacked in in academic, in academia, he made up in true grit. It went into the army which really got him set, set on the right track became an officer in the army and and ultimately got into the women's shoe business. So I grew up selling women's shoes. And to this day, folks ask, anybody who knows me knows I'm really competitive. And I know that the, you know, the law invites competitive people into under the tent, so to speak. And I like to win.

Michael N. Ungar (09:39):
And there's a lot of definitions of winning under the law. So I like that flexibility too. I would sell shoes to people, and I usually worked in shoes, salons. It wasn't a fact that every single shoe that you were fitting onto, I only sold women's shoes. I, I, I know a lot about women's shoes. I don't know anything about men's shoes, believe it or not. Let's just say, oftentimes you had to be a pretty good salesman in order to do that. And you needed to persuade the individual that this was going to be the right pair of shoes for Herc. And you had to do it in a convincing way. You had to believe in your product. And, and to me, they were all clients. Right? And I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the service aspect of everything that I did, was I paid for it.

Michael N. Ungar (10:23):
Sure. I got paid for it first by my dad, not so much. But when I went to college, I needed to work to, to make my way through college. So I got a job in a downtown Boston shoe salon. And then the other thing that, that I would say, and I, you know, again, this may be me psychoanalyzing a bit, but if I think back to my, like, earliest years as a kid, my dad and I struck up a deal. My dad bought a snowblower. I grew up in South Euclid, Ohio with, you know, po postage stamp homes, you know, right next to each other. Very different than the community I'm blessed to live in now in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. But as a consequence of that my dad bought, bought it. We had a fairly long driveway. And at some point in time, my dad said, Hey, I got, I got a son here who's probably gonna be willing to do this, and he buys a snowblower, right?

Michael N. Ungar (11:08):
And the deal was that I had to do, there was a charity piece involved that I had to do my parents' driveway, and I had to do the elderly neighbors up and down my street, which was dors Road in South Euclid. And I had to do all those for free. Once I got through those, however, I was allowed to go walk around and make some pocket money. And I remember sitting at my school and watching as the clock struck, three 15, and it was the old manual clocks, right? And, and, and it was just painful the last 15 minutes because I knew if it was snowing hard outside, I was needed. And I liked that feeling of being needed. And I have that feeling every day of the week as a lawyer. I feel like my clients need me. Do I earn a paycheck that vastly exceeds anything that I think I'm entitled to? I live the Im imposter syndrome. I do, but it's the same feeling that I had when I was needed to plow people's driveways when it, when there was a heavy snow in northeastern Ohio. So I don't know. I, I don't know whether all those dots connect or not, but but it's the same feeling. They

Becky Ruppert McMahon (12:11):
Surely do. And I, and I gotta say the, the one other sort of overarching theme that I pull from your early experiences, and you have told me your shoe stories. You, you never knew who was walking in the door. Never. And so, one of the experiences you learned early was that whether it was the wealthiest woman walking in the room, or the per poorest person walking in the room, you treated all of them exactly the same, with the same level of attention and detail and respect. And I have seen you, Mike, over the 30 years that I've known you in the professional context, almost do the exact same thing. I've seen you walk into boardrooms, I've seen you walked into, into bank branches, and you treat everyone. Exactly. So I think that's another piece of what you got from that. Thank you. From those early experiences. Thank you. So how'd you end up in Boston then, for college and then law school?

Michael N. Ungar (12:55):
Well, I didn't get into Harvard <laugh>, you know, I toured various schools. I came, I think I've told you this story, and it, and it relates to our background. For me, it was between Boston University and the University of Rochester. Those were the two schools that I was ultimately looking at very carefully. And I decided that I liked Boston better. And I never, never looked back. I had seven wonderful years in Boston, and, and yet at the same time was always focused singularly. So on, coming back to Cleveland, Cleveland was my hometown. I knew Cleveland to be a great law town. I knew it, not only from what I had heard from my parents, but my parents had friends who were very involved in the law here. One of one of them was a great lawyer and a great judge guy by the name of Dick Marcus, whose name will ring a bell with many sadly, won't ring a bell with others unless they've looked at the Ohio Trial Lawyer's Handbook which Judge Marcus wrote. And he was a huge cheerleader for the Cleveland legal community. So, and I never had any doubts that I wanted to come home.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (13:59):
And so what were you looking for then when you, when you knew you were coming home for that first job, when you were done with school, when you passed the bar exam, what were you looking for

Michael N. Ungar (14:08):
First? Lemme tell you a, a regret that I have. Okay. The answer is I didn't know what I was looking for other than I wanted to go into, I knew I wanted to go into litigation. I was pretty sure that big law wasn't for me. My then girlfriend, now wife was working at then Squire Sanders and Dempsey. And I knew that that was something that that, that environment was a little bit too large for me. So I was looking for that, you know, if you analogize it to the porridge, right? I was, I was looking not for small, not for large, but medium, kind of just, just, right. And then the name of this law firm was Ulmer by Lauren Glickman, and Curtis and Ulmer by Lauren Glickman. And Curtis with a venerable trial department led by none other than Marv Karp, also a former president, one of my role models mentors former president of the he was a president of Cleveland Bar Association, was here.

Michael N. Ungar (15:02):
And I frankly lucked into it. Like so many other things, you know, better to be lucky than good. I had started my career at a, a smaller law firm and about a year and a half into it was sitting at my desk one day, and I got a call, an unsolicited call from the head of the tax department here at Ulmer. And by who happened to be the father of a friend of mine who said, Hey, we have an opening in the litigation department under Marv Karp. I really think you'd be well advised young man to come over and interview with a few people and see if this might be a good fit. This firm did not interview at Boston University. I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard of this law firm. When I was at Boston University, only the big law firms came to town. And that's how I, and that's the truth. That's how I got here. I had my interview, and within a few weeks I was working here. This is 1986. I was working here as a young associate. I can't believe I've been here for 37 years. And and it's been great.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (16:03):
You clearly have broken the mold in today's generation of the practicing lawyer and being in one place for 37 years. Yes,

Michael N. Ungar (16:09):
Very different. What

Becky Ruppert McMahon (16:11):
Keeps you here? What has kept you here all those years, Mike?

Michael N. Ungar (16:14):
It's the people. It's the clients. It's the whole package. As I like to say, and it may sound trite, you know, I wake up in the morning and I look forward to going to work. This is too hard a job to wake up in the morning and not look forward to going to work. So if I didn't like the clients, if I didn't like the challenges if I didn't enjoy the, the people that I work with, I probably wouldn't be here. I mean, knock on wood. My wife is a wood knocker, knock on wood. I have other opportunities. Everybody in this city who's who's done reasonably well gets calls from headhunters every day of the week. There are more people moving than ever before. One of my one of my partners Jeff Dunlap, who's a, a dear friend of mine just recently tried to do a count of the number of people that have come and gone just in the time that he's been a partner at Ulmer and Byrne, which is quite some time. And it's a lot of people. So, you know, it's it's a very mobile society, and I get that. And and again, I'd say it's the people and, and the, and the place. Clearly.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (17:21):
One of the aspects of ER's culture that I think is is pretty hard for anybody to miss if you're looking at the firm, is that there is an emphasis on getting your lawyers out into the community to volunteer. Whether it's volunteering at the Bar Association and becoming a leader. You mentioned Marv Carrp, yourself, Robin Wilson, currently on the board of directors for the Bar Association or other organizations. And you look at really any organization across Cleveland in the nonprofit sector, and there's some connection to Ulmer. So I'm curious, when did you get the bug to really as a lawyer, practicing here at Ulmer, to not just be an involved bar member, which of course you were, but to really get yourself on a leadership track that ultimately resulted in you becoming president like

Michael N. Ungar (18:06):
Everybody else? I came out, I felt like I was coming outta law school, and I might've known enough to graduate from law school, and then I knew enough to take and pass the bar exam, but I didn't really know anything about the practice of law and everything that I know, and everything that I became in terms of a practicing lawyer was absorption or a result of a, you know, learning by osmosis from the people that I was connected to. And that was not just looking at what was going on within my own law firm, but also paying attention to my opposing counsel. Cleveland, again, it's just a wonderful pay it forward is just in the d n a of so many members of our legal community where, and I'm this way myself, I don't just care about the people that work at my law firm.

Michael N. Ungar (18:55):
I care about my opposing counsel too, right? I wanna see, oftentimes I'm working with lawyers on the other side who I think are great, great folks. They're gonna be great lawyers, and I'm interested in their careers as well. So I would say there were both internal influences and external influences on me. Sure there were great role models within Ulmer and Byrne. I had, you know, before me as bar president, I had Mar Karp, I had Isaac Schultz and others. On the foundation side, Stephanie Trudeau got involved. Michael Tucker is involved in the Bar Foundation. You mentioned Robin Robin Wilson, and I'm sure I'm leaving many, many people out. So I looked around me and I saw that all of this happening, and I saw so many people within the firm involved in all sorts of things within the community, not just the Bar Association, legal aid churches, synagogues other civic organizations. We

Becky Ruppert McMahon (19:52):
Could talk for months about all the different things that you've done in the bar for the bar around the bar and beyond and beyond. Are there standouts? Is there a highlight or two from your year as president that when you reflect back on being president, that you are most proud of how you and those with whom you worked at the bar how you really stepped up during your year?

Michael N. Ungar (20:13):
Taking off my, my, I'm a partner at Ulmer and Burn Hat and putting on my, I'm the president of this Great Bar Association, and being a cheerleader for the entire legal community was the coolest thing I've ever done. During my year. There was no playbook that got sent that got delivered from one president to the next president to the next president. Everybody was entitled to have their own agendas, so to speak. My, my headliner was a focus on judicial excellence. But, but right beneath the headline was we were still in the formative stages of getting this I, I analogized the whole thing to a rocket launch, right? And I felt as though in year three, I thought that the the two bars had been very successfully combined. And, and giving myself very little credit for that, I give a ton of credit to Karen Kaminsky who really drove that, that thing and, and, and put it together so that it was ready to launch.

Michael N. Ungar (21:22):
And then, and then kind of for the next year or two, I felt like the rocket was being fueled. And I thought that our year was the year to launch that, that rocket ship. And I, and, and take this thing out, or I'll pick your analogy, take it out for a test drive, right? But it was gonna be fun, but nobody gives you a, a, a playbook on, on, on how to run that, and you kind of gotta feel your way around. And then there were a few curve balls, and I knew there'd be some curve balls. But one of them that, that I most assuredly, most assuredly did not see coming was the indictment of two sitting judges who had been caught in this wide net that the F B I and the US Attorney's office had cast with respect to the county corruption scandal.

Michael N. Ungar (22:12):
They weren't the targets, but they, but they caught 'em. And there were, and, and it was all on tape. And so while everyone is entitled to a, a presumption of innocence, there was very little doubt in my mind, at least as bar president, as to what the outcome would be. That doesn't mean that there still weren't a number of supporters of these judges and the bench, our bench was clearly under attack in the, in the media. And otherwise, I tapped into my executive committee, I would say big time <laugh>. And I felt that the bar needed to step up on in a number of important ways, the primary way being, believe it or not, defense of our judiciary, because our judges are not allowed under the rules of ethics to say things, to put up their Dukes and fight and defend themselves in a way that the bar can in a very organized and strategic way.

Michael N. Ungar (23:16):
And we did that. We had a rapid response team that was in place and we were ready for the questions that were coming in from the media, and we were prepared to deal with it. One of the judges determined that and she was, this is judge McCafferty, I'll, I'll, I'll name names who was a prolific, unbelievable campaigner and vote getter. While she was under indictment, she nearly won the race. She decides without her lawyer by her side to stand on the courthouse steps of the federal courthouse in Akron and pronounce to all that are listening. And, and it was a fair, there was a fair amount of viewership and, and, and listeners that this was a cough, gas experience for her. She was now through, through the looking glass, I guess and on the other side looking in. And this was a great opportunity for her as a judge.

Michael N. Ungar (24:14):
It was a learning experience for her, and she would be a better judge as a consequence of her indictment. The media, of course, wanted someone from the organized bar to speak to those issues. Well, number one, I'm not a criminal defense lawyer. I don't know anything about criminal law. And I needed help getting ready to present the bar's response to some of the things that were going on. And for me at least, those were incredibly challenging times. I communicated as regularly as I thought advisable without wishing to inundate the entire bar. I only sent out mass blasts to the entire bar on a few occasions during my year as bar president, but I sent it out and then held my breath because I knew I would get some very strong responses, and I got plenty of attaboy, Mike, go, go get 'em. You're doing the right thing. This is the kind of leadership that our bar needs. But I certainly got a few, you know, body blows saying this is you're, you're taking the wrong tack. It, it was a lesson, and I would say it was one that, you know, chiseled me and, and frankly got me ready for some other challenges. Mike,

Becky Ruppert McMahon (25:23):
You are one of the most well-respected, well-regarded and well accoladed lawyers in this state and in this country. You have won just about or received every recognition there is to receive both in terms of being the best lawyer in Ohio, one of the top 100 litigators across the country, year after year after year. You were just recently selected as one of the C MBA's, legacy 150 anniversary award recipients. As somebody who's been a game changer in our community, and I know you're not somebody who builds the resume and you don't do things to get accolades, but I can't help but ask you, what, what does it mean to you to have been recognized in so many different ways for the incredible work that you have done over 37 30 to eight plus years?

Michael N. Ungar (26:13):
Well, again, you know, I gotta go back. I live the imposter syndrome. I mean, when I, when I get these things I say to myself, are they really talking about me? Because I don't feel like I deserve any of them. I I really don't any more so than you do or all these other people. I look around and I'm just constantly, I'm wide-eyed. And I'm amazed and impressed by all the people that I've met, largely because I chose the career path that I that I chose. So I don't feel like I'm any more worthy of them than, and I can fill in the blank with name, after name, after name, after name. The truth of the matter is, I just don't feel like I deserve any of them. Now, that said, you know, you walk around and you say, and there are all these lists these days, right?

Michael N. Ungar (26:55):
And ranking stuff that didn't even exist when I started practicing law. And you say, well, if somebody tested me on that and said, do you really mean what you say and say what you mean there, Unger, I'd say, you know, probably not. I'd have to concede, you know, if you, if you have your choice of getting the awards versus not getting the awards, would you rather have the awards, the answers? Of course, of course. I'd rather have the awards, and then the joy that I get is on, is paying it forward and watching as other team members, and they can be team members in the literal sense, meaning team members here at Omer and Burn, or other lawyers at other firms in the community. You know, once a year we go through, I, I'll just pick, the most recent one I went through was either Chambers or Benchmark.

Michael N. Ungar (27:39):
I can't remember which of the rankings. But you go through the interview and Sure. Do I enjoy, I guess this goes back to my bar, d n a that I was talking about before. Do I enjoy talking about my colleagues here at Ulmer and Burn? I do. And do I get that? That's part of my job as the litigation department chair, yes. But if you asked our marketing folks who are usually there to make sure that I color between the lines and, you know, stay in, stay in bounds, they're usually sitting there. As I'm going through these interviews, I love talking about lawyers at other law firms whom, whom I've encountered in every aspect of my practice, whether it's as opposing counsel you know a a big part of my career these days is I spend a, a fair amount of time mediating cases in which I'm just as competitive as I otherwise am.

Michael N. Ungar (28:22):
When I'm trying cases, I, I just wanna win. And when I'm mediating cases, I just want 'em to settle. And that's my definition of the win. But as a result, I get to see all of these amazing lawyers, you know, practicing law, and they're quote unquote before me. I'm not a judge. I don't adjudicate anything. Occasionally, I'm an arbitrator, but I love seeing them practice, and I love touting them when given the opportunity to do so. And oftentimes, their names are on the list of the people that these interviewers want to talk about. So I really, I really get a get a charge outta that for me, it, it, it's a huge part of what, you know, makes me happy. Yeah. Professionally happy is seeing other people succeed, right? And you think, gee, if I had just a tiny little smidge of involvement in that person's success, then I feel good about it.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (29:12):
Well, your investment in the next generation is notable in many, many, many respects. One close to home. You, you and, and your lovely wife, Deborah who's as you've mentioned a couple times, is also an attorney. You have two magnificently, smart, capable, wonderful daughters, one of whom went the law school route. And now I know that you are a proud grandparent, and I'm curious, Mike, as a proud grandfather, are you doing anything to set the stage so that the future generation hunger offspring will think about a career in law? And if so, what would you hope for your grandchildren?

Michael N. Ungar (29:44):
First of all, I hoped for my own child. There was one that I thought was going to law school for quite some time. She did go to law school, and she knows this. She'll probably see this. I was hopeful that she would follow a career path similar to my own. That was not to be. She got outta law school. She went to the Ohio State University. She likes to report to me she did much better in law school than I did in law school. And she had plenty of opportunities coming out. And she went to a larger law firm. I was all excited because I was looking forward to mentoring her. I will tell you, and I probably have told you, I knew things were going south when she got involved in a huge construction case, and it was a really cool case, multifaceted, lots of complex issues, legal and factual.

Michael N. Ungar (30:34):
And the case was happening down in state court in Florida, if memory serves, or it might've been arbitration in Florida, client recognized that the the way to get everybody there most efficiently was to charter a plane. So she got to fly on a small jet down to Florida. And I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. And, and I wanted to hear all about the trial. I wanted to hear all about the experience of getting there on private aircraft, et cetera. And this is, she's, she's a first or second year associate at the firm at the time. She, she reports back that what she found to be the most impressive part of this were, were the snacks that were served on the <laugh> on the charter plane. And at that point, I turned to my wife and I said, honey said my daughter Catherine, she's known by known by her friends as Cat is not long for this world coming out of college.

Michael N. Ungar (31:28):
She took a gap year. She had worked during her, one of her summers for Legal Aid. She took a gap year, and she did an AmeriCorps program and really got, got into her, her d n a, the, you know, giving back to society Gene. And and is capitalized on that shortly after. She related her favorite experience with respect to practicing law, which I know doomed her a traditional law career. Or, or, or said, spoke volumes about whether she had a long career in the traditional practice of law. She became the executive director through an through an association with one of our Ohio State law professors of something called Tobacco 21 which was a policy driven initiative to to make tobacco less accessible to our youth. And that ran its course. And today she is a policy analyst with the Children's Defense Fund, and she does draw on her legal career. She keeps her law license current, and I'm very proud of her. She's involved in a lot of lobbying and policy initiatives and with a, a heavy emphasis on early child nutrition programs. So it's really cool to see her doing that. So

Becky Ruppert McMahon (32:45):
Like her parents, she charted her own path for sure.

Michael N. Ungar (32:47):
She charted her own path. Yeah. And then my other daughter, Sarah, likewise chartered her own path. My daughter Sarah, goes to college at a small liberal arts college in Maine. It's called Bates College. Very, very small liberal arts school. And she graduates with a degree in philosophy. And Debbie and I look at each other and say, what the heck is she gonna do with that? True Deform comes home and says, mom, dad, I wanna move to Chicago. We said, Sarah, you know, what are you gonna do in Chicago? You don't know anybody. Chicago, off she goes, charting her own path to Chicago. And today she has a very successful career, and we're very proud of her working in the digital advertising arena.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (33:24):
To wrap things up, would you hope that your, that a grandchild or two might consider a career in law?

Michael N. Ungar (33:30):
I would hope that they would because it'll give us something to talk about. Something in common. My grandfather is going back to where we started. My grandfather was an inspiration to me. But again, you know, I think that the most important thing is that people find things that fire them up, that motivate them, that they're passionate about. I think it's a tough world we live in. I think it's a very challenging, unforgiving world that we live in. I can't even imagine going through this. I had, I had a blissfully ignorant youth. I never had any of the pressures that I now sense are on our youth. O oftentimes coming from social media, never had to deal with that. You know, were there a few bullies wandering the hallways of Brush high school in South Euclid, Lyndhurst, Ohio? Sure. But I was oblivious to it.

Michael N. Ungar (34:22):
Again, lucky zip code, right? I mean, I had nothing but opportunities delivered my way. I would hope the same for my grandchildren, that they have plenty of opportunities and then they go out and they make the most of 'em, they'll figure it out. If they look at me as a role model, great. And if they look at what I do, and they say that's something that I think I may wish to pursue phenomenal. But I think the most important thing is that they find what makes 'em happy and they pursue it, and that they, they themselves are happy, right? I mean, it's a, we've talked about this. You're only as happy as you're unhappy as child. I fear that the same is going to, I love being a grandparent, by the way. I just, I, I'm over the moon happy and excited about it. Can't believe how much fun it is. But I do also feel the same vulnerability that I had when I was otherwise feeling pretty invulnerable until I had kids. And then, you know, you feel vulnerable to your kids' safety, wellbeing, happiness, health, et cetera. I feel the same way with respect to my grandchildren. But

Becky Ruppert McMahon (35:26):
Mostly what I see about you is how fired up you get. And Mike, I gotta tell you, there isn't, I don't, I can't think of a day when I haven't seen you excited to take on the day. Whether it's you fired up about representing your clients, or whether it is about galvanizing the bar, or whether it's advocating and cheerleading for legal aid or now your family. Yep. I, there is nobody who comes close to your level of energy and excitement. You've given a lot of accolades to others, but there's only one Mike Unger. And I'm so glad to be able to call you my friend, and to call you my colleague and many moons ago to have called you my lawyer. Likewise. So Mike, likewise, thank you for sitting down today. You

Michael N. Ungar (36:01):
Were my boss, so let's be clear. <Laugh>, which was great.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (36:04):
It was a good partnership. That

Michael N. Ungar (36:05):
Was great. Was a great partnership.

Becky Ruppert McMahon (36:06):
It was a great partnership. Love. Thank for this fantastic conversation. I appreciate it.

Michael N. Ungar (36:09):
My pleasure. Thank

Becky Ruppert McMahon (36:10):
You for joining us for today's My Bar story. To hear other bar stories, or to check out any of the CBAs other podcasts, please go to Spotify, apple, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. You can also go to our website@cmetrobar.org slash podcast. We hope you listen again soon.