Senior Attorney, Joseph Field
I can thank a certain barbershop for my decision to become a lawyer.
Yes, I did say “barbershop”. In high school I would look forward each day to stopping at this certain inner city barbershop to peer into its window. There I would see a chess game in progress with a sign near it announcing: “black wins in three moves”. I would study those pieces, refusing to leave until I figured out just how “black wins”. One day the owner asked me if I knew much about chess. I told him that I was reading books about it. He then took me under his wing and trained me on the game. I went on to become, not a grandmaster or anything, but the chess champion of our high school for my junior and senior year (even though teachers were allowed to play in the tournament!). I also played in a community parks tournament and made it all the way to the championship game before losing. It was then that I knew I had a gift for analysis.
