What`s Your Fancy? Attorney`s Collect Shot Glasses, Soundtracks

Lifestyle
COLLECTORS
What’s
Your
Fancy?
Attorneys Collect
SHOT GLASSES,
SOUNDTRACKS,
and PENGUINS
Leslie A. Gordon
PHOTOS BY Jim Block
T
Adam Dawson with some of the shot glasses he has been collecting for more than ten years.
60 SPRING 2006
en years ago, Adam Dawson,
head of the construction group
at Farella Braun + Martel LLP,
represented Bass Ale in relation to
its purchase of Holiday Inns. He
traveled to thirty-six cities in
sixteen months, logging 210,000
miles of air travel. He landed in
some obscure places, including the
remote intersection of Arkansas,
Louisiana, and Texas.
“I realized I needed to have some sort
of symbol, a record of all of the places I
was going,” Dawson says. A shot glass
collection was born.
Why shot glasses? “You can get them
in airports. They’re small and easy,” he
explains. “It became a quest, especially
when I went to smaller towns like
Beaumont, Texas.”
Lifestyle
COLLECTORS
The day after the Bass Ale case settled, his daughter was born. “I
look at these [shot glasses] and I have a story to tell my ten-year-old
daughter,” says Dawson, who also serves as Farella’s hiring partner.
Colleagues and friends, who’ve brought them from as far
away as Italy and Mexico, have added glasses to the collection,
which now numbers sixty-five. Dawson’s favorites are those
that were hardest to find. “Amarillo, Texas, is a favorite.”
The collection has become a conversation piece. “I start out with
a disclaimer than I’m not a raging alcoholic,” Dawson quips. The
glasses are housed on shelves in his office, collecting dust, not yet
a drop of alcohol. “Upon my retirement, I want to come in here
with a jug of whiskey and get my partners together.”
Dawson is not alone in his collection. With a penchant for not
doing anything halfway, lawyers are often vigorous collectors.
“There are two types of people in this world: those who collect
and those who don’t,” explains Fred Lowell, chair of Pillsbury
Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP’s political law practice and a
member of the former category. Along with American stamps
and political memorabilia, Lowell has collected more than a
thousand LPs of movie soundtracks. He bought his first record,
the soundtrack from Exodus, in 1960. “It had a popular song,
and I was curious about the whole score. It grew from there.”
His favorites albums include soundtracks composed by Miklos
Rozsa, who wrote the scores for Ben-Hur and El Cid. He also
likes John Barry, who composed music for Out of Africa and the
James Bond movies. Through his years of collecting, Lowell has
found that terrible movies—such as Taras Bulba with Yul
Brynner—often feature exquisite music. “It’s a miracle when the
music goes well with the movie but can also stand on its own.”
The most Lowell ever paid for a record was $4,000 for a rare
1964 soundtrack of the Caine Mutiny by Max Steiner. “The
cover was great, but the record skipped,” he says. Lowell sold
the record a month later for $5,000 to a man who drove down
from Oregon to get it. That experience aside, collecting
records is fun, “not a financial thing for me,” he says.
Gary Hernandez, who says he has a personal affinity for the creatures, displays some of his
collection of penguins.
Collecting, according to Gary Hernandez, chair of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP’s insurance regulatory practice,
offers “a natural diversion from our day-to-day work. It’s a way
to escape your work life and focus on something else.”
For his part, Hernandez collects items related to penguins,
including everything from a picture of penguins at the London
Zoo to a painting of penguins made by grade-school kids to
crystal penguins, stuffed animals, cookie jars, and windup toys.
It started twenty years ago when Hernandez visited the San
Francisco Zoo and stumbled upon Penguin Island. For the
first time, he noticed that penguins are “incredible creatures,”
he recalls. “They’re incredibly graceful when swimming, but
awkward and clumsy out of the water. They’re funny to look
at but also soothing and calming when underwater.”
Hernandez, who has penguin items in his office and at
home, cites the dictionary definition of penguins as “shortlegged, flightless aquatic birds.” He quips, “I’m sure I have a
personal affinity because that also applies to me.”
Hernandez flies a hundred thousand miles a year for work
and often picks up penguin items during his travels. Although
his collection has turned into a conversation piece, it was
primarily meant to be simply a source of personal joy.
“If I need a thirty-second time-out while working,”
Hernandez says, “I look up and smile when I see the penguins.”
Fred Lowell shows off some of his collection of soundtrack albums.
THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO ATTORNEY 61