Courthouse a Home Away From Home

In a short break together in the court cafeteria, Bill patted his kids on the back for work that makes the city better. He said he has no pretensions about his job.

"As a defense lawyer, you've got to be kidding yourself if you think you're making the world a better place," the father said.

Amy retorted: "Oh Dad, what you do makes the world better."

"Well," Bill said, "it's very important to at least one person."

The family is close, although not everyone is a lawyer. Mother Judy was a longtime social worker for Adoption Service Information Agency, but Amy joked that she's "pretty much a full-time grandmother and dog walker now." Brother Jeff went to business school so he "could make some real money," Jon deadpanned. But the youngest brother also has artistic skills. Jon remembered when they made a big splash in a Louisiana courtroom where their father was in a trial.

"My brother did this amazing sketch of the entire courtroom scene," Jon recalled. "The only problem was that it showed the judge sleeping during trial, with all of these ZZZZZs coming up and all. But my dad showed it to the judge anyhow -- and the judge thought it was hilarious."

They don't talk about their cases except in general ways, and they make a concerted effort not to be the lawyers opposite each other.

One could say there' s a fourth lawyer in the group: Amy's husband, Casey Cooper. He met Bill before he met Amy. He was an impressive associate at Bill's law firm, which was then Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin. Then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, a former Miller Cassidy lawyer and friend of Bill's, hired Casey and Amy to work at the Justice Department.

The younger two lawyers got to know each other while working in offices across the hall at Main Justice. Now Casey works with Bill at Baker Botts, sometimes sharing cases.

"Dad never interfered with my love life," Amy insisted. Then she added: "I think Dad would have loved to have me or Jon, or Jeff for that matter, work with him. So it's really nice for him to have Casey there."

The children have appreciated their father's counsel through life. Amy most remembers him saying a lawyer has to know the facts of a case "inside and out." Jon said his father helped him by explaining that the law was about "reasoning your way to the correct rule."

But Jon couldn't resist a parting joke: "Dad prepared for the bar in, like, two days while in the middle of working on the Pentagon Papers case for Judge Gesell, so I tried not to follow his example on that one."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.