New Award Has No Rival on Attorney’s Unique Resume

Jennifer Keller was never supposed to be president of the Orange County Bar Assn.

Jennifer Keller was anti-establishment. She was a former deputy public defender who wasn’t backward about giving district attorney lawyers a thump on the head in the media. Just hearing her name could give Sheriff Brad Gates indigestion; she’d thumped him a few times too, over jail issues.

So when Keller decided to go after a spot among the county’s legal hierarchy in 1992, she did it her way. What did she have to lose? Her opponent for bar secretary had the endorsement of 13 former bar presidents. To him, Keller was just an annoying fly to be flicked away.

So Keller wrote an anti-resume and sent it to the local legal community. Keller laughs about it now: “Turns out lawyers have a good sense of humor.�

The resume mentions her accolades, such as “kicked out of Girl Scouts,� and “expelled from Catholic girls school (stuck ‘kick me’ sign on bishop’s rear during special visit.)� She added “worst attendance by halfway-decent student, Hastings ’78. Most winnings, Pro Football Pool, Hastings ’78 (These are related statistics.)�

One listing Keller includes might have been a little closer to the truth: “1,457 contempt-of-court threats, zero citations. (I may wave the red flag, but I’m gone before the bull can charge.)� And another: “Initial career choice: deputy public defender. Represented all sorts of really bad people with unseemly gusto.�

Can you imagine submitting such a resume to Fluor Corp.? Or the Irvine Co.? But it helped Keller win the job. Not that she wanted to be the bar’s secretary. She wanted to be bar president. The secretary’s post is the prerequisite entry step to the top job, which became hers this year.

How’s she doing? Here’s a barometer: Next Monday night, Keller will be honored as Attorney of the Year, by the Public Law Center at its annual recognition dinner at the Holiday Inn Select in Irvine. Its volunteer attorneys help those with low incomes who become embroiled in civil cases.

The honor was surprising to me because Keller is not a civil attorney; she’s a criminal defense lawyer. And she hasn’t handled a single Public Law Center case all year.

But its executive director, Scott Wylie, says she was the board’s unanimous choice.

“We’ve always had good cooperation from bar presidents, but what Keller has done for us has been truly amazing,� Wylie says. “She’s personally responsible for bringing to us just an incredible number of lawyers, many of them volunteering for the first time.�

This is part of Keller’s goal as president: To get more lawyers to do pro bono work--helping someone without pay.

Her reaction to winning this award? Give it to someone else, she says: “I’m a good shill for the Public Law Center, but that’s all. There are so many more deserving lawyers, who are taking on multiple cases for it.�

What about your accomplishments in boosting the bar’s pro bono numbers this year?

“Did I tell you about the incredible work that Jane Shade and Elizabeth Livesay Fry are doing for battered women?� Keller interjects. “You should be talking to them instead of me.�

Ask her about new programs she’s started, and she’ll switch the subject to bar programs that got started under her predecessors.

“You should be talking to Michelle Reinglass and Mike Ellison. The stuff they’re doing has just been amazing.�

If you insist enough, Keller will reluctantly talk about herself:

“This job is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always been convinced that lawyers in the county are willing to help. It’s just a question of getting the message out that they’re needed.�

Around the Town: The Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda grabbed my attention with this flier: “The Clinton-Dole Debates (OK, at least a dress rehearsal.)�

Well, it’s not really a debate, but you do get to hear both sides. Robin Dole, daughter of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, appears at the Nixon library today at 10:30 a.m. to talk about “Lessons Learned From My Father.� She’ll sign copies of the Bob Dole-Elizabeth Dole book, “Unlimited Partners,� afterward.

Then on Thursday, July 18, former Democratic Orange County Assemblyman Tom Umberg will speak there. He’s California director of the Clinton-Gore campaign. . . .

I took my 4-year-old daughter to the Hunchback of Notre Dame Festival of Fools show at Disneyland the other day. I asked her to rate the show, either bad, good, very good or great. “Very good,� she immediately spit out. Everybody’s a critic; maybe she was too young to appreciate the costuming and set designs. My vote was a notch higher. . . .

One small sign of better times ahead: The Los Alamitos County Water District says in its annual report that it has recovered about 80% of the $214,058 it invested in former county Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron’s failed investment pool. It will soon receive another $19,000. That leaves only $23,546 to chalk up to experience.

Wrap-Up: Last week the call was put out in this column for Jack Price, the 173rd Airborne Brigade lieutenant who had been visited by Playboy Playmate of the Year Jo Collins at his hospital bed in Vietnam 30 years ago. Organizers of the 173rd Airborne reunion at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers this week were searching to see if he could be part of the festivities. Price lived in Orange County for years, running a diamond business.

I didn’t find him, but he found me--by e-mail. Price now lives in Moneta, Va., in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills. He’s still in the diamond business, but by Internet. He calls getting shot in Vietnam while out on platoon “a bad day at Black Rock.� He added:

“We’d all chipped in a dollar to put together $150 for a lifetime subscription to Playboy. The catch was that Hugh Hefner said a Playboy bunny would deliver the subscription to you. We wanted to know where our bunny was.�

So Hefner sent Collins, though it took the secretary of state to get her into a war zone.

Price says with a chuckle: “Hefner was worried about my condition. He didn’t want to send her over only to find out I’d died. We wrote back that Lt. Price has been undergoing a miraculous recovery since getting word she’d be coming to see him.�

Price can’t make the reunion, but says his heart’s still with the 173rd.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax (714) 966-7711, or e-mail Jerry.H[email protected]