It was a job he got, at least in part, while running the Humboldt Redwoods Marathon after he struck up a conversation with a fellow runner (like Ginsburg, wearing a “Clinton for President” T-shirt), who turned out to be a Hastings alum running with Carroll Burdick’s managing partner.

Ginsburg spent seven years at the firm representing police and fire unions and government employees, eventually making partner. He was recruited away by the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, famous for being one of the most progressive city attorney offices in the nation.

He joined the labor and employment team, ultimately running the labor and negotiation program, where he worked closely with then Mayor Gavin Newsom. It was a “super exciting job,” says Ginsburg, who received the Public Managerial Excellence Award while there.

In 2004, the mayor asked Ginsburg to be the city’s human resources director. “I decided to do it because someone once told me, ‘The only thing better in life than being a lawyer is being a client.’” In that job, Ginsburg managed 27,000 city employees and a payroll of more than $2 billion. “It was a big learning curve,” he recalls. “I had to learn on the fly. There’s a big difference between advising the client and being responsible for the decisions you make.”

When Newsom’s chief of staff left, Ginsburg was brought in to help select a replacement. “In what can only be described as a Dick Cheney moment, the mayor said to me, ‘I’d like you to do it,’” Ginsburg says. “It turned out to be a crazy 20 months,” which included dealing with the mayor’s previous romantic indiscretion and a tiger getting loose at the zoo.

Ginsburg then took a year off, serving as president of his kids’ PTA and coaching their soccer teams. When it came time to return to the workforce, he considered both legal and government jobs. “I loved working for the city where I was raising my kids. I liked helping to shape policy, and I’d found that I was good at management, leadership, and shaping an organizational culture and vision. You don’t get that as a lawyer unless you’re running a firm.”

Ginsburg now serves as general manager of San Francisco Recreation and Parks. “Our mission is to help families thrive. We provide clean parks and affordable recreation. I now deal with gopher holes and ball fields, and I’ve fallen in love with it,” says Ginsburg, who oversees a workforce of 1,000 and works with 15 labor unions.

“I draw on my legal education and the time I spent practicing almost every minute of the day,” he notes. “As a lawyer, I learned critical thinking, how to ask questions, how to write and communicate well. I’m still advocating all the time.”