An Examined—and Fun—Life

©2021. Published in Landslide® Extra, by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the copyright holder.

Susan Upton Douglass is an internationally recognized leader in U.S. trademark and copyright law with a focus on developing brand protection strategies in a creative, pragmatic approach. She retired after a 37-year career with Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C. in December 2019.  Susan lives in Scarsdale, NY and spends weekends in the Northern Catskills with her husband and beloved therapy-certified Australian Shepherds.

Rebeccah Gan is a Partner at Wenderoth LLP in Washington, DC where she focuses on intellectual property prosecution and inter partes actions before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

R:
I am insanely jealous when I see your Zoom background!

S:
It’s our house in the Northern Catskills. One of the great things about retirement is that my husband and I can have a “weekend” whenever we want.  We have been coming here since 1979.

R:
You started as a “co-ed” at the University of Chicago in 1973, right?

S:
A “pert co-ed,” as they called us at the time. I was that square peg in a round hole. I ended up on the Dean’s List in the end, but with those whiz kids all around, I had to claw my way up … And I had to work at various part-time jobs while getting my degree in political science: tour-guide, cocktail waitress, and a stint at the reserve desk at Regenstein library, where I met my husband.

R:
Where did you go after the University of Chicago?

S:
After a year in Boston, I went to New York—where my now husband had a job—and entered New York University School of Law. We married in the spring of my last year of NYU.  I remember sitting in commercial law with my hand up, and the professor said, Mrs. Douglass? Mrs. Douglass?! I hadn’t thought of myself that way, so I had no idea whom he was talking to!

R:
Why did you go to law school? What was the burning desire?

S:
I loved to write—also teach—and was debating both. My mother, who was right about most things said, “You should go to law school. You can write and teach, and make a lot more money, and then…” (because she was a product of her time) “if you get married, it’s because you really love him, and not because you have no choices.”

R:
That was a very feminist thing to say in the early 70’s – your mom was ahead of your time. Did you enjoy law school?

S:
After the University of Chicago, it was a lot of fun, and it was a lot easier!

R:
Did you know you wanted to focus on intellectual property in law school?

S:
No, I took Alan Latman’s copyright class because it seemed interesting and challenging. At my first job at Patterson Belknap in NY, they put me in the standard rotation. I hated it all—corporate law, tax law, wills, trusts—and really wondered why I went to school and why I had all these loans. I ended up in litigation doing what I called “dead baby” cases--tragic situations where we were defending the pharmaceutical companies, taking depositions, and going into court. Nobody wanted to do these cases, so I got a lot of experience a first-year associate would not otherwise be given.

However, I wasn’t enjoying it, so I reached out to a headhunter who said that I should try [Fross Zelnick], The headhunter told me that if I went in house as a [young] lawyer, I would be thought of as a paralegal. So, I agreed to talk to people at Fross, and decided I was not going to pull any punches. I said this is who I am:  I love to travel, and I will use every day of vacation. And their response was “great, where will you be going next?”  When I answered that my husband and I were going to Thailand, they told me they had many friends there (and when we went to Thailand just before starting at Fross, they sent a telex to some of their clients, who met us at the airport and took us to dinner). Also, during the interview process, I told them that if everything would go well, I was planning to have a baby in two years, and another one two years after that, and they just kept inviting me for more interviews. I told them that I had season tickets at the New York City Ballet and was determined to go. I would always help, but I would not give up the ballet for a “fake trademark emergency.”  Ron Lehrman, one of Fross’s founders, said “my wife’s a ballet dancer.” Another partner, Michael Davis, said that he had season tickets as well, and, as it turned out, for the same series as mine. No matter what I threw at them in terms of quality of life, they were very supportive.

R:
Were there a lot of women working there at the time?

S:
No, there was only one other woman, Margaret Goldstein, who became a partner right after I joined.

R:
What was that like?

S:
I was the eleventh lawyer to join the firm. I came from a background that wasn’t in their field. This was back in the day when you could say “I am smart, give me a chance.” Now they are looking for “relevant experience.” They thought I was enterprising. And that was how it began. I saw that these were my people. And [Fross founders] Peter Weiss, Al Fross and Ron Lehrman were such amazing mentors to me, along with Allan Zelnick, who started the U.S. part of the practice. I was also greatly helped by Richard Lehv and David Ehrlich.

R:
Wasn’t it rare then to raise issues of work/life balance?

S:
Yes, it was, but I thought I had nothing to lose, so I just laid my cards on the table, and it all worked out. I didn’t want to work in a place where I wouldn’t be happy. You spend most of your waking life at work. I stayed at my firm for over 37 years.  I started out doing litigation because that was my experience.

R:
What was it like being a working mother and a litigator in the 1980s?

S:
Well, there was one straw that broke the camel’s back. I was pregnant with my second son, and it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. At 7:00 p.m. the papers were dropped: one of my client radio stations in Tampa, Florida was sued by CBS for saying “Light Rock, Less Talk.” They filed a TRO returnable in Tampa for Friday morning at 9:00 a.m.  I flew down the morning of Thanksgiving and met with my client to work on strategy.

On Friday morning, I showed up at the hearing. The judge was as annoyed as we were that her Thanksgiving was ruined. The CBS lawyer got up and told his story. I stood up and said that all the law is in our favor, all the facts are in our favor, and the case should be dismissed. The slogan is generic. And the judge stood up and said, “I am going to grant the TRO,” walked out and slammed the door behind her. The lawyer from CBS came over to me and said, “We will give you a perpetual royalty-free license for $1.”  I reached into my purse, handed him a dollar, got back on a plane to New York—many thousands of dollars and hours wasted. After that, I just thought that this was stupid. I hated litigation. And that was it. I kept getting pulled back in on cases, but from that point I concentrated more on prosecution, along with searching and counseling, which was a new area when I joined. I dug in and loved it. You could argue things without high stakes, no jumping on a plane with no notice, and raise kids at the same time. There were long hours. It wasn’t a country club, but it had a beginning and an end and was predictable.

R:
Why give it up? Why retire?

S:
I have always had many other interests. But by 2000 I started working from home two days a week. I wanted to do pet therapy work, and my older sister was diagnosed with cancer, and I was flying back and forth to Chicago. A lovely music therapist came into her room and played a harp during her last days. It made such a difference to her, but also to us as her family. My sister died from melanoma three days after September 11.

I had read about pet therapy, and I thought that if I wanted to do this, I should get going.  Everything came together, and we started at Westchester Medical Center. I was recovering from a running injury at the time and doctors suggested yoga. I didn’t think of myself as the type, but I went to my partners (I had been a partner since 1988), and said I want to do pet therapy and yoga; I want to work from home two days a week. And again, it was okay with them.

I started taking yoga lessons, then teaching it, and eventually became a 500-hour certified yoga teacher. I choreographed yoga dances, commissioned music, and made a two-volume yoga DVD. I was doing all that yoga, pet therapy, and managing the children, and then started writing a novel. I became active in nonprofit groups in Scarsdale and also with my synagogue. But at some point, I just said it was time to invest in my other projects. My grandson was born in April 2019 (another grandson was born in December 2020). I did not want to be the person who doesn’t make time for their grandchildren.  I was at the top of my career. I had done it.

R:
What has retirement been like during COVID?

S:
We had all these plans: the Galapagos, season ski passes, France. Trademark attorneys have friends in every country! Then everything was canceled, including the visits with my grandsons. So, I went back to my novel and finished it, read 15 books, and worked on a Scarsdale downtown revitalization project. And I still teach yoga every morning, seven days a week. I even have some trademark attorney friends from overseas who do yoga with me.

R:
You officially retired in 2019.

S:
At the end of that year, yes.

R:
Where do you see the practice in the next ten years?

S:
There will always be trademark work because there will always be products and services that need names. Everything will need clearances, so clients are not sued. More people will register by themselves as they become more adept online. Trademark lawyers will need to have a more strategic focus. Nobody is going to be doing litigation themselves. IP workspaces will become more flexible. Fross learned that and saw me do it.

R:
Do you have any advice for the trademark bar as you reflect on your long career and your rich personal life?

S:
An emphasis on service and a real connection with clients is so important. So much is about relationships. Big companies look for cut rates and the biggest discounts of course, but my clients knew that when they called, I would ask (off the meter) about their dogs, their kids, their macramé projects, and then how I could help. They felt that they could connect with me on a human basis without costing them a fortune. So, what developed was our mutual bond of affection. To this day they still call and send holidays cards. It’s all about connections—and, of course, staying abreast of case law and practice developments. There are so many smart trademark lawyers out there, it’s the most wonderful community of lawyers … a special field.

R:
Maybe we’re all dreamers, secret writers, and artists.

S:
It’s a very creative area for problem solving. If you get the client talking, you end up knowing how to help them. It’s also very fun.

R:
So…. with the pet therapy now on hold…..

S:
The dogs have been “fur-loughed!”

R:
What are you up to when you are not in the glorious Catskills?

S:
I have been volunteering with the Pace Women’s Justice Center, working on Temporary Orders of Protection for victims of domestic violence and elder abuse.  I wrote a brief on a case they said was impossible, and we won. Old dogs, new tricks. I have been so fortunate. I want to give back as much as possible.

R:
You are making Generation X and millennials feel lazy. How do you stay so present in your life?

S:
It’s actually a skill. You need to quiet your mind, and that’s hard. The first time I did savasana (corpse pose) in yoga, I thought it was a waste of time. It took nearly three months to figure out how to lie still while awake.

R:
Is it hard to shut off the Energizer Bunny within?

S:
I have a stuffed Energizer Bunny that I got as a gift! In life, you have to engage your brain, you have to reach out to the world. There’s so much to give and learn—and learn from other people, and that’s what I love.

R:
Something tells me you will never stop doing it.

S:
I learn from my friends, my yoga students and other people I meet. You don’t know where your next inspiration will come from. You need to be receptive to people who come your way. They come to you for a reason. I even got involved in leading services at my synagogue—virtually leading services during COVID. I dug in and I studied and gave the d’var Torah (sermon). It’s another outlet. It wasn’t a natural fit for me, but I wanted to try it. Retirement doesn’t mean you stop living. If you can afford to do it, it means freeing up, giving yourself permission to try new things. I miss travelling, and especially miss hugging my kids and grandkids. I do get to hug my husband and dogs, though.

R:
You’ve given us all some amazing lessons, Susan. As they say, “You have had a life.”

S: 
And God willing, I will continue to do so.