Toledo Legal News - Supreme Court Justice first heard call of the law when working on family's farm
Supreme Court Justice first heard call of the law when working on family's farm
JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Daily Reporter Staff Writer
Even when he was just a 15-year-old boy working on his father's dairy farm, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer envisioned himself running for public office in the legal field someday.
Working along side his father on the farm near Bucyrus, Pfeifer listened to him talk about politics and became interested in pursuing the field as a future career.
"My dad farmed, but he read Time magazine every week and talked about politics every day as we were working together on the farm, and I became interested in running for public office, Pfeifer said. "I thought I would want to do that some day — when I was pretty young."
The justice, who now uses his Law Day talks to encourage lawyers and law students to remember the passion that brought them to the law, said his vision for the future continued to grow more specific. He said around the time he was 15 years old, he felt drawn to the law.
"I decided fairly young that I thought I would be good at and would love to try lawsuits. So I knew at a young age what I wanted to do," he said.
Aside from talks with his father and the influence of Time magazine, Pfeifer attributes his passion for law to popular literature he read as a kid. He also gives credit to his first-hand observations of a local trial, and to Perry Mason — the crime-solving lawyer featured in a book series, a TV program and multiple movies.
"For me it was probably a little bit of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' a little bit of Perry Mason, and I went up to the courthouse and watched a murder trial after I had started college and pretty well knew I wanted to go to law school," Pfeifer said.
During his high school years, Pfeifer had his first taste of what it might be like to be a part of the deliberation process.
"I did 4-H Club Congress when I was in high school and got to participate in a mock legislative session and sit in the big chair. ... I pretty much knew the minute I did that, that I'd like to find myself sitting there someday," he said
Pfeifer was elected and first earned the opportunity to sit in his chair as a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio in January 1993, and he has continued to embrace that role for the last 19 years. He currently is serving his fourth term, which will expire in January 2017.
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