Jaime Q. Cohen has practiced civil litigation in the Inland Empire for fourteen years. He did not go to law school because he wanted to be a lawyer. He went because he believed, and still believes, that the law is one of the few tools available to an ordinary person that can move something much larger than themselves.

His early career looked like most: corporate defense work, insurance disputes, the slow machinery of billable hours. He was good at it. He was also, by his own account, not particularly interested in it.

"I got caught up in the machinery for a while," he has said. "That happens. The question is whether you notice."

He noticed. He restructured his practice around a single question: who needs this more than they need anything else right now? The cases that followed were not always winnable. Several of them weren't. But the ones that were — those he pursued with the kind of focus that opposing counsel tended to find, variously, impressive or deeply inconvenient.

His most recent case — the details of which remain under a confidentiality agreement he has described only as "the thing I came here to do" — concluded in Summer 2007 with a settlement he has declined to discuss publicly. He announced his retirement from practice shortly thereafter.

Mr. Cohen's blog, updated irregularly, contains his actual opinions on various matters. It is not recommended reading for anyone who prefers their attorneys measured and dull.