“What I do is
tell my client’s
story,” Fong
says, “put
that story in
context and
give it a solid
foundation
in the law.
Doing it all
with elegant
simplicity is
my goal.”
partners and prospective clients “in a way,”
Fong says, “that would give me a head
start in building credibility. It took me 30
years to figure out what he was doing.”
Fong tries to continue that tradition of
mentorship, bringing young associates with
him to watch oral arguments or letting them
watch his daily work. His leadership duties at
the firm include coordinating assignments
for younger attorneys, providing an insightful
second opinion for his colleagues, and doing
business strategizing for the San Francisco
litigation section as well as the national
appellate practice. For more than a decade,
he’s headed the firm’s diversity committee
and has led the Asian Pacific Bar of California
and the Asian American Bar Association of
the Greater Bay Area.
Younger attorneys—who settle
themselves in front of a computer screen to
research and write—might marvel to watch
Fong at work in his laborious way. He enjoys
visiting Pillsbury’s hushed law library to
pull a legal treatise off the shelf. There, he’ll
review the basic legal principles relevant to
his case and key documents from the trial
court record. Then he ponders and explores
until he arrives at what he calls “the aha!
moment … a theory, a twist, a spin that
wasn’t apparent to everyone before.”
When he’s ready to draft an appellate
brief, Fong writes neatly in longhand
on every other line of a pad of white
legal paper. Pillsbury’s word-processing
department types and formats his work.
“You get things firmly fixed in your mind
before you start putting the words down,
because it’s not as easy to move things
around as with a computer,” he says. “If I
do a good job, there isn’t much editing. … A
draft is my best effort.”
When he appears in court, Fong typically
doesn’t refer to notes. He aims to use only
half of his allotted 15 minutes before the
9th Circuit and 30 minutes before the
California Supreme Court. He leaves the
balance for judges’ questions and the
dialogue between himself and the panel
that will illuminate his stance.
This fluid exchange of nuanced information
is his favorite part of the court experience: “It
reminds me of the Robert Redford movie, The
Natural,” he says. “There’s this scene where
the pitcher is pitching the ball to Robert
Redford and he can see the seams of the ball
as it’s coming to him.
“That’s sort of the way it is on a good
day in oral argument. You can just almost
suspend in time as the question is coming
toward you, and know what the question is
and you know what the answer is, and you
know what the next question is going to be,
and it’s all appearing in slow motion.”
Fong’s colleagues say he is an ideal
blend of keen intellect and genuine
affability. They are also quick to praise his
dedication to fellow appellate attorneys. In
May, Fong concluded his term as president
of the California Academy of Appellate
Lawyers, a group of 90-plus members that
meets three times a year.
