her father telling her what every good
parent of a future lawyer says at one point
or another: “You argue so much, why not
become a lawyer?”
So Popik attended the University
of California Hastings College of the
Law and found the first year almost
unbearable. “Actually, my father had to
bribe me so I would stay,” she recalls.
At the time, she was enamored of
grandfather clocks, so Popik’s father
promised her one if she stuck it out.
By the second year, the law student
no longer needed a bribe. She served as
editor-in-chief of the Hastings Law Journal.
“During my third year,” she confesses, “I
spent all of my time in the journal office
rather than going to my classes.”
Graduating in 1975, Popik joined Pettit &
Martin, later leaving in 1981, along with 11
others, to form Rogers, Joseph, O’Donnell
& Quinn (now Rogers Joseph O’Donnell).
In 1993, Popik and two other attorneys
who had been at both firms, Bill Chapman
and Mark White, decided to go out on their
own. “I think we made the decision over too
much wine at lunch,” Popik says.
Starting her own firm was not in Popik’s
original plan. She intended to practice
for a few years before transitioning
into teaching. But insurance coverage
work was compelling and satisfied
her intellectual bent. “At the time,
California was really the state where
the concepts in insurance bad faith law
were being developed and shaped,” she
says. Furthermore, insurance coverage
interpretation gave Popik ample
opportunity to wrestle with and write
about legal issues. “It was almost like
doing appeals at the trial level—instead
of a dispute of the facts, it was all about
digging into policy language.”
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 30
“I’m convinced,” says Popik, “that those
of us who do coverage work have a
little quirk in our brain that makes it
fun to wrestle endlessly with arcane
policy language.”
Popik’s work for State Farm in the
California rainstorms solidified her
interest in the practice area. She spent
years dissecting the earth-movement
exclusion in State Farm’s homeowner
policy and analyzing the causes of the
storm’s aftermath.
