Date posted: 11-18-03

Editors: You are encouraged to use this story in your publication. Please credit the author and DeKalb News Service as shown. And, please send two tearsheets to: Jim Killam, Department of Communication, Watson Hall, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115.

1,800 words

The right move at the right time

By Kate McDonough
DeKalb News Service

NAPERVILLE -- Settling back into an easy chair with a steaming mug of coffee, one hand held out absentmindedly to calm the family dog, Ron Haskell doesn't look like a lawyer.

And on weekends, he isn't - mostly.

He's a family man, spending time with his wife, two grown children and three grandchildren. In a Northern Illinois University College of Law pullover and broken-in leather moccasins, Haskell looks relaxed, vaguely tired but content.

However, his contentment is easily interrupted. Even on weekends, his lawyer's mindset sometimes prevails.

Haskell's eyes heat with intensity as he gets on his soapbox. His voice becomes clear and strong, railing against the "illogical" immigration policies of the United States. Suddenly, he is addressing a courtroom, trying to sway a jury, not sitting in his living room on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Those kinds of rapid, 180-degree changes are nothing new to 61-year-old Haskell. In fact, he says, they define him.

Haskell is a public defender in the Kane County legal system, working 50 to 55 cases at any given time to ensure every individual receives adequate legal counsel and, if a trial is necessary, that it's a fair one.

Public defender, however, is a role Haskell is still getting used to. Just eight years ago, he was a businessman with about 15 years' experience managing major regional shopping malls from Maine to California. Eight years ago, he was discovering that his shift to managing independent shopping centers like Chicago's North Pier and Indianapolis' Union Station wasn't making him happy. Eight years ago, he was a very different man.

Flash back to fall 1995.

Haskell, slumped into a rigid, wooden chair, sighs heavily. Autumn sunlight filters through the kitchen window and skitters across his lined face, spotlighting the deep furrow of his brow and the creases near his eyes. Today, he is feeling every day of his 53 years. Haskell is tired, not the kind of tired a good night's sleep can cure but the kind of tired that seeps into every corner of his body and his mind.

His wife, Phyllis, slides down into the chair opposite him and pushes a cup of coffee across the table. "Drink," she commands gently. Her eyes sweep his face, taking in the set jaw, the distant eyes, the tightened lips. She can tell he's finally coming to a decision, something that's been evolving in his mind - and hers - for months.

"I know you're not happy," she ventures tentatively, gauging his reaction.

He takes a sip of coffee and puts the mug down slowly, deliberately. Just as deliberately, he tilts his head back, his neck creaking in protest, and then brings his head down again to look her squarely in the eye.

"I'm not happy," he agrees, stretching his arms more than shoulder-width apart as if to show exactly how unhappy he is.

Phyllis takes a breath before blurting out the suggestion she's wanted for weeks to make. "Why don't you go back to school?"

He doesn't immediately veto it, so she continues, excitement building in her voice. "Why don't you go back to school and get an MBA?"

He shakes his head, not even considering it.

"I've been in the shopping center business for more than 15 years," he says, "and that business has changed. When we started, it was new, and it was fresh and it was exciting. But now it's become a business dominated by money management. That entrepreneurial spirit is gone."

Now he takes a breath, hesitating.

"If I'm going to go back, I'm going to law school," he finally says in a rush.

Her eyes meet his, and she laughs, feeling a little dazed. "Well, take the test!" she says matter-of-factly. "Oh, don't look so worried. You'll be fine."

And as quickly as it was brought up, it is decided: Haskell, at age 53, is going back to law school. He doesn't know where and he doesn't know when, but he does know that, as always, Phyllis is behind him 100 percent. To him, that's what matters most.

Looking back, Haskell says the decision, made with "some amount of planning" yet pushed incisively forward by his wife's unflagging confidence, was a turning point.

"That decision was pretty typical of our entire life together," Haskell says.

Phyllis, a self-described "big believer in education," says she was thrilled by the decision and thought it would be great for Haskell to do something new.

"He had come to a point in his career where business wasn't working for him anymore," she says. "He wasn't happy and I knew that. This - law school - was something that was going to make him happy."

In fact, law school was something Haskell had toyed with since he had started as a pre-law undergraduate at Memphis State University in Tennessee in the early 1960s.

Haskell took the LSATs in October 1996, four months after his 54th birthday. He started law school a year later, choosing NIU, he said, because it offered a great law education while conveniently allowing him to be with his family at the same time. He commuted from his home in Naperville to DeKalb.

Haskell was nervous about going back to school, and that his age played a role in the nervousness, though not in the typical manner. He worried more about getting back in the groove of school.

"As you get older, you get lazier," Haskell says. "I had to develop study habits all over again."
Dan Reynolds, a professor at NIU's College of Law who taught Haskell, did not see signs of nervousness, however.

"What stands out in my mind about Ron Haskell is how well he fit in," Reynolds says. "He took to law school like a proverbial duck to water."

Reynolds recognized Haskell's natural leadership abilities. He also noticed Haskell was respected immediately by his peers and says Haskell more than returned the compliment.
In fact, adjusting to the heavy workload of law school actually may have been easier for a "non-traditional" student like Haskell.

"They've been away from school for a while and come in with no expectations," Reynolds says. "Maybe in some ways they come in prepared to work harder."

Overall, Haskell calls law school a "re-enlightening and re-energizing experience." His age didn't concern him much (he was the oldest in his class by just three weeks) and he says his younger peers only contributed to the "refreshing" environment.

His last semester of law school, Haskell did an "externship" at the Public Defender's Office in Kane County, which led to a full-time job offer after he was licensed in November 2000.

"I can't imagine why anyone would want to do anything but criminal public defense work," Haskell says. "As a public defender, I'm protecting the people at large, not just the defendant in front of me."

Public defenders are lawyers appointed by judges to what is known as "indigent defense," representing clients who for various reasons cannot afford to pay a lawyer. Haskell currently tries mostly Class 3 and 4 felonies, with crimes including obstruction of justice, credit card fraud, identification theft, aggravated battery and robbery. (Felony classification ranges from Class 1 and 2, including things like burglary, up to Class X, which includes homicide.)

The shift from the business world to the legal profession has become more than just a career change for Haskell. His family will tell you he's become a nicer person, he says.

"The last years in the shopping center business made me harder, more cynical," he says. "I'd say - or at least I hope - that process is reversing itself."

Phyllis agrees. As a businessman, she says, Haskell always focused on his own career. But that changed when he became a law student and later, a lawyer.

"Now he was more interested in what I was doing, too, and we spent more time together. We had something new to talk about," she says. "It really brought us closer together."

Phyllis is proud of her husband, and supportive of his new career. She has visited the courtroom once or twice to watch him try his cases.

"I don't want to sound overly sentimental," she says, a little embarrassed, "but he really is helping people who need some help."

Haskell has found that public defense work has made him more liberal instead of less liberal. As he discusses some of the problems he sees with the current legal system, his voice becomes stronger, impassioned.

"Too many laws are making too many normal problems into criminal activities," Haskell says emphatically. "The things that are criminalized are sometimes insane - the state has developed felonies out of things that just don't make sense."

He cites immigration policies, some drug charges and the arrest procedures in domestic disputes as examples, saying they actually undermine the legal system by creating more work. Because acts that previously could have been handled in a less severe manner now are considered criminal, Haskell says the Kane County Jail is so overcrowded that prisoners have to be transferred to other prisons across the state.

Despite his occasional objection to legal policies, Haskell loves what he is doing. "I'm living proof that America is still the land of opportunity," he says.

"Sometimes I envy him," Phyllis admits, "because he got a new start on life. Not many people can say that."

Haskell has encountered different reactions to his abrupt career change over the years. Some people are impressed; some, like his wife, are a bit envious; and some just look at him like he's absolutely insane, he says.

"I used to shock people because when they asked me how 'the business' was going, I'd tell them I quit," Haskell says. "They look at me in horror and say, 'You quit?' and I'd have to tell them that yes, I quit to go back to law school."

One day, Haskell recalls, he encountered the same situation with an old friend. The friend, after considering what Haskell had said, told him, "You didn't quit. You retired."

"From then on, I started telling people I retired," Haskell says. "People didn't act so shocked anymore. I guess you don't quit your job in your mid-50s, you retire."

Now, Haskell says, he's nearing an age where he really will be considering retirement and he's not sure how he feels about it.

He claims not to have any hobbies, saying work has become his only hobby, but the framed pictures of his grandchildren tell another story. With three grandchildren and a fourth on the way, Haskell says, he does expect to be attending a lot of soccer games in the future.

Whether life after reaching retirement age includes full-time employment practicing law remains uncertain, but Haskell doesn't think he'll be leaving the legal profession quite yet.

"I wouldn't want to scare anyone that I'm planning on hanging up my spurs next year," he says.

Regardless of what the future holds, Haskell plans to keep his hands busy and his mind active.

"Part-time doesn't cut it for me," he says. "I think that the worst possible thing would be to do nothing at all."

# # #