Upon reading this CNN story, the name Julie Hilden came up, which rang a bell. She's Stephen Glass's partner. She wrote this great piece on the Peterson case which I'm sure I've linked on this blog before.
Anyway, the story's very interesting.
Would I trust a person who lied before?
If he hand-wrote 100 letters to people he'd wronged, and sent them out one by one, yeah, maybe.
It's an interesting piece.
Glass withdrew his application to the New York State Bar in 2003, when it became obvious he would be turned down. He applied to the California Bar in 2005, after he moved to Los Angeles. The bar committee declined to find him morally fit to be a lawyer; Glass appealed and the State Bar Court sided with him last year. The California Supreme Court will have the final word, having added "In Re Glass on Admission" to its docket for 2012.
.......
After Glass and Hilden moved to Los Angeles in 2004, he applied for jobs at law firms. One of his resumes crossed the desk of Paul Zuckerman, managing partner of a plaintiff's litigation firm. He was impressed with the resume, but then he read the cover letter.
"I was familiar with the story. I knew who he was. And I kind of laughed to myself and promptly deleted his resume," Zuckerman told the bar court.
But then he thought about his own struggle with alcohol, and how he'd come back from the brink.
"I sat there, which is unusual for me, to sit there and be reflective during the day. ... I have been a liar in my life. I myself have had some problems and have had difficulties that I've overcome, and I've been given a very big second chance, and I thought that I was being incredibly judgmental ..."
He invited Glass in for an interview.
"I called him mainly because I felt ... it was wrong for me to be judgmental and to throw somebody away without ever having given them a chance or ever having talked to them," Zuckerman said. Upon meeting Glass, he became convinced that he had gone through a genuine transformation. He could see the remorse in his eyes.
He hired Glass on the spot, but at first watched him closely.
"When I first hired him, there was no way I was giving him my Social Security number and my mother's maiden name," Zuckerman told the California Bar. "He can have that today."
He advised Glass that his downfall ultimately would make him a better lawyer:
"I've always found brilliance untempered by failure is purely arrogance but brilliance that has overcome failure can be truly useful to your fellow man," he said. He's glad he opened his mind to Glass' potential.
Those who saw the promise in a 25-year-old fabulist may still feel the sting of disappointment and betrayal. But for Zuckerman and others who believe in redemption, the latest story by Stephen Glass is nothing short of fabulous. It's about a man transformed.
"I love having him at the office, because he is like my touchstone, my benchmark for honest and proper conduct. It's like 'What would Steve do?' "
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