Attorneys

Norman was born in Washington, D.C. on January 31, 1948. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1970 and then proceeded to earn his J.D. from the Loyola University of Chicago in 1973. He was admitted to the Bar in Illinois in 1973 and in California in 1976.

In 1973 and until 1975, Norman was a Law Clerk to Justice Thomas J. Moran of the Illinois Supreme Court. He has been an instructor of Oil and Gas Law at the California Western School of Law in 1981 and the University of San Diego School of Law in 1983. Norman served as President and Chairman of the Board of the San Diego Petroleum Club Inc. in 1985 to1986. In addition, he held the position of the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel for the Brumark Corporation from 1980 to 1987.

Norman is a member of the San Diego County, Illinois State and American Bar Associations, as well as the State Bar of California.

Norman says, "Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be an attorney. I like the idea of keeping people honest. Lacking funds, I started law school as a night student and taught school in the Chicago Public School System as a substitute teacher during the day. This was quite an experience dealing with the real world during the day and learning how to make the world a better place at night. On weekends I worked in the law library to be close to the books. This was before libraries became obsolete.

One summer during law school, I went to Cambridge, Mass. to take a break. I ended up selling the "Phoenix" for spending money and volunteering at the Harvard Volunteer Defenders for action. This turned into a paying job when Professor Hugo Bedau hired me to write a summary of the effect that the elimination of the death penalty had on the murder rates in foreign countries for the Supreme Court brief that the Legal Defense Fund was writing. Working for $3.00 an hour I immediately came to the realization that time was money. The best part was that my research was used in the Appendix in the brief submitted in the Supreme Court case of Furhman v. Georgia.

My big break came when Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas J. Moran hired me as his law clerk out of law school. At that time he was still on the Court of Appeals and after my two years with him he liked to tell others about how I helped him to be elevated to the Supreme Court. The truth is that he helped me. What I learned in two years with Justice Moran was the ability to look at the law as a vehicle for social change. He would like to say that the law moves like a pendulum and when the law moved too far one way, the weight of the extreme caused it to move in the opposite direction with a continued search for the middle ground. After two years, he offered me a position as a judge if I would work with him for three more years. I declined because I simply could not take the weather in Chicago. I always wanted to live in California, so off I went to San Diego without a license, job or any visible means of support. I left under the assumption that what my Dad always said was true - "Knowledge is power and no one can take away from you what you learn". After passing the California Bar, I started out on my own. I ended up with an oil company for a few years along with teaching oil and gas law under the mistaken notion that being an entrepreneur rather than practicing law, would satisfy my career needs. After discovering my mistaken notion, I went back into the private practice of law.

I immediately discovered that being an attorney on my own created a situation where every day had the potential for handling the next great case to champion justice in a world where business at the extremes takes unfair advantage of consumers. With my eyes and mind open, the good Lord surrounded me with exceptional partners, associates, staff, family and friends along with exceptional cases to work on. Needless to say, I enjoy practicing law and helping consumers as a group who do not individually have the power to help themselves."