Adventures in (and Out) of the Courtroom
As a litigator and former AUSA in DC, Michael Hays has been before judges and juries. But there's no need for nerves when you've already faced down a lion in the Okavango Delta or poisonous snakes in the Amazon. (Those two trips are thanks to his tradition of taking his daughters anywhere in the world of their choosing when they turned 13.) Michael, who joined Cooley when it merged with Dow Lohnes this year, has been traveling around the globe since he served in the Navy after attending Princeton.
Michael showed us his certificates from climbing Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Kinabalu in Malaysia. Between the Navy and law school, he took several months to travel through Thailand, Singapore, Burma, India, Nepal (where he did the Jomsom trek), Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, and some of Europe. The adventuring didn't end when it came time to select a honeymoon location. He chose Papua New Guinea. (Though after four days in a dugout canoe, he tells us his wife was glad to move onto the next locale: Australia.)
The legal work is no less interesting. He's worked to keep track of Romanian jewels and recover Hungarian art taken by the Nazis. Privacy-related issues are now coming to the fore. Conveniently, Michael has a globe right in his office to pick out the next destination. He's considering a bike trip through Laos. That's after he and his family biked last summer through India and Bhutan.
