Monday Profile: Paul McAdoo

 By Jo Mathis

Legal News
 
After relocating from Florida with his wife and two young children in 2013 for his wife’s job at Eastern Michigan University, McAdoo opened his own firm, McAdoo Law PLLC in Ypsilanti. The firm primarily handles media law, copyright, trademark, and other commercial and civil litigation cases. His current clients include the Detroit Free Press and the Lansing State Journal. 
McAdoo co-chairs the ABA Forum on Communications Law’s Training and Development committee, which runs the annual Media Advocacy Workshop that gives young lawyers and law students the opportunity to make two oral arguments and do a pre-publication review exercise with senior members of the media law bar as faculty. 
McAdoo graduated cum laude from law school at the University of Florida, where he was a member of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Court team.
 
Residence: Ypsilanti.
 
What is your most treasured material possession? My books. I love to read. 
 
What advice do you have for someone considering law school? Do your homework about whether practicing law is really for you by talking to several practicing lawyers, study for the LSAT, go to the best school you can, and try to finish law school with as little debt as possible. 
 
Favorite local hangouts: Corner Brewery and Zingerman’s Roadhouse, when I get the chance.
 
Favorite websites: grantland.com – a great long form journalism site that mostly covers sports and pop culture.
 
Favorite app? Buycott. It is an app that lets you scan product UPC codes to see who owns the company and shows you various campaigns, both positive and negative, related to the company.
 
Favorite CD: REM’s Life’s Rich Pageant and Synchronicity by The Police.
 
What is your happiest childhood memory? Spending Christmas with my family.
 
What would surprise people about your job? How much time I spend researching, reading, and writing.
 
What has been your favorite year so far? 2008. The year I got married.
 
Why did you become a lawyer? I was looking for a profession that offered an intellectual challenge where I could help people. 
 
If you could trade places with someone for a day, who would that be? A Supreme Court justice on either an oral argument day or a conference day so I could see the inner workings of the Court.
 
What’s the most awe-inspiring place you’ve ever been? The Parthenon in Athens, Greece. 
 
What did you do last weekend? Hung out with my wife and kids, worked on a FOIA brief for a case in the Sixth Circuit, and went to the Ryan Adams concert at the Fillmore in Detroit.
 
What is your proudest moment as a lawyer? Arguing my first appeal before the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Montgomery, Alabama in a First Amendment case for the ACLU and NAACP. 
 
What do you do to relax? Cook.
 
How would you describe your home? A little chaotic. Lots of toys/trip-hazards.
 
What word do you overuse? Clearly.
 
What is one thing you would like to learn to do? Speak Greek so I could talk to my wife’s family in Cyprus in their native language. 
 
What is something most people don't know about you? I love to read fantasy and science fiction books and play strategy and role playing games, although I rarely do.
 
If you could have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would they be? My grandparents. I’d love to tell them about their great-grandchildren. 
 
What do you drive? A 2010 Honda CR-V.
 
What would you drive if money were no object? A Ferrari like Magnum PI had.
 
Favorite place to spend money: Bookstores and wine stores.
 
What is your motto? I don’t know if it is a motto, but “If you’re on time, you’re late.”
 
What would you like carved onto your tombstone? Beloved Son, Husband and Father.

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