Interviewing The Man Behind The Law

For my individual part of the group project I interviewed Jeff Horowitz an attorney in Baltimore, Maryland. Jeff Horowitz runs his own law firm with his partners Alan Belskey, and Robert Weinberg. He is a graduate of the University of Baltimore Law School Class of 1981. Jeff has two kids, Jesse Horowitz and Jarrett Horowitz. Jarrett graduated from the Gilman School in Baltimore along with me and he is now a student of the University of Maryland Class of 2014. Jeff has been working in the field of law for about 29 years. He now works as a worker’s compensation lawyer, primarily. His other fields of practice include Administration Law, Personal Injury Law, and Mechanics Lien Law.

I was in search of someone to interview when all of a sudden I remembered that Jarrett’s dad was a lawyer. I asked Jarrett if he could ask his dad if I could have an interview with him and his dad was ecstatic. I told him it was for my communications class and he was ready to be interviewed. I began with an introduction to our project and the issue we were focusing on so that he would be able to understand what I was trying to get out of his answers. After giving him the overview, we bang with the actual interviewing process. My first question was, “Do your emotions ever get in the way of your work?” He responded, “No, because I don’t let them. I make sure to get the best job possible. You can’t have a solid case if you let your emotions get in the way of what you are doing for the client. You are representing the client.” One of my following questions was, “What have you learned over your time that is completely different than what was taught in the classroom about communicating with your clients?” He responded with, “What you learn while you are in school is ‘ideal’. What you realize when you leave school is that the stuff they teach you is not relative to what you will actually see. You will have to build on that stuff. Sure you can use some of the skills, but you have to improve upon what they teach you.” All while answering these questions he was very excited. You could clearly see this as he waited for the next question. He spoke with a lot of confidence and authority. The confidence and authority showed to me that he knew what he was saying and he meant it.

Overall, interviewing Mr. Horowitz was quite the experience. I have done interviews before where I was the one being interviewed, but I have hardly ever been the one asking the questions. It seems harder to interview than it actually is. I noticed that it was harder to answer questions than it is to be the one asking the questions. Interviewing is a great way to get to know the individual you are interviewing and it is a good way of getting to find out information surrounding a certain topic.