The Curmudgeon is, of course, a figment of Mark Herrmann’s imagination. Mark Herrmann himself is not quite as old and not quite as nasty as you might think after having read this book. He graduated from Princeton University in 1979 and The University of Michigan Law School (Order of the Coif, Michigan Law Review) in 1983. After graduation, he clerked for The Honorable Dorothy W. Nelson in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mark practiced at the relatively small firm of Steinhart & Falconer in San Francisco from 1984 to 1989, when he moved to Cleveland and joined the international law firm Jones Day, where he is now a partner. Mark muddles along, taking and defending depositions, arguing motions, and trying cases—generally class actions and mass torts—and arguing appeals of all types. His other book, Statewide Coordinated Proceedings: State Court Analogues to the Federal MDL Process (Thomson-West 2d rev. ed. 2004) (co-authored with Geoff Ritts and Katherine Larson), is less entertaining than this one. In his spare time, Mark teaches “Complex Litigation” as an adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. For years, Mark has honed his sense of humor, to the extent he has one, on his wife, Brenda Gordon, and kids, Jessica and Jeremy.
The Curmudgeonly Secretary is a product of the joint imagination of Mark Herrmann and Laura Bozzelli. Laura works as Mark’s secretary at Jones Day. She conceived the idea, and wrote the first draft, of Chapter 4.
As noted on the copyright acknowledgment page, Mark’s partner, John Edwards, gets half the credit for Chapter 5, “The Curmudgeon’s Law Dictionary.” Now that’s a guy with a sense of humor.