Well, there’s two answers for that. The first answer is, it’s in my blood. My Irish immigrant grandfather, who I never met ’cause he died the year before I was born, was the clerk of court in New York City, and that’s my maternal grandfather. My paternal grandfather, who I met and I knew very well, wasn’t a lawyer, but he was a Minneapolis fire captain, he was the first elected Labor Party alderman – which is what they called city council members back then – from the City of Minneapolis before we had a DFL party, before we had a Democratic Farmer Labor Party. So my grandfather was a labor leader and a fireman, and law was in his blood.

My father, who was a businessman – some people know that my father owned the Minneapolis Lakers and moved them to Los Angeles, he owned the Washington Senators later when I was a teenager and moved them to Texas, he had a number of businesses, and he was involved in politics, and all that was formative to the way I, myself, and my brothers and sisters, grew up. But my father was, first and foremost, a lawyer. He graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1947 after the war, he was a federal prosecutor for one year in D.C. and for one year in Minneapolis, and then he went into business and he never practiced law again, but we all knew from the time we were children that he prized his profession.

And so because the law is in my blood and the blood of my siblings, five of the seven of us are lawyers. I have a daughter who’s joined me in practice, a niece who has just – her class outta law school a couple years and is practicing law, and I have two nephews in law school. We Shorts tend to be lawyers, and really, we Irish immigrants and Irish descendants – I’m a descendent of Irish immigrants – we tend to be cops and lawyers. I have too many police officers to count in my family, and the one uncle that I was closest to was a career Minneapolis police officer.

So that’s the first part of the answer. Now, the second part of the answer, which is really more direct because, of course, we don’t make career decisions because of our genetics or because of the way that they’re raised; it’s important, but most of my friends, most of the people I know, became – when you ask ’em, “Why’d you become a lawyer?” “I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a lawyer since – I knew every TV show I ever watched, Perry Mason and Matlock, that’s what I wanted to do.”

I never felt that way. I grew up this law family and I never dreamed I would want to be a lawyer, but I sort of, when I was in college, wanted to be a guitar player, but I guess I was smart enough to know that wasn’t a very good way to raise a family and make a living, and I was smart enough to know that I wasn’t anywhere near as talented as my friends, who were really good guitar players. And so I went to law school just because I didn’t know what else to do, and I had a few summer jobs that didn’t seem like a lotta fun to me. I said, “Oh, I’ll try this law school stuff,” and I went there, and I found, “This is pretty interesting. I like this,” and many of my friends were people who had always wanted to be a lawyer, and I started to get a feel for this. And the first job I had as a law clerk in federal court, I watched people try cases, some of the greatest criminal lawyers that I’ve ever seen as a prosecutor and as a defense lawyer, and I thought, “God, that really looks like fun. That looks like it would be fun.”

But it wasn’t until after that clerkship, I became a state court prosecutor, and I actually stated standing up in court and trying cases to a jury, that I realized, “I love this,” and of course, part of the reason why I knew by the second or third case that I loved it is I also knew that I had a talent, and if I didn’t figure that out on my own, I had some judges say, “You know, you have a talent. You should really work at this.” And I did, and it’s been – I have felt blessed for the entire 36 years since I graduated from law school that I’ve never once had a job I didn’t love, and you have days that are worse than others. You have days that are great and days that are terrible, but I have never once had a job that I didn’t love, and the job that I’ve had for 27 years now – and I’m sorry, I worked for another lawyer for 4 years, and I was in partnership with him for much of that 4 years, but I’ve been completely on my own as the, what I jokingly refer to as, “The World-Famous Kevin J. Short Law Firm” since 1991, and I am blessed to do that.

I love doing it every day. When I go to court, I enjoy it. I’m miserable when I get a bad result for a client, which sometimes happens, and the clients generally understand that it’s the facts of the case that will dictate, but I’m elated when I get a great result for a client, and it is very rewarding, and in every case, great result, not-so-great result, I know that I’m helping people and I enjoy that tremendously.