Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Yale Law '90: Michael Caglioti
I have been devoting Wednesdays (mostly) to profiling my classmates in the Yale Law class of 1990 (you can see a partial recap with links here). It has been a fascinating project; they have gone on to do some remarkable things.
Michael Caglioti was yet another memorable member of the class of 1990. He came to Yale six years after graduating as the valedictorian from Iona College in his hometown of New Rochelle, New York. Then-- and before matriculation at Yale Law-- he received two Masters degrees from Princeton: one in Public Affairs and another in Politics. At Yale, he served with me as a Senior Editor of the Law Journal, and (unlike me) was also an officer on another journal, the Yale Journal of International Law.
After law school, he moved to DC and joined one of America's leading firms, Arnold and Porter. He became a partner there in 1998, having proven himself working on a variety of international cases for leading corporations. It's the kind of partnership many lawyers dream of and relatively few achieve.
To explain what happened next, I have to reveal something about Michael that never stopped him from making all of this happen: Michael had a severe neuromuscular disease, spinal muscular atrophy. He was never able to walk, and utilized a motorized wheelchair.
That wheelchair, unfortunately, was the source of the undoing of what Michael had worked so hard to achieve. In 2000, just a few years after he made partner, the wheelchair malfunctioned and he was badly hurt (he describes this himself in an essay in the Washington Lawyer, which you can read here). Because of his injuries, he had to leave the partnership he had earned and incurred over $500,000 in medical expenses. It sounds like a very sad turning point in his life.
Michael died on January 4, 2018.
Those of you who have followed these profiles know that usually I run a current photo with the profile, and sometimes a video. I couldn't find a picture online of Michael; even the essay he authored was accompanied only by a photo of a wheelchair. In a way that is fitting, I suppose. He was a person defined by his remarkable mind and spirit, and perhaps the memory of that should be enough.
Michael Caglioti was yet another memorable member of the class of 1990. He came to Yale six years after graduating as the valedictorian from Iona College in his hometown of New Rochelle, New York. Then-- and before matriculation at Yale Law-- he received two Masters degrees from Princeton: one in Public Affairs and another in Politics. At Yale, he served with me as a Senior Editor of the Law Journal, and (unlike me) was also an officer on another journal, the Yale Journal of International Law.
After law school, he moved to DC and joined one of America's leading firms, Arnold and Porter. He became a partner there in 1998, having proven himself working on a variety of international cases for leading corporations. It's the kind of partnership many lawyers dream of and relatively few achieve.
To explain what happened next, I have to reveal something about Michael that never stopped him from making all of this happen: Michael had a severe neuromuscular disease, spinal muscular atrophy. He was never able to walk, and utilized a motorized wheelchair.
That wheelchair, unfortunately, was the source of the undoing of what Michael had worked so hard to achieve. In 2000, just a few years after he made partner, the wheelchair malfunctioned and he was badly hurt (he describes this himself in an essay in the Washington Lawyer, which you can read here). Because of his injuries, he had to leave the partnership he had earned and incurred over $500,000 in medical expenses. It sounds like a very sad turning point in his life.
Michael died on January 4, 2018.
Those of you who have followed these profiles know that usually I run a current photo with the profile, and sometimes a video. I couldn't find a picture online of Michael; even the essay he authored was accompanied only by a photo of a wheelchair. In a way that is fitting, I suppose. He was a person defined by his remarkable mind and spirit, and perhaps the memory of that should be enough.
