Rest in peace Michael

 

This weekend, retired former local attorney Michael Robinson passed away. There are many who knew him in the legal community but very few who he trusted and shared his life with and I spoke with those people today.

Michael was a very private person. And what I am sharing in this post does not include anything I know shared by him in confidence and privately. 

He trusted me and I trusted him to share what many don't know about him or me. What he shared is not news. Normal conversations we have with people are a part of life. Michael, like most people, was not his job. He was a human being with a life and more than an attorney.

Michael was a very private person. It took a long time for me to stop calling him Mr. Robinson because that is how I address most of the lawyers I see on a regular basis even if I see them outside the Humboldt Courthouse.

This post is to celebrate his life and wish him eternal peace. It is also for those people who did not know him or knew him in a limited capacity through his work to pause and think that jumping to conclusions and making assumptions about people is wrong.

In the beginning, Mr. Robinson and I were strangers only seeing each other in the courtroom. I covered a very high profile case and Mr. Robinson was the defense attorney. When he reluctantly would speak with me, it was because he recognized the value and the platform. He would preface it with, "we have had our differences but I respect your work." This was in the early years of my doing local court coverage. 

It went from that to "I respect you. I believe in you." He expressed sympathy for the struggles, abuse and retaliation I have faced in Humboldt.

Michael took the time to speak with me, get to know me which many do not and even if they did; I don't share my life with anyone in or associated with Humboldt because they have given me reason.

There are parts of his life he shared with me that many don't know, even in the Courthouse, who knew him for decades. I spoke with him regularly and even after he retired. 

There are certain attorneys who he respected as colleagues but who were also his friends. They don't have the luxury to take time off to mourn him.

Rest in peace Michael.