DP: When did the law career launch?

MC: I finished my law degree in Tokyo. To this day, I have about two and a half million flyer miles, which is a lot. About every month I was going somewhere. [Travel] was wonderful, I went to every place on the planet I really wanted to go. 

It was one of those situations like the expression, "Wherever you go, you take yourself with you" so I still spent a lot of time in hotels thawing myself out, looking out at the window on the weekends. But like everything it was incremental and I kept applying myself, and trying to feel better and think better and solve progressively more difficult problems. One day about six years of doing this, got up and said I didn't want to do this anymore and I quit. Then it was back to Phoenix.

DP: Was it like a restart button?

MC: It was the best of times and worst of times. I walk into a meeting at the Arizona Biltmore and no one gave a fig who I was. I just came out of a world where people were interested in what I had to say. It was a significant identity loss, so I lay on the carpet for awhile and watch the clouds and what I can do. I can do the same thing I was doing, but do it here, and I applied for the bar. 

MC: I was a principal guy. It's the top of the decision process. You decide who your clients are,   you decide the services and write proposals. You're basically running a business within a business. I realized that I can do that here, but I could do it on my own and it could be mine.