She Grew Up With Fawns in the Bathroom and a Possum Named Owen
Her father, a national debate champion turned bankruptcy lawyer, filled the house with trophies and Civil War history.
Original Jurisdiction · Last Branch Standing: Sarah IsgurThe fawns were in the bathroom.
Sarah Isgur, a lawyer and author, was raised in the small paired towns of Richmond and Rosenberg, in Fort Bend County, roughly an hour from Houston. She remembers the house doubling as a clinic for wild animals as a normal part of childhood.
Her mother held state and federal permits to take in injured wild animals and nurse them back to health. So baby deer recovered in the bathroom, baby owls nestled in Isgur's hair, and at one point she kept a possum called Owen as a pet.
It was an unusual household. The other half pointed more directly toward law.
Isgur said her father "worked for his uncle until the company went bankrupt." When Isgur was about 10, he enrolled in law school because he wanted to practice bankruptcy law. She remembers his time in school well, though she wanted nothing to do with his specialty.
He had also been a national debater, and his trophies filled the house. Isgur refused to join the debate team for a simple reason. She did not want to compete in the one contest where she knew she could not beat her father, who had already been number one.
Part of what pulled her in was his love of history. On the long drive to school, father and daughter listened to the audio tapes of filmmaker Ken Burns's Civil War documentary over and over. They watched the series so many times that Isgur said she thinks she could probably recite the whole thing from memory, especially the farewell letter from Union soldier Sullivan Ballou to his wife.
He talked to her about Abraham Lincoln all the time, and about American history in general. Isgur called it "a very patriotic, proud" childhood.
That history was only part of why she later went to law school. After college she was fired from a press secretary job after six weeks for refusing to make coffee, and after seeing Legally Blonde she thought going to Harvard Law School would have kept her from being fired.
Questions people ask
What does a wildlife rehabilitator actually do?
A wildlife rehabilitator is licensed by state and federal authorities to take in sick, injured, or orphaned wild animals and care for them until they can be released. In Texas, that can mean deer, owls, raccoons, and possums, often raised inside the home.
Did she follow her father into bankruptcy law?
No. She says she stays as far away from bankruptcy law as possible. Her father's interest in law influenced her, but it was his love of history, Lincoln, and the Civil War documentary that was part of what pulled her toward law school.