Jackson was not always the put-together, attention-to-detail kind of guy he seems to be now.
"In high school, I was not a very focused student," admits Jackson. "I could always get by, but I was never very focused. I knew that I needed something to help me grow up. I knew that I wanted to do something a little bit extraordinary."
When he graduated from high school in 1983, Jackson immediately joined the Air Force. He spent four years as an enlisted airman, attaining the rank of E4. During these years, Jackson realized that he wanted to earn an education that reached beyond high school.
"It was almost like taking something away from somebody — you really realize how much you miss it," Jackson says of his urge to go back to school.
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By the time he was a junior in college, Jackson was set on going to graduate school. He had served full-time in the military and had driven hard academically for two years after that. Without any idea of what graduate study would be like and on the verge of academic burnout, Jackson knew it was time to take a break.
He decided to travel throughout Europe for about a year. After a few months, though, Jackson felt the academic bug coming on, and he enrolled in some classes in the South of France.
When Jackson returned from abroad, he dove back into academia.
"I knew about midway through college that I wanted to study law," Jackson says.
Knowing that he'd be in Texas forever if he went to law school there, he decided to trek to either New York or California for law school.
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After racing to catch up with the rest of his college class, Jackson ended up graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in the summer, rather than the spring, of 1991.
"I had my U-Haul packed, and I had my car on a trailer," he says. "As soon as my French final was done, my professor had to grade it on the spot so that my transcripts would be complete. I literally went from campus, got in the U-Haul, and drove across country. Within a day of being in Los Angeles, I was in orientation for law school, so I had literally zero time between college and law school. It was like a matter of hours."
"At that time, I became a very traditional student," Jackson says of his transition into law school. "I started dabbling in 'What is it that I really like to do?' 'I really like to write, but I don't know if I want to spend my whole career writing.' So I started playing with classes, moot court, and mock trial and just started excelling at oral presentation."
Jackson divided his time during law school between the moot court team, the mock trial team, and law review. In 1992, he returned to his beloved Europe after enrolling in a study-abroad program for a semester in London.
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"In my opinion, there is absolutely no better trial work in the world than being a prosecutor. I knew that was what I really wanted to do; that's what my passion was. I was lucky because not only was I passionate about it, but I was also pretty good at it," says Jackson.
When Jackson completed law school in 1994, he took a job at a boutique law firm, Rosoff, Schiffres & Barta, in Santa Monica, CA, doing typical first-year, law clerk work. Though he was given a full-time associate position there when he passed the bar exam, this early experience revealed to Jackson that he did not have the heart for civil legal work.
Instead, Jackson had his heart set on working at the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office. Unluckily for him, there was currently a hiring freeze at the office. Despite the fact that he had received an offer to work for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Vegas, Jackson held out to work in Los Angeles.
Jackson was so persistent about getting a job at the district attorney's office that he and the office's recruiting liaison, Cathy Musick, who is still at the office today, developed a relationship.
"I called her so often that we were on a first-name basis," he says. "She kept telling me, 'Alan, there's nothing yet. As soon as we know something, I'll call you.' I said, 'You've got thousands of people who want this job — I know you're not going to call me, Cathy. That's no fault of yours, but if you don't mind, I'm just going to keep calling you.' She said, 'I'll keep answering the phone, Alan, as much as you want me to.'"
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"There were several hundred applicants and very, very few jobs," says Jackson.
After making it through a series of interviews, Jackson was left to wait for the office's answer.
"I was on pins and needles. I could not stand the wait. I wanted this job so badly I couldn't take it. My friends couldn't stand to be around me, so they said, 'We're going to go skiing,'" says Jackson.
The office was supposed to be making its decisions on or around the weekend that Jackson and his friends went skiing in Park City, UT. Jackson had mentioned where he was staying in Park City to his roommate at the time, and the office had his home phone number, just in case.
"I'm sitting in a hot tub, literally, in a bathing suit in a resort after a long day of skiing, and I hear this page: 'Guest Alan Jackson, you're needed at the front desk,'" he says. "I'm literally dripping wet. I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I'm going to find something out. I can't believe it.'"
On the phone was Jackson's roommate, who reported that the district attorney, Gilbert "Gil" Garcetti, had called and left his cell phone number and a message for Jackson to call him. Jackson eagerly rushed to the nearest pay phone in the lobby to find out what Garcetti had to say.
"I'm standing in the middle of this nice resort in Park City, and I'm dripping, soaking wet with no shirt on, no shoes on, in a bathing suit on a pay phone. Then I get Gil on the phone, and I say, 'Gil, I'm skiing in Utah, and I just got a message that you called.' He says, 'I've only got one question for you, Alan, and your entire career is going to be dependent on your answer.' I said, 'Okay.' 'I have a favorite resort that I ski at. Are you at Park City, or are you at Deer Valley?' I said, 'Gil, I'm at Park City.' He said, 'Congratulations. Welcome aboard.' So I'm hopping around, jumping for joy in the middle of the lobby, and people are thinking I'm absolutely crazy," Jackson says.
Coincidently, Jackson joined the district attorney's office during the time of the O.J. Simpson case in 1994. As a young law student and attorney during the trial, Jackson never imagined that he himself might be prosecuting a similar media-driven case less than 15 years later.
"Looking back at it now, I have a whole different respect and appreciation. Having gone through the Spector trial as I have...when I was a young D.A. just looking from afar at what the prosecution team was doing, it didn't dawn on me what they were actually going through — what the defense team or what the judge was going through, for that matter. But now that I've experienced it first-hand with Spector, I've learned an entirely new appreciation for the level of intensity, the level of stress that a prosecutor lives with," Jackson says.
"It's a case that's being heavily scrutinized by the media, a case that's being heavily scrutinized by the rest of the legal community, including my own office. Everybody is scrutinizing this case. Certainly you're under a microscope or in a fishbowl."
"It's not just a matter of having a stressful day or week; the stress levels are down to the hour — down to the minute. There's not a minute of the day when you're going through something like this where there's not an intense level of stress. From the shower that you take in the morning, to the drive to the courthouse, to the time that you're in the courtroom, to the time that you debrief with the team, to the drive home, and to when you go to bed at night. We live with it hour by hour. It's intense. I don't think anybody could be quite prepared until they actually go through it," he says.
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"You never know where you're going to have to learn a level of expertise in this job. I had no idea that I would ever have to dabble in bankruptcy law, but I did for this case. I had to explain to the jury exactly why Mike Goodwin hated Mickey so much and where the animosity came from," Jackson says. "We took a 19-year-old case and went out and found witnesses, who had become ancient, by the way. That was probably the most factually challenging case that I've ever tried."
Jackson describes his style of presentation in the courtroom as "sincerely casual." His approach, which can be viewed as quite honest and down-to-earth, helps him build a relationship with the jury and courtroom.
"I think at the end of the day, jurors are human beings, and they want to know that you're a human being. They want to know that you feel and that you have passion and that you can laugh and hurt and that you can feel along with them," Jackson says.
"What happens in a courtroom is very much real life. It's not scripted. I think the jurors can more readily identify with a litigant who approaches them first as a human being and second as a lawyer," he says.
No matter how intense a trial has gotten, Jackson values finding appropriate humor when the opportunity presents itself.
"If there is a point where you can be self-deprecating, make fun of yourself...I stumble on words, and the first thing I'll do, instead of trying to cover it up, is I might make a joke about it at my own expense," Jackson says.
| Q. What do you like to do in your spare time? |
| A. I love anything to do with cars or automobiles. I'm also a pilot, so I love to fly. When you're in the air, that's the only thing you can think about. |
| Q. Throughout your lifetime, what movie have you watched the most? |
| A. Top Gun. |
| Q. What CD is in your CD player right now? |
| A. Bob Schneider. |
| Q. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? |
| A. Dulce de leche. |
| Q. If you had an extra hour in the day, what would you spend it doing? |
| A. Reading or watching baseball. |
Jackson picked up some of his courtroom technique from his trial advocacy professor and legal mentor at Pepperdine, Harry Caldwell.
"He was as casual and conversational as you could possibly be. He was absolutely brilliant at explaining how to talk with a jury rather than to a jury, and that's what I've always tried to do," Jackson says.
"You can go as far as the jurors invite you to go emotionally. Instead of lecturing the juries, I tell them, 'I'm going to visit with you.' That's a Southernism. I don't want to talk to the jury, especially in an opening statement or a closing argument; I want to talk with the jury, and I want them to move with me through the evidence, and I want them to move with me through the emotions," Jackson explains. "Harry Caldwell taught me the importance of the human side of speaking with a jury."
Jackson showed us this side in the closing argument for the Spector trial when he pulled up a chair for the end of his presentation. Recognizing that both he and the jury were drained from the three-hour closing, he sat down, took a deep breath, and invited the jury to just "chat," creating the feeling that they were all sitting around a campfire.
Caldwell also taught Jackson how to use the approach of baseball sportscaster Vin Scully to make jurors feel at home.
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"That is exactly the type of approach that I always try to keep in mind when I'm talking to a jury. I want to visit with them. Even though it's a one-sided conversation, I want them to feel like they can answer me at any moment."
Jackson has built his entire career at the district attorney's office in Los Angeles, and though he probably could be making more money in a firm somewhere else, the opportunity doesn't even faze him.
"I think it is a mistake to pick an area of law because of the money that you'll make," says Jackson. "It's not what makes a good lawyer. Being a lawyer is more than a job, and in a lot of cases, it's more than a career. Being a prosecutor for me at this point is a lifestyle. It's more than a job. The reason that I've enjoyed some level of success is because I simply love the work I do. I'm passionate about the work I do."
