Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in Legaltech News.
Next month marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the tragic events at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pa., on September 11, 2001.
To commemorate the milestone, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) is holding a memorial at its annual conference, ILTACON, including a wall of remembrance and a video presentation during the Wednesday Keynote on Aug. 26, featuring members of the legal technology community who experienced the attacks and their aftermath.
I’m honored to be part of this remembrance.
As a reporter and assistant editor at ALM’s The National Law Journal on September 11, I was at the World Trade Center after the attacks, reporting with the late legal-tech legend Monica Bay, who was the founding editor-in-chief of ALM’s Legaltech News, known then as Law Technology News.
Sadly, Monica passed away in 2023, but my editor-in-chief at The National Law Journal that day, Bob Ambrogi, now of LawSites, will join me as part of ILTA’s 9/11 memorial, as we share our experiences. As ILTA’s Joy Heath Rush has said, “We want to salute everyone who lived through that horrible day – and remember all of those who didn’t.”
In this article, I look back at what was happening in New York City on the morning of 9/11 and the journey Monica and I took to the World Trade Center on September 11. This article tells the story of what New York City was like before 8:46 a.m. that morning and what happened afterward.
It’s not hyperbole to say the events of that day changed the course of Western civilization. On a far less significant note, 9/11 changed the course of my life and career.
View from the Brooklyn Bridge (or Lack Thereof)
September 11 started off as a Ferris Bueller kind of day in New York City, with clear, cloudless skies - even sunnier than the day Ferris and his friends, Sloane and Cameron, enjoyed at Wrigley Field while skipping school in the 1986 classic.
Had the skies not been so clear and sunny that day, that change in course for Western civilization might have gone differently.
It was also Primary Election Day in New York City, with Republican Michael Bloomberg, Democrat Mark Green, and others running to succeed Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was unable to run for re-election due to term limits. Many of us went to vote that morning before going to work, but, for obvious reasons, the election that day didn’t count.
Because it was Election Day, I drove my somewhat less than stylish green Ford Festiva across the Brooklyn Bridge and into The National Law Journal offices in Manhattan instead of taking the metropolitan adventure that is the New York City Subway.
After voting, I arrived at my usual parking garage near The National Law Journal’s newsroom in ALM’s editorial offices at 105 Madison Avenue between 29th and 30th Streets.
My parking receipt, which I still have 25 years later, was stamped, “09/11/01 8:57 AM.”
Around the same time, American Airlines Flight 11, a Boston to Los Angeles flight, struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., and United Airlines Flight 175, also a Boston to Los Angeles flight, struck the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.
The Brooklyn Bridge was near the World Trade Center. Calculating the time between the time American 11 struck the North Tower and the time I entered the parking garage, I realized I had been on the bridge next to the World Trade Center when the first attack occurred.
I hadn’t seen a thing.
“How did I miss a 767 crashing into the World Trade Center?” I thought to myself.
I didn’t figure it out until after New York City’s bridges reopened after the attacks, and I returned to my morning commute.
If you’re driving across the Brooklyn Bridge, you’re looking at the car in front of you, observing the New York City taxis whizzing by, and looking out for your fellow motorists.
You’re not gazing up at the World Trade Center - unless you enjoy the thrill and excitement of a trip to New York’s Traffic Violations Bureau.
Although iconic, the World Trade Center – actually a collection of seven buildings in 2001 – was not New York City’s most popular office complex.
Dedicated in 1973 and designed in the ‘Corporate Modernist’ style by Minoru Yamasaki, up until September 10, 2001, many criticized it as boring and plain, unlike New York City architectural classics such as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and Grand Central Terminal.
After the first plane hit the towers, I – like many people – thought, “Must be some drunk guy in a Cessna.”
It wasn’t a drunk guy in a Cessna.
No one ever thought the World Trade Center would cease to exist. After its demise, it became a far more popular, beloved, and even sacred place.
Preempting Mister Softee
Nadji, the concierge at 105 Madison Avenue, was an affable and entertaining fellow, always smiling as you arrived at the office. He made each day a little better.
He wasn’t smiling on September 11.
When I talked with him upon arriving at the office, he said the plane that had hit the World Trade Center was flying so low you could clearly read, “American,” on the side of the aircraft. Nadji said it was so low he was afraid it would hit our building. 105 Madison Avenue is only 20 floors tall.
A few minutes later, people were talking about a second plane hitting the Twin Towers.
The Drunk Guy in a Cessna theory was officially debunked.
Upon arriving at The National Law Journal’s offices on the 8th floor, there was no water cooler talk of the vital cultural issues of pre-9/11 New York City.
Up until 8:46 a.m., the topics of the day in New York City were the election, Sex and the City, both the Giants and the Jets having lost that week, and Williams v. Williams, the epic U.S. Open Finals battle of the previous weekend between sisters Serena and Venus Williams. (Venus won.)
Another New York City cultural institution, Mister Softee, had been top of mind for me as I left for work that morning because, in my On Trial column, I was writing what would be my series of installments on Mister Softee Inc. v. Valdez. Not unlike other New York City icons, the blue and white Mister Softee ice cream trucks cruised the streets of Gotham. However, not all blue and white ice cream trucks were authorized. Master Softee, Mister Soft, Mister Cones, and Mister Happy Time also traversed the streets, and, in Mister Softee, Inc. v. Valdez, Mister Softee complained of them all, suing for trademark and trade dress infringement.
There was no way Mister Softee was going to see the light of day in The National Law Journal during the week of September 11.
However, we did publish Mister Softee on September 19, 2001, and that column was an important part of my 9/11 story.
A lawyer who read Mister Softee wrote me about it. She said she was taking her first airline flight after 9/11 and that she was sad and even a little nervous about it. She added that she had read Mister Softee during the flight and that the column made her laugh. She said it made a sad flight a little better.
Her note remains the best and most cherished feedback I’ve ever received about anything I’ve ever written.
Get Rid of the Legal Pad, and Get a Reporter’s Notebook
My fellow lawyers who went to law school in the last century may remember some advice they received. I received mine from the Career Services Office of my law school, the University of Florida Levin College of Law.
“When you’re a summer associate, always keep a legal pad with you so you can take notes if a partner gives you an assignment.”
I carried that procedure to The National Law Journal, where about half of us were lawyers and the other half were traditional journalists. Nevertheless, I was probably the only one who walked around carrying a legal pad. The way you could really tell the lawyers from the traditional journalists is that the lawyers used PCs, and the traditional journalists all used Apple Macs.
ALM was still officially “American Lawyer Media” back then, and ALM’s editors, including The National Law Journal’s Bob Ambrogi, gathered to decide how to cover the attacks.
The team agreed to send reporters to the World Trade Center.
As one of the ‘lawyer-reporters,’ I was an unlikely choice for the assignment, but, with the city and the nation under attack, it wasn’t a popular assignment, and I volunteered.
“I’ll go, Bob,” I said to Ambrogi.
Bob paused for a moment, and then asked, “Are you going there to report or are you going just to see it?”
“Well, of course, I’m going there for official reporting purposes, Bob” was my reply.
“Then, get rid of the legal pad, and get a reporter’s notebook,” the editor-in-chief ordered.
Bay and Horrigan, an Unlikely Team
Monica Bay was also an unlikely choice for reporting duty at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
First, she was an editor-in-chief. Second, 9/11 wasn’t considered a legal technology story. (It turns out it was.)
The real reasons for sending Monica were, first, like me, she volunteered, but second, and more importantly, Monica was a gifted and talented photographer.
People who read LTN and Monica’s President’s Corner column and her blog, The Common Scold, may not have realized that Monica took almost all the photos herself.
Sending Monica was a fortuitous decision by ALM because Monica’s photographs of 9/11 were published by ALM publications around the nation.
A Circuitous Route to the World Trade Center
Four ALM reporters were assigned to go to the World Trade Center to cover the legal aspects of the attacks, Monica and me, as well as Allison Frankel and Nathan Koppel of The American Lawyer.
The four of us set out on foot. We began our journey at 345 Park Avenue South between 25th and 26th Streets, where ALM had administrative offices as well as the editorial offices of our sibling publication, The New York Law Journal, where editor-in-chief Kris Fischer was put in charge of ALM’s 9/11 coverage.
Park Avenue South and 26th Street is not exactly a short walk to the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, but, not surprisingly, getting a taxi was more than slightly impossible, and 2001 was well before the era of Uber and Lyft.
We would be walking it.
Monica needed to stop at what was then a ubiquitous part of New York City, a Duane Reade store. Nathan and Allison were eager to get to the World Trade Center, so I told them I would stay behind and wait for Monica.
It was a significant decision that resulted in a professional partnership and personal friendship that lasted two decades.
There was a police barricade at Houston Street, stopping anyone from going into lower Manhattan. However, this police barricade was being staffed by cadets from the New York City Police Academy because many of the regular police officers had been redeployed to ‘Ground Zero,’ which was becoming the new name of the World Trade Center site.
We showed the cadets our American Lawyer Media employee ID cards. Referring to Monica and me, one of the cadets said, “They have press credentials.”
However, we both suspected “real cops” would have sent us packing.
Having made it through that barricade, we headed further south into Lower Manhattan toward the World Trade Center when we approached another barricade.
This one was staffed by actual police officers, and it appeared that, after walking all this way, we would be turned away.
Then, there was a gas leak.
“Go, go, go!” police officers yelled, instructing people to leave the area in case the gas leak triggered more tragedy.
Most people had been walking away from the World Trade Center, so they just picked up their pace away from Lower Manhattan.
Instead, Monica and I ran toward the World Trade Center. We weren’t very fast, but everyone else was running in the other direction.
We arrived at Ground Zero.
Ground Zero
As we neared the World Trade Center, we could see the buildings were in flames.
We stopped to interview people as they traipsed away from Ground Zero, almost all covered in a thick, gray dust.
“Let’s stop and talk with anyone who looks like a lawyer,” I suggested to Monica.
Surprisingly enough, every single person I stopped was a lawyer - except for a group of law students from New York Law School.
“This could be more than slightly unpleasant,” I said to Monica as we got closer to the buildings. Monica was busy snapping photographs, but she agreed.
We both assumed it would be like a war zone.
What we found was nothing like that, but it was almost worse. Lower Manhattan, Wall Street, everything around the World Trade Center, usually the world’s center of commerce, was a ghost town. There were hardly any people, and everything was covered in that thick, gray dust. I halfway expected to see tumbleweeds going down the street. It was simply surreal.
A Sea of Paper
In addition to the ubiquitous and never-ending gray dust, there was paper everywhere, much of it charred, but still very legible.
As Monica took more photos, I started picking up more documents. (Some of these documents remain in my office, and digital reproductions will be on ILTA’s Wall of Remembrance at ILTACON.)
You could tell lawyers worked in the World Trade Center. Among the charred papers, we found LexisNexis and Westlaw printouts and pleadings.
Some of the papers I found were positively eerie, including a document entitled, “New York Airport Traffic Flows.” It was a chart of flight paths from JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, and Teterboro Airports, and it referenced the “complex New York area airspace.”
On September 11, we assumed the document flew out the windows of the World Trade Center offices of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which ran the New York City area’s airports.
“How do you know the hijackers didn’t have it?” a friend asked.
It was a good point. We didn’t.
The terrorists’ passports flew out of the planes. Who’s to say these documents weren’t in their possession as well. We’ll never know.
Tragically, there were also personal effects, including shoes. One of Monica’s most reproduced photos was a poignant image of a briefcase discarded into a trash can.
Return from Armageddon
As we wrapped up our reporting, photography, and document collection, Monica and I had a major challenge.
ALM publications today all have electronic publishing, and - if 9/11 happened today - we could probably file articles from our phones.
However, this was 2001, and print was still king.
At the time, The National Law Journal was a weekly, and Law Technology News was a monthly. We had plenty of time to file those articles. Having said that, The National Law Journal did publish online that day.
But The New York Law Journal was a daily. Articles had to be edited, formatted, and printed. The papers were delivered by trucks. To have all this happen in time, we had to be back at 345 Park Avenue South by 5:00 p.m.
“How in the [expletive] are we going to get back in time?” I asked Monica as we began hiking back to the office.
“Maybe we should try dictating it over the phone,” I said.
Monica gave me that wry smile and “You are an idiot” look I would come to appreciate over the years. I had forgotten that there were no working phones in Lower Manhattan that day.
In one of those details that seems trivial when more than two thousand people died, many New Yorkers without cable lost their TV signal when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m., because major stations broadcast from a transmitter at its top. Losing that vital communication link made a scary day even scarier for many.
It was like a Godzilla movie. Traffic was at a standstill, and people were moving slowly up the streets.
In yet another unlikely event that day, we happened to pass the headquarters of a rickshaw company.
I almost didn’t even ask because I thought there was no way they would do it, but I inquired if they could take us to Park Avenue South and 26th in one of their rickshaws.
Monica offered them an extremely generous tip, and, to our surprise, the guy said, “Sure!”
You’d have to ask ALM Accounting, but, at least percentage-wise, it may have been one of the biggest tips ever expensed to ALM.
We rode through the streets of New York City, weaving in and out between stranded cars, all the way from Ground Zero to Midtown Manhattan, in our trusty rickshaw.
Finding that rickshaw was the only reason we made it back in time to file our contribution to the September 12, 2001, issue of The New York Law Journal.
After 9/11
Between the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pa., 2,977 innocent people lost their lives on 9/11.
The bridges and tunnels were closed after the attacks. Law enforcement personnel were checking every person. Not surprisingly, given the nationalities and the stated motives of the hijackers, if you were of Middle Eastern descent, you were in for a long wait.
However, I’ll never forget that it was a bodega owner of Middle Eastern descent who gave us some water near Ground Zero. It was hot, the gray dust was everywhere, and we had just walked halfway across town. It was the best water I ever had - and he wouldn’t even take our money for it.
Editorial Epilogue
At The National Law Journal, we published an obituary for every lawyer who perished in the attacks of 9/11. To say it was a sad and sobering experience is an understatement.
After we published our 9/11 articles, Monica and I had multiple speaking engagements telling the story of what we saw at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Monica suggested I should write a column for her, too, and Bob Ambrogi signed off on it.
Shortly after 9/11, Monica, ALM’s law.com director of marketing Cathy Kenton, and I were in a bar pondering what the name of this new column should be. Because my column in The National Law Journal was entitled, “On Trial,” I suggested we call the new column, “Technology on Trial.”
The name stuck, and Technology on Trial became one of LTN’s longest running columns.
Monica remained the editor-in-chief of LTN for many years before she passed away. She championed the cause of women in the profession, and it was a great moment for me when - after I became discovery counsel and legal education director at Relativity - I was able to bring Monica in as a CLE speaker. Not surprisingly, she was a big hit with younger women hoping to follow in her footsteps.
Bob Ambrogi went on to found LawSites, becoming a leading voice in the field of legal technology in addition to his work as executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association.
As for me, writing for LTN altered the course of my career, and I took some important lessons from Monica, who became a mentor - even if she advised me to stop writing articles like Mister Softee.
Not surprisingly, Monica wasn’t a fan of my coverage of Flood v. Bush (the saga of Dave the Dwarf), Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, Inc. (the alleged defamation of Barbie), Morrison v. Virginia (the scienter of the Fatty Shack), but they all had substantive legal issues, and I did follow Monica’s guidance to never, ever use the trite, hackneyed, and overused term, “solution,” and Monica beamed with pride when Technology on Trial started winning awards.
A quarter of a century later, my biggest takeaway from being at the World Trade Center on 9/11 is that tragedy and crisis can truly bring out the best in people.
Monica and I may have voluntarily headed into a dangerous area, but we didn’t sacrifice our lives by running into danger to save others.
On 9/11, 343 firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers did. The NYPD and the FDNY were heroes that day.
When you think of those brave souls who died to save others, and all the people who stopped to help people on 9/11, you can’t help but think there’s a lot of hope for us all.
Those of us who write about life are not as important as those who save lives, but maybe we can make life a little happier at tragic times - with a little help from Mister Softee.
Graphics for this article were created by Caroline Patterson.
