Cathy Christensen is a practicing attorney in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She is a graduate of Oklahoma City University School of Law and practices family law and general litigation. She is the former Vice President (1994) and President (2012) of the Oklahoma Bar Association and served 4 years on its Board of Governors. She serves on the Executive Board of Oklahoma City University School of Law, is a Trustee of the Oklahoma Bar Foundation, and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
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Below is a short selection of the interview with Cathy Christensen. You can listen to the full interview by visiting the Chickasaw Nation Law Library at Oklahoma City University School of Law.
Below is an excerpt from Ms. Christensen's interview and a link to download the full transcript.
KEK: Tell me about one of your most memorable cases that you’ve had while you’ve been in practice on your own.
CMC: The Slaughter case I remember, it was a murder case in Oklahoma County, Jimmy Ray Slaughter was accused of killing the woman who bore his child and murdering his child. And I represented Mr. Slaughter when he came to me on the paternity case. Right at the outset mom had named him as the father of the child and wanted child support so I represented Jimmy Ray through that. And then I remember I was on vacation and got a call from him that she was murdered, the mother and the baby murdered in Edmond and it was a horrible, horrible, murder as they all are but I mean there were Satanic overtures, things like that. That was an interesting case because that brought with it a slew of ethical questions when the district attorney sent over by facsimile a purported waiver of the attorney client privilege by Mr. Slaughter. And they sent it at 4:45 or something and then at 5 o’clock they’re at the door saying, “We want to talk to you.” And I said, “No, this waiver isn’t enough for me. I want to have time, talk to this guy, make sure he knows what he’s waiving.” And, the next day I went down to Judge Owens and talked to him with of course, the DA. Judge Owens had Mr. Slaughter brought over. I said, “I want to make sure that this person knowingly and willingly is waiving his attorney client privilege, just a fax doesn’t mean anything to me.” So, that was interesting and then of course we had the murder trial, I testified in that. Any other cases? You always have your weird cases which God knows, I’ve had my share of those. And then you just have a lot of cases of good people, that they’re memorable because now I see the people out. And another thing is I took some clothes to the cleaners once and this little girl who was waiting on me said, “You represented my mom and she still talks about how much she liked you.” And I looked at her and I thought, “Oh my word, you were just a baby back then.” And it hits you how many lives you’re kind of in, you don’t touch because you’re just an attorney but at the same time you go, “Wow, time passes.”