Los Angeles Times Reporter Maura Dolan

Life On the Working Mom’s Beat

Los Angeles Times reporter Maura Dolan is based in San Francisco and covers legal affairs, including the California Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit. Before moderating a panel on what comes next for marriage rights for same-sex couples, she talked roses, Monopoly, and the Roaring Twenties in the Zócalo green room.

Q:

What’s your favorite thing about the California Supreme Court?


A:

That you can to tell usually where the Court is going in oral argument. The other courts, they haven’t made up their minds. With the Supreme Court you know when the decisions can come. It’s a good working mom’s beat.


Q:

What’s your favorite plant?


A:

My favorite plant is a rose.


Q:

What’s the last board game you played?


A:

Monopoly.


Q:

What year, past or future, would you time-travel to if you could?


A:

1922. The ’20s, I like that period, before the Depression.


Q:

What question do you get asked most often by aspiring journalists?


A:

Do you ever get used to writing on deadline? You do. You get used to it. It gets easier and easier.


Q:

What’s the best advice you ever received?


A:

You can’t change other people.


Q:

What surprises you most about your life right now?


A:

That I’m still employed as a journalist.


Q:

What social media website do you spend the most time on?


A:

Probably Facebook. Because they have links to good stories. I use Twitter as sort of a wire service.


Q:

What do you wake up to?


A:

Coffee. Sometimes an alarm.


Q:

What would you order for your last meal?


A:

A chocolate sundae.