My journey through law, media, and government

Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, I was a diehard fan of the Toledo Mud Hens and the Detroit Tigers but I knew I wasn’t going to play for either team, so I dreamed instead of becoming a reporter for my hometown newspaper, The Blade. That dream came true, but it turned out to be only the start of my professional journey.

I wrote my first article―about sports, naturally―for my school newspaper in the seventh grade. I stuck with it and eventually was editor-in-chief in high school. When I first visited Washington, D.C., the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that President Nixon had to turn over the White House tapes. I had Potomac fever and was inspired by Woodward and Bernstein. At Washington University in St. Louis, I majored in history and set my sights on law school, but I pursued being a journalist by writing for and editing various student publications. I also “studied” baseball and became an undying fan of the St. Louis Cardinals.

After college, I landed my dream job, starting as a summer intern at The Blade. I wrote obituaries, features, and breaking news under the tutelage of demanding editors. It was an experience that imitated the drama, comedy, and romance of theater, film, and television from The Front Page and All the President’s Men to Lou Grant. After my first year of law school at the University of Toledo, I returned to the paper the following summer and then stayed on part-time through law school. I worked the police beat on Friday and Saturday nights for the next morning’s paper, often writing “fifteen inches about a four-alarm fire on a twenty-minute deadline,” as columnist Bob Greene once described.

Finishing law school was accompanied by a recession that created uncertainty about my future employment at The Blade. After the bar exam, I took a day trip to Chicago to explore newspaper opportunities. I met some journalists, including the Chicago Bureau Chief of The National Law Journal and thought that was a job I’d like to have someday.

Fortune allowed me to remain at The Blade for five more years—two as a general assignment reporter and three as the state and federal courts beat and legal affairs reporter. I also met my wife in the newsroom. Approaching 30, I left the paper after eight years as an award-winning, deadline-writing, sometimes bar-closing newspaperman. It was a time when newspapers still dominated over the internet and cable TV, and facts were facts and truth and accuracy were paramount.

I have many stories from those days, but this is one of my favorites: On Sept. 10, 1985, I was dispatched to Cincinnati to cover a rare judicial disciplinary hearing the next day in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. I arrived just in time to hustle to Riverfront Stadium, only to watch Pete Rose go 0-4 and fail that night to break Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record. After covering the judicial hearing the next day, I seized being in the right place at the right time and convinced editors to let me stay another night and write about Rose, who was all but certain to break Cobb’s record, even though the paper’s 30-year grizzled sports columnist was also there. When I returned to the newsroom, I was greeted with “atta boy,” but I was advised to stay away from the sports department. The veteran columnist had returned before me and upon seeing my byline, not his, on the front-page, he clamored, “Who the hell is Randy Samborn?!”

From journalism to prosecutor and forward to journalism and prosecutor, again

Five years out of law school, I joined the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office in Toledo and handled high-volume state court felonies, including about 10 jury trials over the next two years. After second-chairing a church burglary trial, a police officer confided to my trial partner that his testimony “shaded the truth” (that was how he viewed it), but his lies were intentional and significant, and we promptly informed the defense and Court. I have many more stories from trying cases, but that ethics lesson further honed my integrity and judgment.

With a new baby, our family moved to my wife’s native Chicago after I secured the job that years earlier, I had imagined having someday—the Chicago Bureau Chief of The National Law Journal. It was a great entrée to a new city that opened doors in Chicago’s legal and journalism circles especially, but I also gained invaluable experience in law and journalism nationally. During the next six years, I wrote hundreds more print articles, mostly deep dives into the growth and business of law firms and a broad range of legal issues for an audience of mostly lawyers.

In 1995, I joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and its first fulltime Public Information Officer. When I departed 20 years later, being a Justice Department spokesman had come to define my identity and career. I served under a succession of five great U.S. Attorneys and found it more rewarding to be in the room where important decisions were made and have a hand in shaping and making news than reporting it. I served through many historic prosecutions and my unique role provided me with unparalleled experience in the middle of law, media, and government. One case, while not historic, holds special significance because I prosecuted and won a bank robbery trial, which afforded me the privilege of arguing before a federal jury on behalf of the United States.

As the gatekeeper of public and confidential information spanning two decades, I have even more great stories, some of which I can’t talk about and some I can. I rode a constant carousel of high-profile cases involving drug kingpins and cartels, street gangs, and violent crime, all variety of frauds and financial crimes, civil rights and environmental enforcement, international terrorism, organized crime, and public corruption, including the trials of two Illinois governors. I was the Justice Department’s sole “spox” in a national security Special Counsel matter involving the investigation and trial in Washington, D.C., of the Vice President’s chief of staff. I also learned by being on the ground floor of using the internet and social media to communicate law enforcement news and distribute public court documents and trial exhibits. There’s almost nothing in the pantheon of federal law enforcement that I didn’t experience and little that surprises me now as I observe from the sidelines.

A new journey begins ...

In 2015, I started a new stage in my journey by launching the Chicago office of a Washington, D.C.-based strategic communications firm. As an agency executive, I learned about serving clients, leading teams, counseling C-Suite executives, and running a business. That experience provided the foundation and motivation in 2018 to establish my own consulting firm—Randall A. Samborn & Associates LLC. The business name was inspired by the one-man consulting engineering firm that my father founded in 1948 in Toledo—A. H. Samborn & Associates, now a global design industry leader known as SSOE Group.

My communications consulting practice is predicated on four decades of experience, integrity, and judgment that I learned inside media, law, and government. My principal mission is to serve clients whose goals and challenges intersect those arenas by delivering personal service and tailoring successful solutions to each client’s situation because reputation matters, both my clients’ and my own.

That’s my story, now let’s tell yours.