The bucket list for attorney Gary Nelson, 52, just got a little shorter. He climbed Mount Everest during a trip from April to June.

He has now climbed five of the tallest seven summits. But Everest was different.

“It was a lot more dangerous and difficult than I thought it was going to be,” said Nelson, a partner at Pasadena’s Christie Parker & Hale.

He lost 17 pounds, got sick when fluid filled his lungs and fell into a crevasse so deep he couldn’t see the bottom (luckily, Nelson was attached to a safety line).

Nelson, who took up mountain climbing a decade ago, started training a year before his climb. He went on strenuous bike rides around Los Angeles and even climbed a mountain in Ecuador.

“Certainly, I was in some of the best shape of my life,” Nelson said.

He had some fun while climbing the Himalayan peak, taking a picture of a golf ball emblazoned with his law firm’s name.

“I think that picture is going to be on the holiday card with some cheesy slogan, ‘We’ll go to the top of the world for you,’” Nelson joked.

All Booked

Jack Epsteen has planned his summer vacations for the next decade.

Epsteen, a vice president and executive producer at ad agency RPA Inc. in Santa Monica, has a son, Levon, now 4, who was born with a malformed brain. To relieve the boy’s seizures, he had a surgery called hemispherectomy in which half the brain was removed.

The Epsteens’ summer vacation last month was attending the Hemispherectomy Foundation Conference and Family Reunion, and this year it was in Anaheim.

“I was just talking with my wife and it appears this is going to be our summer vacation for the foreseeable future,” Epsteen, 43, said. “We’re already planning to attend next year in Baltimore.”

About 70 families, some from as far away as Australia, attended the Anaheim conference, which included a camp for the children, and classes with doctors and therapists for the parents.

“The bonding is intense,” he said. “It’s much more overwhelming, in a good way, than your regular Disneyland vacation.”

The Epsteens’ 18-year-old daughter helped supervise the children’s activities, an experience Jack Epsteen believes develops compassion in youth.

“Levon’s journey has brought all of us together as a family,” he said.

Funny Lady

Being a trial attorney is serious business. So when Cyndie M. Chang, an attorney in Duane Morris LLP’s downtown L.A. office, needs a break, she loosens up by performing with a local comedy improv troupe.

The group, Cold Tofu, comprises mostly Asian-Americans and combines the anything-goes mentality of improvisational comedy with a dose of ethnic humor.

In the legal world, a mistake can cost millions of dollars, but “in improv acting, if you make a mistake, the audience may actually appreciate it if it’s funny,” Chang said.

But the two worlds aren’t as opposed in other ways. In fact, the 33-year-old Chang led an acting-for-lawyers workshop at a legal conference last year, and has been asked to do more.

“Acting helps with being a litigator and trial lawyer,” she said. “As an attorney in a jury trial, it is your goal to get the jury to understand your side of the story. The ability to be persuasive, think on your feet, and communicate a compelling story with confidence, eye contact and certain mannerisms are really important.”

Staff reporters Alexa Hyland, Joel Russell and Alfred Lee contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].