At 82 years old, Ron Olson, name partner at downtown-based law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, which was founded by billionaire Charles Munger in 1962, still gets incredible satisfaction from working.

Olson grew up on a farm in small town Iowa and has grown to become one of the most respected lawyers in the country. He is known for his broad range of work for Berkshire Hathaway Inc., as well as his representation of the founders of Google in its initial public offering, his representation of the major oil companies in connection with the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and his representation of the Philippines government in recovering ill-gotten gains from its former president Ferdinand Marcus and his family.

He attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa on a football scholarship and then graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and received a further graduate degree from the University of Oxford.

Following graduation, Olson worked as a civil rights attorney for the United States Department of Justice in Washington D.C.

In 1968, Olson was asked to come to Los Angeles to join his present law firm as an associate, which, at the time, went by a different name. Two years later, he became a partner in the firm and, in 1986, his name was added to the firm’s name. He specializes in litigation and corporate counseling.

You are still working well past the age many people retire. Why?

Well, it’s pretty simple. From a selfish point of view, I just have too many interesting people and interesting problems in my life. I’m very fortunate to be a lawyer. I’m very fortunate that people still want to pull on my judgment and engage me for what they consider to be important problems. I’m the beneficiary.

What’s the best part of working in your 80s?

To this day, I have the opportunity to continue to learn and I think that’s what been the hold on me. Every one of the problems I get I learn something. I learn from people. (I have) many different clients, some more challenging than others, but they all teach me something. I get the opportunity to learn from opposing counsel. I get the opportunity to learn from my colleagues in the law firm.

And the worst?

Jane (my wife) and I have been married for 59 years now. She’s independently a very strong person and I cheerlead her all the time. If I wasn’t working, we’d spend more time together and I know I would enjoy that very much. We do spend a lot of time together, but by working, I’m depriving myself of other opportunities.

Have you slowed down on the job or are you still putting in the same number of hours as always?

I have stepped back in a couple of ways. I would say about 15, maybe even 16 or 17 years ago, I stopped going into the courtroom and trying lawsuits. That’s a very demanding, and particularly in the kind of cases I had, intense experience. So I stopped doing that and now I do a lot more advisory work, corporate work on acquisitions, on corporate governance, talking to the board of directors. I’ve softened my work in that respect. And I’ve also cut back on my hours. There were a lot of years where putting in 80 hours a week was no big deal. Now, I probably still put in 45 or 50 a week, something like that.

Do you think you’ll ever retire? If so, at what age?

Probably. I mean I’ve told all my partners if you see me going wacko, ‘get me out of there.’ And I mean it. At some point, I’m not going to be as agile in the mind. And the one great thing about the law practice is: every new experience, every new person that you gauge, you learn from, it’s the backboard for all your decision making. And, as a result of that, I think for a long time, you can improve as a lawyer because your judgment is improved. But there’s going to come a time when I’ll step back.

What advice would you give to someone who was weighing whether to continue working past retirement age?

I would suggest that they first ask themselves, ‘what is there out there that I would rather be doing?’ As you know, a lot of people would rather do something completely different. And I respect that. But there are others like myself that I think would answer the way I am. There’s nothing that I see that I would rather be doing and give up the time around my clients. I’m very blessed with the kind of people that are in my life. They’re very special people. I’ve been very lucky, and I don’t want to give it up.

What’s one of the biggest lessons you learned from your time on the job?

I would say the main takeaway is: every single person you encounter in life has something to teach you. And I really mean that. I think of this older guy that was on the paving crew (with me, before college, in Iowa). He was a character. No matter how late we worked at night, and how much beer he drank at the end of the day, he’d be the first one down to work at 5:30 in the morning. I really mean when I say that I have learned from everybody I’ve encountered in my life.

I think too many people these days shuffle aside the opportunities to learn from people that don’t appear to be as smart or successful or whatever, and I think that’s a mistake.