My Bio

Hi, my name is Andrew G. Watters. I am a radically honest, category-defying polymath based in Redwood City, California, USA. I am primarily a lawyer, with a law degree from U.C. College of Law San Francisco (formerly known as U.C. Hastings College of Law), a bachelor's degree from UCLA, and nineteen years of professional experience. I have had my own practice since 2012, and my own law firm since 2016. I offer legal services, including complex private investigations; and a custom software platform for attorneys called Slash. I am married to Mrs. Right, with whom I welcomed our daughter Jennifer in 2022. My personal trademark is my carbon fiber briefcase from Tecknomonster, a combined aerospace/luggage company. For entertainment purposes, I recently resurrected a popular anonymous discussion board for lawyers called JD Underground, which has been a great diversion from the law firm for me. I also sometimes build computer systems and custom guitars, which I find to be self-actualizing. I am originally from San Francisco, which I always enjoy telling people because Dirty Harry shares my hometown.

News

April 20, 2025: I'm honored to have these professional photos of Vivienne Wilder with the Blackstar golden bass guitar that I presented to her in 2024. Blackstar 001 is the prototype that I designed and built in tribute to musical icon David Bowie for his inspiring life that was dedicated to music, and the guitar is intended to be ultra-glam. Blackstar is executed in a Precision Bass form factor featuring double-layered 24K gold gilding, Les Claypool signature EMG pickups, Optima gold strings, and Schaller gold hardware in a maple Warmoth body and neck, finished in hybrid polyurethane. The critical feature that makes this a professional instrument is the three-band equalizer, which includes a frequency selector on the mid. Vivienne decided to take off the star decals, and I do like the resulting relic look that has shadows of the stars on the neck. The next two guitars will have proper black enamel stars. Blackstar 002 and 003 are already spoken for by two world-leading musicians who are "getting goosebumps" waiting for their guitars. I'm told it is a work of art, which was one of the goals when I set out to do this. Here is my guitar and programming website for anyone not familiar.

April 14, 2025: first mock trial in the Trial Laboratory. Went very well.

March 9, 2025: The Trial Laboratory project is going very well. I took some photos on Friday after taking delivery of my SSL System T broadcast console, which arrived in the most handsome-looking, carefully packed crate I have ever seen. Can't wait to get this installed so the lab is finally fully ready. Separately, I am doing a demo of the latest and greatest RED camera system at RED headquarters on Tuesday for use in the laboratory. Everything is coming together well.

Ventures

These are my current business ventures:

Attorney - general civil litigation and complex family law, with nineteen years of experience and thirty-eight trials (plus three JAMS arbitrations). Also available for complex private investigations, including missing persons/homicide and cyber/corporate espionage. Software platform Slash for licensing to fellow attorneys who want a non-Clio solution.

Rællic® - Advanced Information Systems and custom guitars.

The Polite Gunfighter® - legal program for CCW holders in California.

Tutorials and Articles

Here are my popular tutorials/articles/videos:

Linux tips and tricks - random tips learned the hard way. 🔥

Creative writing - I seem to have an unusual connection to the ether that gives me a limitless supply of material.

Jack Reacher - "He doesn't care about the law. He doesn't care about proof. He only cares about what's right." That's why Jack Reacher is my hero. This is a writeup of the 2012 film, which is my favorite version of Jack Reacher because Tom Cruise fits the role so well-- and the film doesn't shy away from controversial topics, such as mass murder and sexual homicide. Coming soon.

Run your own email server Howto - have you ever wanted to take full control of your email? Not for the faint of heart.

Privoxy on macOS Howto - have you ever wanted to block ads on the web on your Mac without having to install MacPorts? This is for you.

Lattice™ - next-gen user interface for slash.law, featuring a novel technique for focus detection and raising.

Andy's Dashboard - a free charting solution for server administrators.

Introduction to microexpressions - my guest lecture at Stanford.

Unboxing a new IBM Model M keyboard - travel back in time to 1988.

Andy's Hardware - market research on the concept of a Made in USA hardware store.

100G office network Howto - the fastest, most reliable office LAN that money can buy.

10 gigabit networking - a howto on my 10 gig office setup, which rocks.

The Forever War - my superfan-level tribute to the greatest science fiction novel of all time.

A fractal crystal lattice of Gaussian primes - research on the fractality of prime numbers in Mathematica.

My trademark concept art - I commissioned this piece from a vision in my head, and I decided to start using it as my background. It really fits me, I think.

Hall of Fame: services, products, and service providers that I use and strongly recommend.

Hall of Shame: if someone gets me to the point of posting a whole web page about them on here, you know they went way too far in whatever they were doing wrong.