After receiving his graduate law degrees from Yale, the author engaged in corporate practice for a number of years in both the public and private sectors. Now semi-retired, he divides his time between his wife, children and grandchildren in San Francisco and a business office in Manila. He owns an extensive collection of chess sets, which betrays his love for the game, as well as a DVD library that reveals his interest as a cineaste in classic and foreign films. When not playing tennis or golf, he reads contemporary writings in popular history and culture and surfs the Internet regularly.