While returning to law after losing the election for a fourth term as New York City mayor in 1989 was the “logical next step,” Edward Koch said in his 1999 autobiography, he admitted that “if you had asked me I might have told you I never expected to go back to the practice of law.”

The law—Koch wrote in “I’m Not Done Yet!”—”would not make me happy. There would have to be other activities to consume my energy, interest and talents.”