What to do if...you think it's time to stop?

 

What To Do If....

           

You find yourself agreeing with a John Grisham character that it is time to leave the practice of law. It is over. No more. No more ringing phones, no more needy clients, no more money dances by the mailbox, no more concerns. Off to [insert the dream destination of your choice].

Before closing the office door, some wrapping up must be done. First, call the State Bar (to which you have been paying money lo these many years) for advice on what to do with all those files. Follow their directions.

Off to--destination unknown

 Second, arrange for the garage sale. Run an ad in Res Ipsa Loquitur or your local paper announcing the date, time and place. Walk through your office placing a little price sticker on each item, and taking a stab at an appropriate price for it. On sale day, wear casual clothes; assemble your cash box, a favorite chair and a cooler filled with the beverage of your choice. Place yourself comfortably by the door to the office, greet those entering, take the money of those leaving and enjoy the day.

Next, write the obituary. Here is a suggested obit:

Deceased. Beloved practice of J. Attorney. Age: many years. Closed this day following many battles for the rights of others. It is survived by numerous satisfied and one, maybe two, not-so-satisfied clients. A memorial service will be held at the home of J. Attorney on February 26, 2013. Please bring a “passing” dish.

Finally, plan for the memorial service. The memorial service declares that a death has occurred. It commemorates the life that has been lived. It offers friends, family and clients the opportunity to pay tribute to the deceased practice. So, a little planning is necessary.

What to do with the remains. What are the remains? The bar card is the one tangible piece of evidence of our existence as attorneys. Select a coffin for the bar card. A shoe box will do nicely. Line it with satin or the fabric of your choice. Place the card on a little satin pillow. Some cultures adorn the “body” with amulets for future use. You might consider placing a yellow legal pad and a pen in the box to assist the card in its next life.

It is probably not necessary to decorate the outside of the box. A simple label: “Here lies the bar card of J. Attorney. RIP” could be affixed with tape. Place the coffin in the front parlor or other prominent place in your home for viewing. A few pictures of you in action might be appropriate.

Cremation or burial? Cremation is viewed by some as liberating the spirit of the deceased. Certainly your spirit will be liberated with the demise of the card. In winter, cremation might be the best solution. The ground is hard, it is cold and no one wants to go outside. If you have a fireplace, use it for the cremation. If not, a barbecue grill could be called into service. This would force folks to go outside, but only briefly. The ashes? Scatter them about the yard or preserve them in an urn to be displayed in a place of honor.

The service prior to the cremation also needs to be planned. It is possible to call an acting school to hire mourners who will wail and grieve. Not to your liking?

A more conservative approach would be to ask people to say a few words about the practice of law. Examples: “The Law: It has honoured us, may we honour it.” (Webster) Or “Wrest once the law to your authority: To do a great right, do a little wrong.” (Shakespeare) On Lawyers: “It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do.” (E. Burke)

Or, the line we all know so well: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” (Shakespeare)

Following the lengthy eulogies, the assigned pallbearers can carry the “coffin” to the fireplace for disposal. Carefully placing the coffin on its funeral pyre you light the fire. A toast might be in order (see above for suggested words). A ceremonial tossing of the paper cups into the fireplace would be appropriate. Once the remains are reduced to ashes, they can be scattered to the four winds in your back yard.

Available at all E-readers

 Ring. Ring. “Attorney J? This is Mrs. Gotbucks. I was referred to you by a former satisfied and happy client. My problem is....”

You are off and running. Back to the law. All other plans are canceled. For as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” When all is said and done, we do enjoy the experience.

Read more light-hearted essays capturing the essence of lawyers and lawyering in "Why Do We Do That? Commentary on lawyers and the law."

The legal world is changing.

Lawyer Richard Susskind

“Come with me on a journey into the future,” said Richard Susskind speaking to law students, lawyers and friends of the legal world at Michigan State University College of Law in East Lansing, MI recently.

“Try to anticipate the world as it will be in the future,” said Susskind, “and then you will be at the right place in the future to meet it.”

“For example,” he said, “Black and Decker makes power tools. One day at a meeting of executives, the trainer put the picture of the power drill on the screen and asked what is it we sell? The group answered ‘we sell power drills. That is not what we sell,’ answered the trainer, ‘we sell what our customers want and what they want is the hole. And your job is find ever more creative ways to give the customers what they want. “

“That’s your challenge, too,” he said to the packed audience. “What is the hole in the wall? What is the fundamental value we will bring to the communities we serve?”

That value is legal knowledge and he recommended that the lawyers think of ways to impart that knowledge to clients faster, quicker and cheaper.

Legal services, he said, are unaffordable, whether they be for the man in the street or the multi-national corporation. He sees the challenge for the next ten or fifteen years to be how to deliver more legal services at less cost.

He recommends two strategies, the efficiency strategy and the collaboration strategy. “In the spirit of online collaboration, why can’t all those with the same problem go to one advisor and share that advice amongst the group,” he asked.

The efficiency strategy means cutting the cost of legal services. “What I see in all the places I visit is repetitive, administrative work being done by young lawyers where their skills are not needed at all. “

He argues against the one-to-one basis of giving legal advice. “we can find ways to make that information available to all.” He calls it multi-sourcing, noting that many legal problems can be solved with standard documents such as wills, landlord/tenant agreements, or basic contracts.

Technology

By 2050, one desktop computer will have more processing ability than all of humanity put together. More people in the world have mobile phones than toothbrushes.

He urged lawyers to embrace the technology, which can allow video conferencing with clients, other lawyers, expert witnesses, or the courts. He mentioned Watson, the computer with Artificial Intelligence, which won the Jeopardy challenge, as an example of a machine created to solve legal problems.

The future for lawyers includes accepting technology, changing the way lawyers do business. There are a whole new sets of jobs for new lawyers, he said, including legal knowledge engineer, legal technologists, lawyers who have other skills in addition to law skills, legal process analysts, on-line dispute resolution consultants or legal risk managers. 

“Yes,” he concluded, “I accept that we will have less of a need for the one on one consultant advisor but there will be a whole bundle of legal services that will be needed.  The remarkable challenge you have coming into the profession is not just joining an established profession but in shaping the new profession.”

My book of light-hearted commentary of lawyers and the law will be out as an e-book soon. Look for it at your favorite e-book seller.

Techies and law

Brett Burney explains the techie world to the legal one

Recently I attended a workshop on the use of the iPad for legal professionals sponsored by the State Bar of Michigan. It was fascinating.

In preparation for same, I purchased an iPad. (My choice? A new roof for the garage or a new iPad. The garage can wait a month.) I love it and recommend it to everyone, if only for the Angry Birds game.

Brett Burney, was the speaker. He is a lawyer who spends his time on bridging the gap between the legal and technology frontiers of electronic discovery while also explaining to lawyers how to use their new toy, the iPad. 

There are so many ways the iPad can assist lawyers in their everyday lives, both professionally and personally. While the iPad can't take the place of the laptop, it can be used to view media, read documents and surf the web. It can:

• replace the stacks of paper a lawyer shuffles everyday--it is a virtual folder that holds hundreds and thousands of documents
• for hearings and trials it can hold all of the exhibits, marked and ready to be displayed to the judge and jury with a touch of a finger
• be a source of entertainment, holding music, games and movies for you to watch when a change of pace is needed. 

If you need an excuse to buy an iPad, merely think of walking into court without stacks of paper files, just your iPad. That alone should convince you of the wisdom of buying one.

Want to know more about lawyers? My collection of essays "Why do we do that?" Commentary on Lawyers and Law will be available in the fall to upload on your iPad or your favorite e-reader. Watch for it. 

The land of law and lawyers

 

I have lived in the land of the law and lawyers officially for 28 years and unofficially for 22 years before that when I married a law student and suffered the pontificating law students are prone to do with their little bit of knowledge. I left his world of law after a few years and did not officially begin my own metamorphosis from layman to lawyer until at age 48 I started my first year of law school. I was hooked and every task I have attempted lo these many years has been in the legal field, weeds and all.

I found, much to my pleased surprise, that I enjoyed the company of lawyers. We are a highly intelligent, tolerant, and funny bunch. We take on tasks that would destroy the lesser beings, representing folks from all levels of society at their worst and sometimes at their best. We joyously take on each new client that comes in the door, wanting to believe what they tell us while knowing that a little doubt is in order. After all, truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.

When the toils of battle wore me down and I found my patience wanting, I retired from active practice. I joined the ranks of the volunteers roaming around the world assisting lawyers from other cultures with whatever they needed assisting with. Sometimes they didn’t even know that they needed the help we offered but they accepted it graciously and probably cast it aside when we left to assist others who didn’t know what they needed. I spent a year in the Republic of Moldova doing what I could to ‘save the world for democracy.’ I like to think I left something behind. I know I brought a lot back with me.

Now I spend my time writing for, about, and with lawyers. I attend legal functions, writing about them for a legal newspaper. I write essays about us, trying to help others understand our strange world. I take the words others write for their blogs, websites, and newsletters translating them into plain English that clients can understand and act upon.