In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Later he kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden and decreed that from that date forward, people would have to work very, very hard, just to survive.
From then until recently, if you chose Law as your profession, you did not have to read much further into the Bible to understand what was expected of you.
A young lawyer asked me for advice. He was contemplating making a jump from Big Law to a smaller firm, for the usual reason that he wanted to work less and enjoy life more. I was not completely sure that it was the right move for him.
I once proposed raising our hourly rates and was met with furious resistance by the head of our litigation department who assured me that no assessment officer would ever permit lawyers to charge the amounts that I had proposed. He was a brilliant litigator and he was completely correct. However, he was not much of a businessperson and had not considered how rarely our accounts were assessed. I was more than willing to lose all of the assessments and rake in the extra dollars on more than 99% of our files.
I have a theory about life which I espouse in my less optimistic moments. My theory is that for many people, things become less and less familiar as they age. What is socially acceptable changes, people dress and act differently, friends and family move away and pass away, technology changes, and so on. Eventually everything is so unfamiliar that they do not feel that they belong in the world, and they are then ready to die of natural causes.
The title of this post is taken from an advertisement for Dr. Pepper’s zero sugar soft drink and is a nifty introduction to the topic of entitlement.
One of my minor pet peeves is advertisements that tell me that I “deserve” things. How do people trying to sell me stuff know what I deserve? On the other hand, one of my major pet peeves is people who actually believe that they deserve stuff – especially when they have not worked to earn it.
“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” Jerry Seinfeld
Early in my career I spoke to a group of lawyers about opinion letters. I was awful. I read the entire presentation, which was chock full of technical details, and bored the audience to tears. To this day, if I close my eyes, I can still hear them snoring and crying at the same time.
“Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.” Chinese proverb
The Chinese were on to something. We all make the mistake of teaching things to younger generations based on our own experience. Here is some of the bad advice that I gave to my Associates:
I was a super-fantastic lawyer. Really, almost everyone says so. And yet, there were a few clients who did not appreciate what I did for them or what it cost to have me do it. Luckily for me, during most of my career Google Reviews were not much of a thing. And until they were, those few and far between ignorant and unappreciative ingrates who did not like me did not have much of a public forum for spreading their lies.
This morning someone remarked that much of my writing about the legal profession is a tad negative. She said, “you practiced law for a long time; you were good at what you did; you made enough money to retire and travel the world. Surely you must have liked something about being a lawyer, didn’t you?”
Susan and Bob are unhappy spouses who own and operate a business. Sue enacts some resolutions to remove her husband as a director and officer of the corporation. Then she goes to the office before business hours, changes the locks, tells Bob that he is fired, and hires a security guard.
Bob shows up for work and is refused entry. He calls the police. The cops come and tell him that they are just there to keep the peace, which they will do by preserving the status quo. Since Sue is on the inside, she gets to stay there. As Bob is on the outside, he has to stay there.