By now, you’ve likely heard that Tom Brady’s dimpled chin and fluid throwing mechanics vanquished the noble and righteous crusade of Timothy Richard Tebow. Though, in what came as a surprise to Tebow critics (read “haters”) everywhere, they were never on the field at the same time. I watched this game as a palate cleanser since my Chicago Bears promptly shat in the woods. I was hoping for an entertaining game that would allow Tebow the chance to pull off his late game heroics once again.
And then, in good Christian fashion, steal Brady’s wife.
For the last two months the sports world has been going nuts discussing this topic. For those of you living under a rock, the learned consensus apparently is Mr. Tebow is a quarterback that has no business playing in the NFL let alone going 7-2 as a starter this season. Pundit after pundit, fan after fan attack everything about the guy from his bad throwing mechanics, to the offense tailored to his strengths or that he apparently is a Christian. If you’ve gotten to this point you can probably guess that this game sparked my intellect and inquisitive personality actually, I just didn’t have an idea for this column until an hour before my deadline to ask who is the Tim Tebow of the legal world?
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If anyone says they became a lawyer for reasons other than winning, please slap them straight in the face. Please slap especially hard those who say “I just want to help people” because, frankly, you can only help people if you are winning. Duh.
Right now the competition that I am aiming to win is a simple one: end the year with the largest settlement in the firm. Gaudy? Yes. Shallow? Absolutely. The only thing I care about? You had better believe it. The problem with going for this goal is that it pits you head to head with the partners. You know, the individuals who have been in the business for 30 years and the ones who can take away your chance to set the yearly record just because they feel like it.
Or they may have legitimate concerns that I may be in over my head. Not that I pay attention to these pesky things.
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New lawyers are now starting life having been sworn in to jurisdictions across the land. If these new lawyers had it like I did, they went to the swearing-in ceremony, had a nice lunch with family, and returned to their full-time occupations of being a gainfully unemployed Xbox-video-game-playing lawyer.
You’d be amazed how many jobs you can apply for between lives on Modern Warfare.
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I have a friend who ran the New York Marathon this past weekend and, from my out of shape perspective, that’s an amazing accomplishment. Twenty six and two-tenths miles isn’t a short drive, let alone an easy run, and the mere task of training for a marathon is a grueling process. It’s been said that if you start to doubt yourself at mile ten, you are in trouble; if you start to doubt yourself at mile 20, that’s completely normal, as no human is supposed to actually run more than twenty miles in one time. And in order to finish the race, it’s you versus your mind. This allegory, to me, sums up the practice of law.
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Dear Mr. or Ms. Commercial Litigator in the Courtroom Sitting Next to Me:
Hi, my name is Namby and I am intruding on your domain. This is your typical courtroom experience, not mine, and as this is a foray that I seldom make, I am trying to take in all that I witness and learn the secrets to your exorbitant billable rate. I bill at a little less than your paralegal bills at and, as such, I know that I have something to gleen from your awesomeness.
Or at least your firm’s perceived awesomeness.
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Life has a way of reminding you that, even with a monstrous ego, you aren’t that important. This watershed moment, for me, happened about four weeks ago when everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. It was fun, let me tell you. Adding to this shit sandwich that I was facing on a minute-by-minute basis was a partner hellbent on causing me to lose it.
Which would have resulted in yours truly being featured on Above the Law for going postal. Only it would have been without my nom de plume.
Normally, I can deal with the simple work that a partner can dump on me throughout the day by doing it with a smile on my face (while imagining him being hit by a bus). It’s this simple imaging process that allows me to get through the day to the bottle of scotch I’ve got sitting on my bar.
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My doctor friends tell me that of all the medical television shows that have aired, Scrubs got it right about doctors. In one particular episode, the general theme is that the patients have fifteen seconds to talk with their doctor before the doctor starts tuning out no matter what the patient may say. For me, this is at least five seconds more than I need when I am talking with a potential client to determine whether or not there is an actual case to be prosecuted.
In all honesty, I can usually predict within the first sentence they utter if they have a legitimate case or not. Like 90% (or better) as soon as they open their mouth. I’ve got it down to a pseudo science. If it is over the phone or in person, every aspect of the communication process is taken into account in my knee jerk analysis. Typically, if they sound smart, I’ll listen past the first three words, unless the words are:
“You a lawyer?”
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Time and time again I am reminded that lawyers are supposed to counsel their clients on the randomly stupid shit that they do to prevent them from getting into trouble. What we need more of is lawyers counseling lawyers on how to react when they have the opportunity to do something stupid. My gut reaction in most of these situations is to (1) swear loudly or (2) point and laugh. Unfortunately this is not always the advisable nor professionally prudent plan of action.
For the purposes of this column, I present you with several real life situations that I have found myself stuck in. I then give you a hint as to what I think I should have done… instead of what I did.
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It’s the middle of August and all motivation has left me. The summer is nearly gone, my summer associate has returned to school, and I’ve returned to my non-summer role as the holder of the partner’s slopbucket. The calendar has reached that page where there is absolutely nothing of importance going on in the office. No court appearances, no depositions, no client meetings, no anything of substantive legal value. Further, I don’t feel the need to get a head start on anything that is pending or just around the corner.
In other words, I’ve become useless.
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I am not Denny Crane. This is sad for me.
I am not the lawyer that has gone his entire career without a loss. My first trial as a first-year associate was a glorious defeat. Forget the one-time loss, I am a lawyer that loses in some facet almost every day of the work-week. But that’s the thing, it’s part of what I bargained for so that I could be in this business. This law thing is not for those who cannot cope with losing.
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