Law v. Life

Back to work

With Christmas quickly fading into the background, I was back at work for most of the day today. Unfortunately, even on a holiday, so many emergencies came up that I didn't get any of the things done that I went in intending to do. I wonder when I am going to get to the point where it feels like things are under control and everything isn't an emergency.

A Very Un-Merry Christmas

It was a very humbling Christmas. Our closest family friends lost their home to fire this morning. My sister and I arrived at my parents' just after two of them arrived, while the other two were still at the hospital. They are all physically okay, except for one severely burned hand, but they are far from okay emotionally. They have lost their house, their possessions, and most heartbreaking to them, their pets and a dog they were watching for a friend. More importantly, they have lost their sense of security and home. They are confused and shocked and overwhelmed by emotion. They have so many friends who care and at the moment they have their choice of places to stay, but that was of little comfort today. They don't want to ever seen the remnants of their home again, but they can't imagine living anywhere else. There are so many things that need to be taken care of, but every time they begin to think about that and plan and problem solve, it just becomes too much to handle. Everyone is safe, but no one is the same. One of the few things that made it was several bags of Christmas presents which were in an upstairs closet. That was actually quite a blessing, not for what was in the packages, but because it made it so that there was a break in the day where we were all able to open presents together and temporarily push reality aside. The most ironic present to survive was a roasting pan. My father managed to turn what was supposed to be a gourmet dinner for six into a huge buffet for sixteen. Everyone was well fed and surrounded by people who loved them. Still, there was the constant knowledge that nothing we did could really help or soothe them. Tomorrow they will wake up and it will not be Christmas and everyone else will be going about their life again, but their lives will still be changed forever. I hope that they also wake up tomorrow comforted by being together and safe and knowing how many people are there for them.

Merry Christmas!

I figured out one good thing about being alone at Christmas. (Besides it being a whole lot cheaper). With no presents in the house for me to open, I could actually sleep last night. I still woke up excited like a little kid, but I didn't get up at 6am and run out to turn the Christmas lights on and stare at the tree and the presents. It gives me the illusion that I have matured, but really I know better. Now, I am on my way to a day of driving back and forth between parents' houses. It should be a good, but hectic day.

Shot through the heart!

I just watched this week's How I Met Your Mother, and it was great. Mostly because they played the intro to You Give Love A Bad Name six times, plus the one time the characters sang it. I totally approve of Barney's theory that to get in the mood you need all highs, which equals Bon Jovi. My friends disagree when I play Bon Jovi over and over in my car. But then I guess they just don't want to get in the mood. Whatever I do this New Year's, it is going to involve a whole lot of singing along to You Give Love A Bad Name.

Shopping fun.

Four hours of shopping and all I got was some lotion and wrapping paper.  Remarkably, the parking at Polaris wasn't bad.  I guess I'm trying again tomorrow.

I HEART NY

I had such a nice weekend in New York. I went shopping at Bryant Park and in SoHo, but I didn't actually buy much. I went to Rockefeller Center. That was horrible because of the crowds, but other people wanted to go. I had good food. (If you ever want delicious eggs benedict and mimosas, go to Manon). I hung out with friends. The only disappointment was that I was there to see a friend's show on Broadway, but it closed a week earlier. I already had the plane tickets when I found out though, so I really had no choice but to go away for the weekend. Now I am totally in the mood to go on a longer, more relaxing vacation. Unfortunately I am exhausted from the trip, mostly because I flew home Monday morning and went straight to work, and then ended up having to work until after 10pm. Tonight is going to be a very early night, so hopefully tomorrow I will have the energy to finish my Christmas shopping after work.

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I thought the bar exam was bad...

The last two days were truly painful. Almost nothing annoys me as much as having my time wasted. And this was truly a waste of time. In theory, it makes sense to give new lawyers an overview of what to expect, how to handle the new pressures of the job, some basic practical knowledge, and that sort of thing. In reality, it was one person after another droning on and on about how we should do pro bono work in the least inspiring manner possible. The substantive classes were slightly better. The first two I attended were residential real estate and basic estate planning, and both speakers were very good and as engaging as possible under the circumstances. The problem is, every subject is either too basic or just something you're not the least bit interested in. Thank God it's over. From now on I can choose which CLE classes to attend and hopefully will never be this bored again. It made depositions seem fun. Or staring at a wall.

The best part of the last two days was definitely getting to catch up with Flower Girl. However, she wants a new name. So, she will be P.C., which will bug her a little because of it's initial connotations, but it stands for Prosecutor Chick. P.C. made the last two days tolerable. Hopefully, from now on we can hang out in a much more enjoyable environment.

I am going to New York tomorrow! I'm going to visit mesogay! I can't wait! I'm going to go shopping! Hurray!

Baby Lawyer Class

Tomorrow and Friday is "New Lawyer Training." About four years ago, the Ohio Supreme Court decided that all new lawyers in Ohio have to take 12 hours of CLE that somehow relates to being a new lawyer. That means we have an entire day of professional responsibility, time management, and stuff like that. Then Friday we have a survey of substantive law. Basically, if it's an area you are interested in and know anything about, it is going to be too basic. And otherwise, it is just going to be too brief to be useful. Good thing I signed up for classes with a friend. I'm actually always looking for good CLE to attend, but I am not expecting the next two days to be especially useful. It is just going to feel so much like school, with so many people there and all those familiar faces who it might be nice to not see for a while, and certainly not all in one place. Not to be negative or anything. There are always a few people at these events who I am very happy to see. Speaking of which, I have two best friends from law school - flower girl and mesogay. I am super excited to catch up with flower girl tomorrow, and then I am visiting mesogay in New York this weekend. And for the few hours in between is our company Christmas party. With all that to look forward to, it almost makes me forget about the boring parts of the next couple days.

Just do it

It feels so good to complete a project at work. A couple weeks ago I was given a pretty simple assignment. I did a little research and talked to another attorney who knows a lot about the subject, and reported back to the partner who gave me the assignment. He's not big on memos, so I have learned to always give him an oral answer first. Well, he said he would like a quick memo on it to give to the client. Sounded easy enough. But even if I can describe it in ten minutes, it is not that easy to sit and write out a concise, plain language version of a major area of contract law. I got started on it right away, but tons of other urgent projects kept getting in the way. And when I say urgent, I really mean it. So I kept putting it off. I even put it off to do two other projects for the same lawyer that were more urgent. But the client called a couple of times, and I knew he was getting impatient, so this afternoon I sat down determined to get the memo done. In the midst of it, he called me. "How is that memo going?" "I'm working on it." "When will it be done?" "I'm working on it now..." "When will it be done???" "Today." "Good." Click. He saw me in the hall a little later rubbing my eye, and jokingly said I shouldn't be crying about it, in a way that told me he wasn't at all upset with me for being a little slow, he just needed it for the client. So, with only two or three interruptions for ultra-urgent matters, I worked on his memo all afternoon and pretty late into the evening. I almost quit a couple of times, knowing I would get in before him in the morning and could probably finish it then. But I kept writing and researching. By the way, I hate it when there is some super obvious point of law that you want to just write but you have to find a citation, and it takes you forever because the courts just take it as a given too. Anyway, at 8:45 I put the memo in his in-box and felt the kind of relief and satisfaction that I don't get to experience with my normal frantic pace of signing complaints and writing motions and answering phone calls and basically doing a million things at once. Now tomorrow I have to get another project finished that I have been avoiding, and this one will be much more painful. But I am just going to keep looking forward to the feeling of being done.