I am all alone on a Monday in the Levison Towers. The partners cleared out early Friday for the long weekend, and the staff left five minutes after the last partner’s car cleared the garage. While it is always hard to find anyone around late on a Friday as summer wanes, it is impossible on a holiday weekend. Labor Day is here, sounding the last hurrah for another summer.
Maybe it is my age, but I hate to see the end of summer. The ones behind me seem even more glorious than they were, and the ones ahead are certainly fewer. Allaying this malaise must be what the Great Spirit had in mind when it created that all important fifth season, which not coincidentally begins as summer ends: football season. Arguably, I was in the office this weekend to prepare for an upcoming trial. It may likely be that I can watch football in peace here at the office, as my colleagues won’t be near this place again for days and my family wouldn’t dare disturb me here. Truth be told, it is probably a little bit of both.
It didn’t really register with me that September 6 was the Tuesday after a holiday when I agreed to this trial setting. Trying a lawsuit the day after a holiday means that the lawyer’s holiday is forfeited, or at least continued to a later date. Knowing that my opponent has lost a holiday as well means that we are both punished for not settling the case. That fact comforts neither of us. I passed precious few cars on the way to the office this weekend. While I know that these weren’t all the cars of trial lawyers, I mused about how many might be. If you are preparing for a trial that starts the day after a holiday, you might be a trial lawyer.
If your calendar is full of “maybes,” often in pencil rather than ink, you might be a trial lawyer. Lawsuits are full of delays, and tomorrow’s trial setting might really be next year’s trial setting – part of the reason I am in my office on a holiday weekend. If you use short form words like depo, rogs or med recs, you might be a trial lawyer. I am sure every profession and trade has its own jargon. The law is full of jargon, much of it in Latin. Why we need even more unintelligible language is beyond me. Res ipsa loquitur.
If you are on your second wife and your first heart attack, you might be a trial lawyer. (Sorry if this seems sexist, but “spouse” doesn’t work nearly as well in this truism as “wife” does. And women trial lawyers don’t have heart attacks as often as men, statistically. Maybe they are lucky, or maybe they just have better sense than to ignore their health. And their spouses.) If you refer to your client as “my guy,” you might be a trial lawyer. Too often we forget that it is the client’s case, not ours. But a true trial lawyer protects his client as much as possible–that “guy” is his.
If you refer to a horrible event in someone’s life as a good case, you might be a trial lawyer. Or you could be a jerk. Or both. Legend has it there was once a king who challenged his royal jeweler to make him a piece of jewelry that would help him keep his ego and his sadness in check. If the jeweler was successful, he would receive a large box of gold. If he failed, he would forfeit his house and lands. After wringing his hands for weeks, the jeweler arrived at the palace with a small box and a gold ring inside. Inscribed inside the ring were the words “this too shall pass.”
The jeweler left with his box of gold. If it takes you about as long to stop moping over a loss as it does to stop celebrating a victory, you might be a trial lawyer. If you kneel in the endzone after a great play in prayer and pointing to the heavens, you might be a football player. You are definitely not a trial lawyer. Trial lawyers know that they will win when they shouldn’t and lose when they shouldn’t. Trial lawyers hope that the powers that be are not random, but logical even if we don’t always understand the logic. Endzone celebrations are for athletes, not trial lawyers. But they are entertaining on this hot summer day, and they beat trial prep by 110 percent. Indulge me if I can’t stop watching them.
©2011 under analysis llc. under analysis is a nationally syndicated column of the Levison Group. Spencer Farris is the founding partner of The S.E. Farris Law Firm in St Louis, Missouri. Credit to Jeff Foxworthy of course for this blatant ripoff, I mean tribute to his work. Comments or criticisms about this column may be sent c/o this newspaper or directly to the Levison Group via email at comments@levisongroup.com.