The Rationale Behind the New Sidebar Header Photo

My wife has known about this blog almost since its inception, but I don't think she's ever read it. She knows it is therapeutic for me to get my thoughts down. But she's not that familiar with the overall tenor of the blog.

This weekend, I added the photo you see under the "About Me and this Blog" heading in the sidebar. My wife, sitting next to me on the sofa, where I was working on my laptop, noticed the photo.

"Oh, that's such a sad photo!" she said.

"It's a sad blog," I responded.

I think she may read it now.

On the brighter side, I've lightened up the blog.  No more black background, a little more color.  A little more cheery.

UPDATE (10/29/08):  Maybe I should have said this is a sad blog so far.

I Should Have Such Problems

A couple of weeks ago, a lawyer in Nevada named Tami Cowden ran a couple of posts on her Appealing in Nevada blog about the odd number of resources available to lawyers who want to transition out of practice.

In her first post, she wondered, do other professions act like this?

In her second, she hits on one of the reasons that lawyers get discouraged about practicing law, and puts it in personal terms when she writes: "[I]n my more cynical moments, I have described commercial litigation as working for wealthy people who can’t get along."

I think that is a very common sentiment among litigators, especially among associates in big law firms. I had the same feeling myself on occasion when I was an associate. I even had an associate from the adverse firm express that sentiment to me about the case in which we faced each other! So, like many lawyers, I thought at times that there simply had to be better uses of my time.

I acted on that impulse, but by going into a different area of law rather than leaving it entirely.

Now, of course, I long for a few well-heeled clients, no matter how inane their problems, as long as I could turn those problems into paying work. Trust me, all you associates complaining about how your work is not rewarding — it could be a lot worse. You could be in my shoes. That thought won't get you through thirty years of an unsatisfying career, but it should provide at least temporary solace. Perhaps it will at least keep your work from suffering or give you a more sober view of your options.

I'm not trying here to belittle the concerns of lawyers facing career dissatisfaction. Remember, I was once in your shoes. I'm just providing a little perspective.

By the way. Ms. Cowden's second post goes on to describe a particularly satisfying occasion, which is worth reading about.

Back Up and Running

One of the problems with a struggling practice (beside the obvious financial hardship) is that it causes one — or causes me, more accurately — to think from time to time that if I can just make it past — X being whatever obstacle I see in my way — then things will improve. There are a couple of problems with that approach.

I'll illustrate both problems by analogizing to my first (and, to date, only) century (100-mile bike ride), in which the course ran through the Sierra foothills (but it was not the California Death Ride, which would have been impossible for me). Suffice it to say that I finished, but that I wasn't in nearly the shape I should have been.

Now, to the problems.

First, X might not go away. Because the century course ran through the foothills, there were many twisty ascents, and the view around each curve was usually obstructed by evergreens, so you couldn't usually tell what was around the next turn, let alone how far it was to the summit. If I had a nickel for every time during that ride that I looked up in exhaustion and thought, "the summit has to be around the next curve" only to find yet another climbing turn in front of me, I would have been able to retire my student loan debt a few years early. What might not go away, or at least last far longer than you think you can stand in your practice? How about a lack of business, or perhaps some personal financial setbacks?

Second, even if the X is removed (or, better yet, overcome), that doesn't mean you have long to wait before you meet the next X. My relief at reaching each summit in the bike ride lasted just until I finished coasting back to the bottom, when it was time for the next climb. So, it's not necessarily going to be smooth sailing.

These thoughts are brought to mind by the fact that I finally replaced my computer and wireless internet card. That's one X out of the way . . . I no longer have to do a lot of work on my living room computer. And I cannot even being to convey how demoralizing that theft was. I really felt I was being kicked while I was down.

So, I'm wondering what my next X will be and when it will hit. Not in a sad sack, "poor me" sort of way, but in a "I want to be prepared" sort of way.

Whatever it is, it's nothing that more business can't help.

Please, Please Stop Asking Me for Free Legal Services

Image via Wikipedia I just can't stand it anymore. Since the exceptional low point nearly three weeks ago of having my computer stolen, at least six people have asked me to represent them for free. What gives? Why do you think I would do that? I'm barely scraping by here.

If you need free legal services, call a public service organization related to your concern or call your county bar association and see if they have a pro bono panel, i.e., a slate of lawyers willing to provide free representation in the right circumstances.

Stop calling me, unless you're prepared to pay a reasonable fee. I mean it. I'm beginning to feel like I have a "kick me" sign on my back. You're going to drive me insane.

To the Thief Who Stole My Computer

Around 5:30 a.m. on August 7 — I know the time from the alarm log — you broke the window to my office and pulled out my iMac, Fujitsu scanner, USB hub and wireless broadband card, and got away before response to the alarm arrived. Those items will cost me about $2,000 to replace.

I've waited this long to post because my feelings have vacillated over the last 20 days between wishing you had severed an artery when you broke the window to get in or that my iMac might accidentally fall into the tub while you're taking a bath (sinful thoughts, I know, and ones that I fight) and just trying to brush this off and carry on. My initial post contained both sentiments — ill will toward you and a defiant "you can't beat me, I will carry on" type of rah-rah BS.

I just don't know about the rah-rah any more. I've been struggling for years, I've been busting my ass nearly around the clock the last two months bringing in some fees for a change, I'm barely feeding my family, and around $20,000 in work recently melted away. I am hanging by a very thin thread — financially, emotionally, mentally. For a few days there, I was thinking that you actually did me in.

Then, some good news. It looks like the insurance company is going to come through with replacement value for everything. So, the struggle continues - even though I am currently using that money to live on and won't be able to replace the computer for a while.

I Wasn't Emotionally Prepared for My Move-Out

Well, you know that my lease recently ended.  And you know that I started with an office that was snazzier than I needed.  So, I should have been thrilled at the opportunity to downsize, and I was.

And yet, it has been a painful experience.  Packing up my office was a lot like those scenes you see in movies, where someone packs up the house they've always lived in, and every item they touch holds its own memory.  Except in those scenes, its almost always fond memories that are evoked.  In my real-life move out, the memories were almost all bad, about promise unfulfilled.

First, I was forced to face what a pack rat I've been.  All that paper!  most of which I didn't need and went straight into the recycling bin, where it should have gone months or years ago.

Them there was the substance of so many of those papers.  Lost opportunities.  Poor follow-up.  And in way, way too many cases, time wasted.

There were the memories of how excited I was to move into the office, certain of how impressed potential clients would be, and that I'd be making money within a year, two at most.  That unfulfilled expectation is really putting a damper on my hopes for the new place, though I know I have to learn from my past experience.

Anyway, those bad memories kept hitting me as I packed up the office, and it was really tough because my wife was helping me pack and our young daughter was there most of the day, too.  So it made me even more conscious than I usually am that those failures meant that I had failed my family.  Had I not been so busy with so much packing and moving to do, I don't know how long I would have dwelt on those thoughts.  As it was, thank God, I was so busy that I couldn't dwell on them.  Still, they were enough to stress me out, to make me short with my wife even as she was helping me.

Now that I think about it, this is a purely cathartic post.  Not much you can learn from it.  And I don't mean to scare anyone out of going solo.  But it this post instills a little fear in you, that's not a bad thing.

My Lease is Up! Time for a Fresh Look at Overhead.

You've seen me post previously about renting too much or too nice of an office.  That was a BIG mistake of mine.  Worse yet, I had an escape clause that I could have exercised after either of the first two years of the lease, and I decided each time not to exercise it.  Dumb.

At the end of the first year, I figured I still needed the nice space to impress those clients that were going to walk through the door "any day now."  After all, it had only been a year, and everything I'd read told me I was supposed to still be losing money (which I was), so I thought I'd take it another year.  The two-year point was the pint, after all, at which I was supposed to start making money.

So another year went by, time to either get out of the lease or stick it out for the full three-year ride.  To tell you the truth, I can't really remember why I didn't exercise the early termination clause.  I know it was a conscious decision (i.e., that I didn't just forget and miss the deadline), but I can't remember why I made it.  Could be that I had a burst of business at the time that both made it inconvenient to move and convinced me that prosperity was around the corner.  Could be I was just stubborn and wasn't willing to admit that I had bitten off more than I could chew.  After all, I still had money in the bank back then.  Whatever the reason, I stayed in the for the long haul.

Now, the three years is up, and none too soon.  Beautiful building, great landlord, nice location, even fair rent -- but even the fair rent is more than I can afford right now.  So I am downsizing quite a bit.  A home office wasn't practical, so I still had to rent space, but at only about 36% of the rent I've been paying for the last year.  That ought to help.

A friend of mine helped me move some of my office furniture into storage (another expense, but I'm hoping I'll need it again in another year or so, and storing it is much cheaper than buying the same quality all over again).  He said to me as we were carrying something down to the truck, "I don't mean to sound callous, but I remember asking you as you were moving in (he helped with that, too), 'Are you sure you need all this space and this nice of an office?'"  I remembered that very clearly . . . damn!.

The change in office is a good opportunity to reevaluate all of my overhead.

Phone lines and Internet ISP?  Gone!  It will be less expensive for me to use cell phone for voice, Sprint wireless broadband for Internet, MyFax for Internet faxing.  With the wireless broadband, I can drop my ISP.  No hard feelings towards any of my vendors.  The AT&T service was fine, and I would happily recommend DSL Extreme, which was great.  But money is money.

Westlaw subscription?  That $500-a-month monkey on my back is over in about three more months, and I'm letting it drop.  I actually love the service, but handy as it has proven to be (working on those briefs and memoranda late at night, after the law library closes), my client load was never consistent enough for me to be sure I'd have clients to pass the cost through to every month.  I ate a lot of it out of my pocket.  Doing without will require two things: (1) a satisfactory, low-cost alternative (Loislaw, maybe) and (2) the discipline to adjust my work habits so I'm not doing late-night work and can get heavy-duty research done at the library (which happens to make Westlaw available to its patrons) during the day.

(You may be wondering why I have to work late at night when business has generally been slow.  Two reasons: (1) when I got business, it was in spurts, and (2) ADD [I think].)

The combined savings in rent, phone, Internet, and Westlaw will be around $1300 per month.  Yeah!

In any event, I'm sure happy for these changes.  Combined with a recent uptick in business, they are giving me reason to hope -- for around the 10th time or so since I opened my practice, I'm afraid --  that prosperity is right around the corner.

Here I go!

Get Your ADD Under Control Before You Go Solo

That post title may strike you as tongue-in-cheek, but it's not. I'm deadly serious. And forgive all the background you're about to read before you get to the point of this post, but it's necessary.

Do I have Attention Deficit Disorder? I don't know for sure. I've always considered it an over-diagnosed "disorder." But I can tell you that since I started writing this post around 60 seconds ago, I've already thought of 5 other things to do and I almost left this page in the middle of typing this to run a Google search on one of those items.

I used to joke about having ADD. When I was an in-house general counsel, I used to come home frustrated with all the different things that had tugged at my attention diuring the day, with the result that I would hop from project to project. I'd come home and tell my wife, "It's as if I have adult ADD!"

Well, maybe I do. My wife is fairly convinced of it. She's been reading up on it because our daughter has dyslexia, and dyslexia and ADD often go hand in hand.

I'm not yet convinced, but I'm getting there. I know how my mind can flit from one thing to another. But I don't quite seem to fit the profile. According to the book I'm reading, Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder, the typical ADD sufferer is an underachiever and behavior problem in school and tends to "settle" for an unsatisfying marriage and career. That just doesn't describe me at all. I was near the top of my class in high school and law school (undergrad, where I majored in electrical engineering, was another story -- I barely finished in the top half of my class). And, to put it mildly, I was (for the most part) a "goody two shoes." And I sure didn't "settle" when it came to marrying or my career. I think I made out like a bandit in my choice of spouse and I am in the career that I want, and that I thoroughly enjoy when I am not being distracted . . . I'm just not sure I'll be able to make a living at it on my own.

No, school was no problem, nor was my coice of spouse or career. It's everything else I have a problem with.

But I also think I demonstrate the upside of ADD: I am a creative thinker. Sometimes, too creative, which can be a problem. I come up with a million ideas during any given project, most of which are eventually jettisoned, but can get in the way of the development of ideas that make it through to the end.

So, whether I technically have ADD or not, whether it's actually a "disorder" or not (regardless, it is a different way of thinking), I know that I am distracted from my tasks many times during the day. Sometimes, I go to the law library to work, even if I don't need to use its resources, just to eliminate distractions like internet access and administrative office tasks. (I'm not about to seek medication, and will not self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, which is apparently common.)

I have the potential to succeed despite ADD. So, my immediate steps are to become aware of how my mind works. I am now very often aware when I am being distracted and can correct much better than I used to.

The authors of Delivered from Distraction note that many highly successful business people have ADD. I've only looked at one case study so far (I'm not very far in the book), but the keys seem to be to concentrate on being the creative guy and delegating out all the admin stuff.

That can be tough to do when you're starting out as a solo with no staff, but it can be done. For example, I think Foonberg's advice to hire a bookkeeper is the best advice in his book. You can also get cost-effective help with typing, etc., maybe hire someone to come in one day a week to get all your filing up to date. The less organizing you have to do, the better -- at least that's what my ADD-addled mind leads me to believe.

What else am I doing? My wife is reading a book titled ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life, and that's next on my list. I've also discovered an ADD-specific blog: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey: Overcoming AD/HD & Depression With Lots Of Humor And Attitude (which looks especially promising because the blogger is, like me, very cautious about medicating for ADD). There are probably more out there, but I'll have to be careful not to over-commit.

So, finally to the point of this post. Be very honest with yourself about how you work. Have you been troubled by ADD? If you have, recognize it and plan for it. Start reading about it. I sure wish I had, instead of just joking about it.

UPDATE:  Ray Ward at the (new) legal writer has a post describing how distractions like e-mail and the telephone can interfere with getting actual work done.  I feel that distraction in spades.  Sequestering myself in the library is sometimes the only way to avoid it.