"If you must have motivation, think of your paycheck on Friday."
Started the day watching the bait boat behind the condo as the sun rose, checking his chofer traps for inventory he'll sell out by the pass later.
It's snapper season, an annual mania in these parts that almost died in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but now has robustly returned judging from the Facebook photos of friends holding up massive, mercury laden red snapper on bloody boat decks. Those chofers that bumbled into the trap will soon be in the livewell of some expensive center console boat, twenty miles offshore, waiting to be impaled on a circle hook by a drunk professional of some sort, playing hooky on a Friday.
I used to play along, but I was always hot and seasick on those offshore trips, then droopy by noon because of all the breakfast beers we chugged on our way offshore. I'll be sixty in 29 days, and now don't pretend to enjoy things I don't enjoy just to be sociable.
When I said I awakened to the bait guy, that wasn't exactly true. Rather, my gut woke me up a little before four with a bout of GI disturbance that still hasn't completely played out. I cooked a steak for myself last night, and ate the whole thing although I was ready to stop about halfway through. Now paying the price.
My slumber was also complicated by the fact that I have two evidentiary hearings today, when sometimes I'll have two of these in a year. They're both strange hearings, one on Zoom and one in person, and both cases annoy me as a waste of resources. I imagine the judge will be annoyed, as well.
Adding to my ire, staff has fallen into the habit of simply not filing things after they're approved, looking confused and cow eyed when I ask what became of a motion I circulated a week ago. "Oh, was that okay to file?"
In the age of AI, I'm beginning to come around to the notion that these folks are a very expensive, not particularly functional part of my practice. I need to dig into the technology that would allow me to keep my own calendar and generate my own letters and the like. It's out there; I just need to take the time to learn it.
I figure that's nearly a six figure saving, right there. Working less while still making a good living means working smarter. And the current arrangement isn't smart.
Nor is our benighted pay and benefits system. Yesterday I met with our accountant to go over tax stuff, and we fell into a discussion of what could be deducted among tuition, aircraft costs, travel, and the like.
The bottom line is that all those things are deductible if the firm pays and simply reduces my end-of-year. In other words, I'm paying 35% more for all that than I need to pay. But the firm will never, in a million years, enter such an arrangement. "If we do it for you, we'll have to do it for everyone."
So, do it for everyone. I can't imagine the young guys with families want to pay more taxes.
I've been down this road on a fairly minor issue early in my tenure here, and drew a sharp rebuke that we can't establish a precedent--what if someone else makes a request that we change how we keep our books?
If I owned myself, I'd make all those decisions for myself. It'd be like getting a massive raise, all legitimate. And on top of shedding all that nonfunctional overhead.
But for now I need to ponder the sham pleadings rule at FRCP 1.150, after a young, overearnest lawyer had the temerity to accuse me and my client of filing a sham pleading. Welcome to my professional world. I won't have to play act the disdain and contempt I feel for the whole exercise, but disdain doesn't win hearings, even (especially) when you're supposed to win. Time to lean into my notes one more time.
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