In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
And cut him 'til he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains
-The Boxer, Paul Simon
Already 83 degrees out there, and as muggy as a hot shower that's been left running all morning. And it was 82 at 5:30. I know this because I woke up at 5:15 to drive to the office to bring back the groceries I purchased late last night then left in the office fridge, so I could have a little milk in my cereal.
Ah, that moment of darkness in bed, alarm silenced, gazing out the window and savoring the last good part of the day. As soon as I flick the lamp switch and my feet hit the floor, it'll be a sprint for the next fifteen hours. No way to live, not at my age.
I told P last night that I'd go to the gym this morning, and I meant it at the time. Later, however, the European clients I've grown to dislike emailed my partner and me that they needed a call to go over some contract issues related to the construction of a plant in Florida, and they're seven hours later over there. So instead I've been preparing for a 7:30 call, a precursor to an 8:30 deposition prep session at the client's request, then two hearings and an attorney call I've been stiff-arming for weeks. Oh, and I have a memo of law due that could be dispositive of a huge chunk of the case I'm trying on Monday. I found out about that one over the weekend, as I was eating lobster, drinking good wine, and trying not to think about work for a few minutes.
Normally I'd palm off the memo on a junior attorney. They're better at legal research anyway, which has become more a function of tech savviness than legal acumen. But there are no associates--even the Santa Rosa Beach office is losing its newbie, who looked around at the stress and dysfunction and decided to go back to putting people in jail for less money.
Raining now, with a moderate dose of thunder and lightning. Sometimes that breaks the heat a little; sometimes it just leaves behind an even more oppressive sauna. We'll see.
Anyway, I see trouble for myself, and for the firm. Everyone is so understaffed, and we're no exception. When we can find someone they're usually either inexperienced or mentally ill, or both, and end up quitting or getting fired. Normally a guy at my stage of life would be a boon to my firm because I've transitioned to a rainmaker as much as anything, but with no one to actually do the work what good is an old lawyer who brings in more work than he can do himself?
Other firms are suffering as well, but not as badly as this one from what I've observed.
But I can't do much about that, a lone partner in a satellite office with lots of good ideas to tackle the problem but no time even to discuss implementing them. Time to save yourself, Donk.
What does that even look like?
Well for one, I need to sharply curtail the amount of time I spend down here. You can feel the MAGA insanity building around you--the flags are back out, and flaccid old white men want to go to war with the "other", defined vaguely as anyone who's not a white evangelical man or woman under that man's thumb. It's corrosive to my soul.
And it's hard on the plane and the pocketbook. Figure a grand every time I crawl into the Columbia and fly down here. No wonder my paycheck evaporates like a pool in Phoenix in August. Maybe once every six weeks. No more.
That's all well-and-good, but with my current practice it can only work with another attorney down here to handle the in-person stuff. I lack that with no real prospect of fixing it. So the practice itself has to change, has to get smaller. Which means less money, necessarily. Which means P will have a pauper wandering the house in pajama bottoms trying to build a Zoom practice while she stands in an operating room full time as most of her contemporaries have started to retire. Hard on a relationship, that would be.
Hey, this exercise of thinking publicly about how to deal with the challenges of this dogsh*t life I'm leading has led me right back to here and now. It can't be fixed, really. Just have to keep swinging, and figure that an infarction or falling asleep for too long in the Columbia (a regular occurrence these days) and having the autopilot kick off are the only ways I get off of this hamster wheel from hell.
Speaking of which, that call is in twenty-seven minutes. With trial prep barely started, I'll be lucky to get out of here in fourteen hours. Here we go.
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