ABA spreads ludicrous claims about lawyer income

Ed. note -- I find it difficult to believe that I haven't posted here since 2022, but the list in the archives appears dispositive on the question.

A bit has happened between then and now, and I've written about it extensively, of course -- just not here.

I had a heart attack a couple of days after my last post (no, it wasn't fatal, why do you ask that?) and we've welcomed four more grandchildren into the family between that last post and this one. I've also retired from the active practice of law, mainly because I wasn't earning any money from it. Persons searching the archives here will quickly discern that I've often bitched about not making any money from my chosen profession -- but I'm dead serious here: At the end, it was costing me money to pretend to be in business. I wasn't making enough money to pay for my malpractice insurance, bar dues, and license fees. Why that was the case is not what brought me back here today. The actual reason should become clear momentarily. Read on.

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This past November, the American Bar Association published, as part of its annual survey of the profession, an article purporting to describe the average wage of the American lawyer.

According to the article, which I first spotted on Twitter, or X if you prefer, as of May 2023, according to statistics apparently obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistices, the average lawyer in America was earning $176,000, a 19.2% increase from 2021-2023. The linked article includes this chart:

Yes, I know some attorneys that made this kind of money. Some.

No, none of them was ever me.

In my best year ever, my K-1 -- the total that got reported to the IRS -- the total on which I had to pay taxes -- was somewhere around $50,000 more than I ever actually saw. Ah, the joys of working at a small firm.... (Of course, I'm grateful for that K-1 now -- that was one of the most important numbers that the Social Security Administration used in calculating the monthly benefit on which I now subsist. And since I did in fact pay taxes as if I'd actually received the amount reported -- according to the partnership's accountants, this really was the share of partnership income attributable to me, my vociferous protests notwithstanding -- the SSA in particuar and the good people of the United States in general aren't being cheated in any way.)

I had some good years. But never $176,000 good. There were more than a few years where it was nip and tuck for much of the year whether I would clear more from the practice of law than my Long Suffering Spouse earned as a Catholic school teacher. (Don't get her started on that -- the starting pay for a newly-graduated teacher in the Chicago Public Schools is somewhere around $55,000 -- well more than my wife makes after nearly 30 years at the parish school.) I'd say I usually beat her number... but not always. Toward the end, I had a year where I made nothing after expenses. And, of course, at the very end, in 2023, when the average lawyer was supposedly banking $176,000, I was loaning the business money to pretend to be in business.

I trust it is now clear why I had to vent about this anonymously. Were I to write about it under my own name, it might appear that I was trolling for sympathy or, worse, setting up a GoFundMe.

No. If I ever attempt to profit from my many failures (a notion I have toyed with in the past) it will be by delivering something of value -- a book, I hope -- that you can buy of your own free will, whether online or at your nearest bookstore.

But, in the meantime, I felt compelled to call out this crazy ABA claim about lawyer income: While there are indeed some lawyers who make $176,000 annually, and some, indeed, who make a whole lot more, there are a whole bunch of us who make a whole lot less. And who have done honorable work nonetheless.

I'm not just talking about public interest lawyers either: The linked ABA article notes that that average salary for lawyers in legal aid, public prosecution or defense, other public agencies, or not-for-profits earned far less than $176,000. They bring down the average, if you will. But there were years I would have killed to make so 'little' as these claimed average figures for lawyers at NFPs or doing legal aid.

Well... maybe not killed... but I would have been significantly envious.

So, bottom line: I think these ABA figures, though grounded in government statistics and other seemingly reliable sources, are ludicrous. The average work-a-day lawyer simply doesn't command this kind of dough. I can't prove the ABA wrong, but I am certain that, on the question of average lawyer income, they most certainly are wrong.

Ginni Thomas, Anne M. Burke, and Doris Kearns Goodwin

How's that for a clickbait headline? But, Dear Reader, I think I can tie this up.

Let's start with Ginni Thomas, a/k/a as Mrs. Clarence Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and author of some "batshit crazy" text messages sent to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after the 2020 election. Quoting now from Bess Levin's March 25 article for Vanity Fair, "Should Clarence Thomas be impeached over Ginni Thomas's deranged text messages?"

On November 5, for example, before Joe Biden was officially declared the winner, Ginni quoted a right-wing website, writing: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.” On November 10, after news outlets projected the Democratic candidate had the electoral votes, she texted Meadows, of Trump: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.” Two weeks later, she told Meadows not to “cave to the elites,” and later, “I can’t see Americans swallowing the obvious fraud.” Midway through the month, she urged Meadows to make Sidney Powell—the lawyer who promoted claims like “there is a secret server that all the votes go to where they [are] manipulate[d]”—“the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team. At one point, Ginni wrote to Meadows: “Sounds like Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud. Make a plan. Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”

The assessment that these texts are "batshit crazy" is also Ms. Levin's. I am entirely certain that there are no crazier texts that Ms. Levin could find because she surely would have quoted them if such were available. On the other hand, I find it hard to imagine that there are any texts not quoted that could provide some context in which these might not appear quite so crazy. Therefore, for the record, I agree that Ms. Levin's assessment is entirely reasonable.

You will not be surprised, perhaps, to learn that Ms. Levin answers the question posed by the headline of her article with an emphatic "yes." The allegedly impeachable offense is participation by Justice Thomas in cases where his wife has staked out a very public position or been even more directly involved -- but this is not as neat and clean a question as some in the media would see it. In a lower court, if there are grounds for Judge Smith to recuse herself, Judge Jones can be called upon to take over. Often Judge Jones is right down the hall.

But justices of our highest courts have generally, and traditionally, taken the position that they are required to decide the cases before them; there is no one that can tap in for a particular case. This does not mean that individual justices haven't recused themselves in some cases. Justice Kagan recused herself from a number of cases that she had handled as U.S. Solicitor General, prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court. Other justices have taken themselves off of cases, too.

But, as George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley points out in two recent articles, "No, Justice Thomas Did Not Commit an Impeachable Offense" (March 27) and "Justice Thomas Faces Calls for Investigation and Sweeping Recusals" (March 28), this has never been required of Supreme Court justices. The Suprme Court has long (long here meaning even before Trump) taken the view that it is not bound by the Code of Judicial Ethics it has imposed on lower courts. (Again, for the record, Professor Turley wishes the Supreme Court would apply the Code of Judicial Ethics to itself.)

And, also for the record, I hate myself for quoting a law professor on anything. In this one instance it seems appropriate.

Though she did not expressly so state, I think Ms. Levin would be inclined to agree with the proposition that Ginni Thomas's expressed opinions and documented behavior so taint Clarence Thomas that anything he says or does is irrevocably suspect. For example, since Ginni Thomas thinks (or at least thought) that the 2020 election was "stolen" from Trump, Clarence Thomas must think so, too. The sins of one spouse renders the other unfit to serve.

What, I wonder, would Ms. Levin make of Anne M. Burke?

Anne M. Burke is the Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. In addition to her distinguished career on the bench, Burke was one of the founders of the Special Olympics. She became Interim Chair of the first National Review Board commissioned by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops to address, and root out, the abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

On the other hand, she is married to Chicago Ald. Ed Burke. Ed Burke has been under federal indictment since 2019. The indictment has to do with how he allegedly got business for his law firm -- which specialized in seeking reductions of county property taxes -- but, before his indictment, very few people were elected to the bench in Cook County without his approval. The longtime Committeeman of Chicago's 14th Ward, Burke chaired the Cook County Democratic Party's judicial slatemaking committee. Put it this way: Chief Justice Burke would not have been elected without her husband's support.

Was she, too, irrevocably tainted by her husband's alleged criminal misconduct?

Here is one very important distinction: On March 24, the Illinois Supreme Court handed down an opinion in the case of Sigcho-Lopez v. The Illinois State Board of Elections, 2022 IL 127253. In this case a Chicago alderman challenged his predecessor's use of campaign funds to pay legal bills related to the predecessor's federal indictment. (After being cornered by the Feds, the former alderman, then still in office, agreed to wear a wire so that the Feds could go after, inter alia, Ed Burke. If the case against Mr. Burke ever gets to trial, this former alderman's testimony -- and recordings -- will be key evidence for the prosecution.)

And, no surprise here, Ald. Burke is paying at least some of his enormous legal bills from his very substantial campaign funds. Of course they are substantial (were you paying attention?): Ald. Burke had an enormous say in who got to serve on the local bench. Oh, and his City Council Finance committee determined what claims against the City got paid, and for how much. And there was the property tax reduction work he did on the side, too.... I haven't looked lately to be certain, but I'd be willing to bet that there's no longer much of anything coming into his campaign funds these days. But there was so much already there.

In its unanimous opinion, not quite a week ago, the Illinois Supreme Court agreed that the practice of paying a politician's criminal defense fees from that politician's campaign fund is not prohibited by statute.

But... here's the distinction... Chief Justice Burke "took no part" in the decision. And, rather than leave her off on the island by herself, her two colleagues from Cook County likewise did not participate. (That was only possible because the four other justices were in agreement on how to dispose of the case; the Illinois Supreme Court can not decide a case without four votes for or against.)

On the other hand, if Clarence Thomas had recused himself from the text messages ruling would Ms. Levin have been mollified?

Which brings us, at last, to Doris Kearns Goodwin, the eminent historian. I'm just now reading her 2013 book, The Bully Pulpit, which is subtitled "Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism." Kearns presents Edith Carow Roosevelt and Nellie Taft as vital to the careers of their respective husbands. Kearns makes the case that, though their quite different wives provided different things, TR and Taft could not have achieved what they did without their spouses.

In the Bad Old Days, a woman could only succeed in public life indirectly, through her husband. Kearns was more favorably inclined to Mary Todd Lincoln in her book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln than was Lincoln's first biographer (and last law partner) Billy Herndon in his. Herndon didn't like Mary Todd Lincoln one little bit (in fairness, she didn't like him either). But both Kearns and Herndon would agree on this much: Without Mary, Lincoln would probably never have become President.

A woman now can look forward to an independent career, but that same commonality of interests that attracts a man and woman in the first place will often lead to at least some overlap in careers for married couples. Hopefully each would be a positive influence and support for the other -- but when one spouse becomes controversial, or even toxic, must the other be damaged?

The answer should be "no" -- at the very least it certainly should not be automatically crippling to one's career that one's spouse stumbles -- or even is "batshit crazy."

But I also know that this is not how the world works.

My wife teaches in the local Catholic school. Were I to suddenly assert a position at odds with Catholic doctrine, my wife's job might be in jeopardy. Probably would be. Even with an anonymous blog, I was very cautious about criticizing our former pastor (as I did here, here, here, and (later) here). So the problem of one spouse potentially damaging another's career is not theoretical to me. It is very, very real.

I can sympathize with both Justice Thomas and Chief Justice Burke. Both face howling mobs. Very little overlap between their mobs, I should think, but mobs just the same. And I suspect that no member of either mob would be moved by my plea to judge each individual on his or her respective merits, regardless of their spouses' missteps, actual or alleged. But perhaps you, Dear Reader, may be persuaded. One by one, bit by bit, perhaps we can build up a majority on this one small point. Leave it to history -- to Professor Kearns and her successors -- to evaluate how tangled were the strands in these and other cases.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson gets a supreme opportunity

I admit, I have not watched any of the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

It's not bitterness... I hope... although even I am beginning to suspect that neither this White House (nor any other) is ever going to call me. Why, I no longer even sit by my phone.

No, the real reason I'm not watching is that I am increasingly intolerant of stupid people, the most stupid of which seem to wind up as United States Senators. And I'm not just talking about the Republicans -- who are feigning suspicion -- now -- that Judge Jackson (who they just confirmed to succeed Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit) is a closet Communist, or anarchist, or whatever. I cheerfully include the Democrats, who fawn over Judge Jackson, who strew rose petals in her path, who wish only to touch the hem of her garment and so achieve enlightenment.

Not that the hearings for Amy Coney Barrett or Brett Kavanaugh or Neil Gorsuch were any better. It's just that the Fawners now were the Feigners then and the Feigners now were Fawners. It's all theatrics -- and bad theatrics at that. It's garbage. I am so sorry that Supreme Court nominees are required to endure this nonsense.

Let's get this out of the way immediately:Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is not the single most-qualified person who could have been picked to sit on the Supreme Court. There is no one such person. There are, instead, a great many. She is one of these.

This is a big country. We have a great many lawyers -- roughly 90,000 in my home state of Illinois alone. Surely more than half of these would be in waaaaaaay over their heads if they were nominated to the Supreme Court. But would 10% be out of their depth? Would only 1% of Illinois lawyers be capable of rendering useful service on the United States Supreme Court if given the opportunity? That's still 900 lawyers. And that's just Illinois.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is one of probably thousands of lawyers across this country who would acquit themselves honorably if asked to serve on the Supreme Court. But thousands were not asked. Judge Jackson was. By all credible accounts she is more than qualified. And she is in the right place at the right time. Good for her!

On the other hand... I don't know if you noticed... but Judge Jackson is yet another former Supreme Court clerk (she clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer, whose seat she will soon take on the Court) who is getting a shot at sitting on the nation's highest court and hiring clerks of her own. She is yet another Ivy Leaguer (two degrees from Harvard in her case) who will join a court composed almost exclusively of Ivy Leaguers and former Supreme Court clerks.

Don't believe me? Let's look at the record:

• Chief Justice John Roberts -- Harvard undergrad, Harvard Law School -- clerked for Justice William Rehnquist;
• Justice Clarence Thomas -- Yale Law School -- did not clerk for a Supreme Court justice;
• Justice Stephen Breyer -- Harvard Law School (Oxford undergrad) -- clerked for Justice Arthur Goldberg;
• Justice Samuel Alito -- Yale Law School (Princeton undergrad) -- did not clerk for a Supreme Court justice, though he interviewed with Justice Byron White after clerking for 3rd Circuit Judge Leonard Garth;
• Justice Sonia Sotomayor -- Yale Law School (Princeton undergrad) -- did not clerk for a Supreme Court justice;
• Justice Elena Kagan -- Harvard Law School (where she was later Dean) (undergrad at Princeton and Oxford) -- clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall;
• Justice Neil Gorsuch -- Harvard Law School (undergrad at Columbia, PhD from Oxford) -- clerked for both Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy;
• Justice Brett Kavanaugh -- Yale undergrad, Yale Law School -- clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy;
• Justice Amy Coney Barrett -- Notre Dame Law School (not an Ivy League school, although Domers have a hard time accepting that) -- clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.

That's diversity?

Only if diversity means Harvard or Yale. Put somebody on from DePaul night school or even any state school and get back to me.

And, speaking of states: With the exception of Justice Kagan, every single current justice of the United States Supreme Court comes to that bench from a Federal Court of Appeals. Judge Jackson fits the pattern. No state high court justice need apply? Holy Cardozo, Batman!

But... it is true that Judge Jackson will bring something to the nation's highest court that her colleagues lack. That they don't have and never will have, namely...



(wait for it)



... actual courtroom experience in a courtroom where she was not presiding.

(You thought I was going for something else, didn't you?)

Actually, Justice Sotomayor did some courtroom work, too.

But most of them... no.

Some of Judge Jackson's new colleagues did brief stints in big firms or in high level government positions and some of them got to argue in court. Justice Kagan was Solicitor General of the United States. Former Supreme Court law clerks are in great demand as counsel in those vanishingly few cases that make it to the docket of the nation's highest court.

But Judge Jackson has faced a jury on a client's behalf. That's a different perspective -- a diverse perspective -- that she can bring to the Supreme Court.

As for the rest of it... well, I'm sure President Biden meant well... but I don't think he did Judge Jackson any favors in publicly announcing that he would limit his search for Justice Breyer's replacement to Black women. Again, Judge Jackson is one of many, many persons (a great many of whom are also Black women) who are well-equipped to serve honorably and usefully on the Supreme Court.

The important thing is that Judge Jackson has been given the opportunity. Not that she cares, but I congratulate her, and wish only the best for her. I hope she will do great things.

One of the great advantages of being a failure is...

...that it takes a lot of pressure of one's children.

Some cope with prominent parents (that is, parents who are not failures) better than others, of course.

Sir Winston Churchill was long overshadowed by his father, Lord Randolph. Some historians view Winston's career as a series of maneuvers to establish himself as a statesman in his own right, separate and apart from his by-then-long-dead father. As a father himself, Winston was as indulgent as his own father had been aloof. But Winston's son, Randolph, never quite escaped his father's shadow.

It helps to explain why they both drank. A lot.

In a very small way, I had a famous father. My dad was in law, not politics. But, in his field, he was recognized as a leading expert. And, going into the law, as I did, I was to those who knew my father readily pigeonholed. I was my father's son. But my father practiced in a very narrow specialty.

I did not engage in the same specialty as my father. And there are a lot of lawyers in Chicago. There were a lot of lawyers even then. So, with one entertaining exception I won't go into now, I didn't get a lot of "are you related to..." questions -- and when I did, it was more of a general inquiry than anything.

Time passed, and I built my own reputation. I published a number of articles under my own name in a legal publication. Then, one night, at a holiday party, a judge, before whom I regularly appeared, sidled up to my father, and asked, in seeming innocence, "Say... are you Curmudgeon's father?" He knew damn good and well that he was talking to my father. But my dad was thrilled to tell me about it. And proud, I think. As if I were now the one casting the shadow.

As if.

Successful people cast shadows. Failures do not.

Consider the aforementioned articles, for instance. They earned me not one penny of income. Lawyers in Chicago are expected to share their experise with their brothers and sisters for the good of the profession (and the benefit of the entity publishing). (And this was before the days of MCLE -- so I didn't even get the minimal credit for continuing education hours that might be available now for those efforts.)

The hope was that being a published legal author would bring clients (waving healthy retainer checks) to my doorstep. Now I can't say for certain that none of these articles ever helped generate a client. I did more than 100 of them, but I shared the byline for almost all of those published during the first six years that I was writing them with one of my firm's named partners. I do not say he did not participate in these articles. Sometimes he told me what case to highlight and what our 'take' on it was to be. Some months he merely read what I wrote before I submitted the articles; I think there were many months where he did not read the articles until they appeared in print.

Maybe, in those early years, perhaps, my co-author got some business from one of these articles. If he had, he would not have told me about it. Lest I get a big head about it or something.

But I doubt the articles did generate any real clients and I base this assertion on the fact that, when I went out on my own, I was given the opportunity to continue writing the articles. Some months I did two articles. I think there was a month I did three. Truth be told, I didn't have a lot else to do in those days.

As each new article appeared, I would carefully cut it out and photocopy it (I can lay out a page very nicely, thank you) and send it off to a whole bunch of propsective clients (clients of my old firm, persons with whom I had worked on a regular basis for years). I spent all sorts of money I didn't have on postage. And from this I got... bubkus. No fat retainer checks. Not even checks that bounced. No clients. No business. Once, during my first year on my own, at a women's bar association reception, I had the opportunity to introduce my Older Daughter to the first female justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. Older Daughter, then still in junior high, was with me because it was Take Your Daughter to Work Day and I thought this reception, at least, might make up for the eight hours she had spent watching me twiddle my thumbs. The Supreme Court justice was there as one of the evening's honorees. There was a receiving line; that's where the introduction was made. The justice was very kind. As I introduced myself and my daughter, she pretended to recognize me. "Ah, yes," she said, "you write those articles." We were quickly moved down the line, of course, but Older Daughter finally had something to write about in the school assignment she was expected to complete about her adventures with me that day.

So maybe not a complete failure. Some rain falls on the driest deserts, too, with the apparent exception of portions of the Atacama, but the odd sprinkle here or there never relieves the permanent drought.

My consistent pattern of failure has made it easy for my children to establish themselves as persons in their own right. I think they're all an interesting bunch.

None of them followed me into the law, of course. Why would they?

Still, I sometimes wish I'd been a little more successful -- if only because then my sage advice as the family patriarch might carry some actual weight with those independent, unshadowed kids. There are situations upcoming in which that might be helpful....

The email riles up Curmudgeon... again

I have a number of email accounts, personal and professional, and they all get clogged with garbage. But some of the emails get my goat more than others....

This one hacks me off every single month: I have a DirecTV dish and a ginormous AT&T bill each month that goes along with it. Which I have faithfully, if never cheerfully, paid when due.

This never stops AT&T though. It insists on treating me as if I were a habitual deadbeat. From today's email:

For the record (although, as a long-time solo practicing lawyer I know this is one of the oldest lies in the history of commerce) my check to AT&T is in the mail.

And was, moreover, before I got this insulting notice.

I can't imagine ever sending such a notice to a client, huffing about payment on a bill not yet due!

Didn't we used to have antitrust laws in this country? AT&T was broken up during my lifetime -- how was it allowed to recombine, like a Ray Harryhausen skeleton in Jason and the Argonauts, only bigger and more evil?

Slightly less aggravating was the email I received from an auto dealer. (A couple of years ago, I was compelled to buy a new van to replace our old one. Indeed, it was at the repair shop referred to in the linked post, on a subsequent visit, that the repair technician came, someberly, into the waiting room -- I think he was clutching his hat with both hands in front of him, eyes downcast -- to tell me, "You know, Curmudgeon, we all have to go some time....")

Anyway, the dealer (separate and distinct from the repair shop) showers me with emails, touting new models or service on my van. I don't answer them. And I don't feel bad in not answering them.

It's not like they're paying for postage.

But the dealer, apparently, is becoming slightly peeved, as this excerpt from the dealer's most recent email would indicate (edited to remove identifying details):

Hello [CURMUDGEON],

I have attempted to reach you, but I've had no success.

Either you have been eaten by alligators or you are just plain swamped. If you have been eaten by alligators... my deepest sympathy goes out to your family members. If you are still alive, one of the following is more likely to have happened. I hate to keep pestering you, but I do want to express my desire to work with you.

Please pick one response, email or phone (773) xxx-xxxx letting me know what our next step should be:

1. Yes!, I have been eaten by alligators. Please send flowers.

2. No, I have not been eaten by alligators but you may wish I had been because I have decided I have no interest in your service. Sorry, you are sunk (Thanks for your frank honesty, I can handle it.)

3. Yes, I have some interest, but here are my challenges:..............

4. Yes, I have some interest. Let’s talk and get together on:...........

Please be as open as possible. Thanks for your response.

Doesn't that seem a tad peevish to you?

I have not, and will not, respond to this email, although the temptation to choose option 1 is pretty strong.

But I, of all people, should be sympathetic when an attempt at humor falls flat.

Least aggravating, for purposes of this review, but still, in my opinion, a nusiance, is this reminder from Walgreen's:

Yes, I am cheap. (I prefer to say frugal, but I won't argue with cheap.)

But would I really venture out unnecessarily in the midst of a record COVID-19 surge just for the sake of 83 cents?

I'll have to get back to you on this... I'm still thinking it over.

Meanwhile, have a safe and healthy New Year's holiday.

It's all my fault, as usual -- Curmudgeon tries to explain what he should have said. Once again.

Long Suffering Spouse is having a tough morning already.

She was looking for something.

She'd set up a packet of materials for expense reimbursement -- she just needed one item, that being a copy of the charge card bill on which we'd booked her recent seminar -- and that bill did not show up until this week.

It took me a couple of days to get around to making a redacted copy of the charge card bill (no one at my wife's school needs to see what else we charged on that card in order to confirm that we paid for the seminar) -- but that wasn't really the reason why it's all my fault this morning.

That just started things down the wrong road.

See, I did prepare the redacted copy yesterday and left it on my wife's chair. All she had to do was insert that one missing piece of paper into the set she'd carefully assembled to present to the office -- the seminar brochure, for one thing, a copy of her certificate of completion, for another.

But she couldn't find those papers this morning.

Time ticked inexorably by as she searched with increasing franticness upstairs and down -- talking, mainly to herself, but not entirely so.

And that's where I stepped into it.

Somewhere in the course of this search, Long Suffering Spouse suggested I drive her to school. That way, I could have the car. You know, she added, in case Younger Daughter needs you.

Now, a smart husband, a wise man, would have said "OK," and left it alone.

But... unfortunately... I am not always so smart.

"I don't need the car," I said. (Superfluous, but not problematic.) "I don't want the car," I said. (Redundant, unnecessary, but still not dangerous.)

But I continued.

Maybe it's because I didn't yet know what she was looking for -- and my part, however inadvertent, in creating that problem -- or maybe it was because my morning coffee had yet to take effect.

Or maybe it's because I'm a little sensitive about this "working" from home stuff -- maybe I'm a little prickly about not contributing to the family exchequer these days -- OK, maybe I'm a lot prickly -- anyway, what I said was something along these lines: "Look, I'm happy to retire right now. But, if I'm not going to retire, I have to work here -- I can't be dropping everything everyday just because one of the girls needs something."

"Yes," said Long Suffering Spouse, darkly, though I was oblivious to the warning signs, "you do have to work. You can start by getting off the iPad."

Admittedly, as I was slurping my morning joe, I was playing a word game on the aforementioned tablet.

A smart person would have immediately put down the device and found a way to change the subject (e.g., what are you looking for? can I help you find it?) but we have already made abundantly clear that this was not one of my brighter mornings.

Having walked to the edge of the cliff, I decided (without consciously thinking about it) to swan dive off: "I have a hard enough time gearing up to work," I said -- this is true, although this is probably a personal failing, and not characteristic, necessarily, of lawyers generally -- "without being interrupted all the time. I don't just grade papers."

Ouch.

It is true that Long Suffering Spouse generally has with or near her person, at almost any hour of the day or night, in almost any place she goes, a bag of papers to correct. And she doesn't just carry it with her; she pulls stuff out constantly to work on. It came with her to all our kids' sporting events when they were growing up. If she has five minutes to wait in the car, she gets a stack out. And she never gets caught up -- there is always more work to do.

"I don't just grade papers," she said, icily... and truthfully, too.

"I know that," I said -- too little, too late --

"But you are available for emergencies," Long Suffering Spouse continued.

"Of course I'm available for emergencies. When I was downtown, I was available for emergencies, too."

There may have been more, but I think the quest for the missing set of papers once again consumed Long Suffering Spouse's attention.

Eventually, dimly, aware that Long Suffering Spouse was going to be late, I put down the iPad, refilled my coffee, and went out and started our poor, dying car. With my key. I was going to drive. I put on my coat.

Long Suffering Spouse came downstairs again, muttering something about maybe the papers might be... but they couldn't be there... I'll just look here one more time... and, lo and behold, she found them. "I don't know how they got there," she said. "I don't know how they stayed there," there being an area that would likely be disturbed by crawling grandchildren. She quickly finished assembling her stuff to take to school.

The first thing she noticed was that her keys were still on the dining room table.

"Why are my keys here?"

"I'm driving you."

"You are not driving me. You don't want the car."

"It's OK," I said (too, too late).

"No," she said, "you need to work. You said so."

"I'll drive," I said, and headed out the front door.

"I'll walk!" she said, and she meant it, too, as she barrelled past me.

In the end, she drove. She turned off the car and threw my key at me, then put hers in the ignition and started off. I half expected to see or hear a crash before she got a block away -- she was that angry and, besides, it's very busy on our street at and just after 7:30, as the cars come streaming past en route to a nearby public high school. But I believe she made it to her school without incident.

"And this is before I see any kids today," she said on her way out.

Woe betide the first kid to cross her this morning.

I have a colleague who says solo practice is another way of saying unemployed. At least, that's how our family members view it. This week, just to cite a single example, Older Daughter called immediately after Granddaughter Number 3 did number two in the proper place. Now there's a very good reason for making this call: She wants to reinforce how happy she is -- how happy we all are -- that Granddaughter Number 3 has achieved this latest milestone on the road to being successfully potty trained. (And hers has been a long and winding road, too.) My job, in this circumstance, is to say "hooray" and "yaay" and "good for you" without the least hint of irony or snark. I can do that. Truth be told, I like doing that.

However, let's look at this a moment.

Older Daughter might call her husband for this purpose -- but he's too busy in his office. She might call her mother -- but Long Suffering Spouse can not be disturbed at school. She might call her sister -- but Younger Daughter is chasing after her own kids.

The perception is that I have nothing better to do.

And, again, in terms of what is good, and what is useful, and what I like, this statement is true.

But it is hard to try and analyze a case, or recreate time for billing purposes, or explain the finer points of the law to a client who doesn't want to hear bad news. And when I have finally got the legal oxen hitched up and plowing a straight furrow, it is jarring, and often fatally jarring, to any productivity I might otherwise have achieved, to get called away to say "yaay" and "hooray" for successful pooping.

If this working from home business is to have any hope of success, the family is going to have to think of it as working first, and to be just as wary of interrupting me, toiling away in the girls' one-time bedroom, as they would be of interrupting Long Suffering Spouse.

No, I don't think that's going to happen either.

And, to refer back to the title of this morning's post, the above and foregoing is not what I should have said. I should have avoided the entire conversation -- under the circumstances -- particularly under the circumstances -- and just said "OK."

Once again we see the wisdom in the epigram that appears on the front page of this blog: "Ve grow too soon old, und too late schmart."

Curmudgeon grapples with depression, death, and dying

Really fertile ground for an alleged humorist, doncha think?

But these less-than-cheery subjects are much on my mind of late.

Winter weather in Chicago can account for a serious mood indigo all by itself. We set something of a record recently for consecutive days of one sort of precipitation or another. It's been gray, it's been gloomy, it's been wet, it's been cold. We have less sunlight in an ordinary February, I believe, than in any other month -- and we're running well below average this month.

Of course, the Sun is out this morning, just to make me look like a liar.

But the weather alone does not account for my current funk.

I mentioned yesterday that I closed my downtown office and am now 'working' from home.

I didn't do this because I had paying clients climbing over each other to shower me with money. I did it because I didn't make one thin dime from the practice of law last year.

I'll let you chew on that for a moment. I did pay the rent, or at least my portion of the rent and electric and Internet. I paid a King's ransom for my Lexis research service. I paid my membership dues in all the various bar groups to which I belong. I paid medical expenses through the firm -- I operate as a C corporation expressly for this reason. But never, not once, during the entire year, was I able to squeeze out so much as a penny of salary. In fact, I had to lend my firm money to keep it going -- doing strange magic with credit card advances -- and the chickens are about to come home to roost on that venture.

All the years that I've been whining about my impecunious stature here on this blog -- in all those years but 2018 I was still able to pay myself something. Thus, last year was awful, even by my low standards.

My lease was up at the end of January. Rent was an expense I could cut, so I did. With efiling it really is almost possible to work from anywhere and still practice law.

I wish I still wanted to.

Now there's a problem.

I do have some work to do. Some of it may eventually realize income. Emphasis on eventually.

But what I've noticed lately is a complete disconnect between effort and results. I do good work on something -- what I think is good work, anyway -- and I get shot down by this judge or that one. I did actually "win" a case recently -- and, from a cynical lawyer's perspective I should be rejoicing because I not only won, my opponent filed an immediate appeal. And this on one of my only paying cases.

However... I should have won that case two years ago. I have been beating my head against the wall -- figuratively, so far at least -- filing motion on motion, raising argument on argument, laying out an airtight case -- and until the learned trial judge who had been handling the matter suddenly retired, I was losing. The other side would -- and I am not exaggerating -- make stuff up -- sometimes inventing some ridiculous claim in open court -- and the judge lapped it up. When I did win, the new judge based the ruling on something that, in all candor, was pretty much irrelevant, at least insofar as I was concerned.

I settled a case last year -- pursuant to client instructions, of course, but for far less than I thought the case was worth -- as it happened, the client's conduct had undermined the value of his claim, but let's leave that to one side -- and the insurance carrier immediately reported the settlement to Medicare. Which meant that I had to deal with Medicare's "Super Lien."

And the carrier should never have done this: My client had slipped past his 65th birthday during the pendency of the claim -- but he was not a Medicare recipient when the accident happened, nor was he a Medicare beneficiary during the entire time he treated for the injuries sustained in that accident. The carrier, in a move apparently calculated to add injury to its insulting settlement offer, made the bogus Medicare referral so that it could try and delay payment on the claim. This is illegal under Illinois law, as long as I made the undertakings required by §2-2301 of our Code of Civil Procedure, which I promptly did -- but I still had to complain to the Illinois Department of Insurance to get my check -- which I had to keep in my client funds account for the inordinate amount of time it took me to convince Medicare that it really didn't have a lien.

I could go on.

I don't have many cases these days but each and every one of them has some obnoxious, nonsensical twist that squeezes any satisfaction from the case that might otherwise exist. And/or the client doesn't pay. Usually and.

Long Suffering Spouse has noticed my depression, and she tries to encourage me to get back in the traces and work my way through all this.

Which, certainly, is the right thing for me to do.

But Long Suffering Spouse's situation also distresses me.

She is a teacher, of course, and, as indicated above, pretty much the sole breadwinner in the Curmudgeon household at the moment. And, because she teaches in the Catholic schools, she makes a fraction of what her colleagues do in public schools -- and she has no pension besides. (Actually, that's not entirely true -- the Archdiocese of Chicago did not discontinue its pension plan until shortly after my wife began teaching full-time. It lasted long enough for my wife to partially vest in the plan. I believe that, when our golden years arrive, we may look forward to $17 a month from that plan. Or maybe it was $17 a year. Whoopee!)

Basically, my wife works so that we have health insurance. (The Cardinal has not yet -- thank God -- discontinued that benefit.)

And, brother, does she work.

As the school's Spanish teacher, she sees every student in the building at some point during the year. She sees the middle school scholars three days a week, the fourth and fifth graders two days a week, and everyone else, from preschool on, one day a week for 'enrichment' during one trimester a year. Many days she has no break at all. Many days, she can't even go to the bathroom even once during the school day.

This has predictable consequences.

And because she has students during virtually every period of the school day -- when she does have 'breaks' she often has students in her room anyway -- she has no time for grading, or posting grades, or doing lesson plans, or doing any of the other tasks she has been assigned by an ungrateful and unsupportive administration. She's in charge of the honor society, for example. (And, for the record, I like her principal -- I'm just telling it like it is.) So, consequently, when my wife does get home (and after she makes a bathroom stop) she continues to work here. She falls asleep every night -- no exaggeration -- every single night -- grading, or posting grades, or doing lesson plans, or responding to anxious or angry parent emails.

Ah, yes. Parents.

Our school parents pay enormous sums of money to send their children to our parish school. For these prices, they expect miracles. In fact, they demand miracles.

And the teacher is always wrong.

I attended Catholic schools when I was a boy. We had nuns then. That's why the tuition was so much lower; the nuns were really paid next to nothing. Yes, even though modern lay teachers make a pittance compared to their public school counterparts, their salaries and benefits are still 90% or more of our school budget. Divide that up among the number of students in the school, and voila!, you have a princely sum per student.

When my older kids were still in school, the parish was allowed to subsidize the cost of operating the school -- and did -- some years kicking in as much as $250,000. The Archdiocese demanded an end to this before my youngest kids graduated. There is no way Long Suffering Spouse and I could have sent our children to Catholic schools the way things are now.

(And still the bishops wonder why Catholics are falling away!)

So it's understandable why the parents have such inflated expectations about what our school can do for their kids.

The problem is, of course, that the kids don't know any better; they don't appreciate the sacrifices their parents are making to send them to the parish school. So some of them behave as some kids have always behaved -- indifferent, even hostile, to attempts to teach them anything.

My wife's students hate her. She makes them work. She holds them to standards. She will threaten to actually fail those who will not toe the line. She doesn't always succeed at this because the parents of these miscreants scream bloody murder -- and the administration almost always intervenes on the side of those who pay the bills. The teacher is always wrong.

The funny thing is, those same kids will eventually, despite their best efforts, wind up in high school. Where they will retake Spanish I -- and, usually, get A's. The good students, who also hate my wife because, you know, they are kids and don't want to work (and we do?) will place out of Spanish I or place into an honors class and also get A's. Many of these kids, even some of those who were the most hostile and disruptive in junior high, will come back and express gratitude for the preparation they received from my wife. Some of their parents will seek Long Suffering Spouse out and praise her to the heavens -- these same persons who just a year or two ago were sending angry emails to my wife's principal -- and some will even have the good grace to admit that they were wrong back in the day.

There's some satisfaction in that.

But it doesn't stop the next crop of angry, demanding helicopter parents who, despite having access to their darlings' grades all trimester long, wait until the last week of the grading period to insist on extra 'help' or demand 'extra credit.'

I've tried to explain to my kids that there is a great deal of difference between "want to" and "have to." The psychic satisfaction from the many kids who come back and thank Long Suffering Spouse for their success would be so much greater if she didn't have to keep working to keep us afloat.

And Long Suffering Spouse carries the extra burden these days of worry about her mother.

Abuela is 85 now and is on what, if memory serves, is her third round of cancer treatment. Maybe fourth. The day after Grandchild No. 8 was born, Abuela went into surgery to have radioactive "seeds" planted in her liver. This is the second time this procedure has been done; the first did not keep the cancer at bay for even six months. (This was originally a colon cancer. I've had colon cancer.^* Mine did not escape the colon. Abuela's did, moving to the liver -- thus the seeds.)

My mother-in-law is not the world's most compliant patient. She's not eating or drinking as directed and, although her initial "numbers" following this most recent procedure are very encouraging, she is convinced that she will not recover this time.

Of course, Abuela says this every time -- but one of these days she must, of necessity, be correct.

And Long Suffering Spouse has become persuaded that this time really may be it. She is having definite forebodings -- and I have been with her too long to dismiss these out of hand.

I have long held the belief that Abuela was destined to outlast me. If she really is going, this time, I'm getting even more nervous than usual.

But I have whined too long today. I do have things I should be doing... and while there's more on these unhappy subjects I'd like to talk about, I'll have to come back to it later.

Perhaps. When I can better articulate what else I want to say.

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^* If you are interested, you can read about my somewhat cockeyed experiences here, here, here, here, here, and here.

What happened to the necktie?

With Father's Day nearly upon us, this is not merely an idle question. The struggling retail industry would like an answer. Remember when a new tie was the quintessential Father's Day gift? Is this no longer the case?

Every day this week, as I've wandered around Chicago's Loop, I've taken time to notice whether men are wearing neckties.

A lot of them aren't.

Men are wearing sportcoats, even suits, but open-collared shirts. Old men, young men, middle-aged men -- clear majorities of men in all age groups are tieless.

That's particularly surprising in my little corner of the world. My Teeny Tiny Law Office is located in a building pretty much crawling with lawyers. I am three blocks from the Daley Center -- a primary county courthouse. There are lawyers everywhere around me, presumably, but very few of them are sporting ties.

Of course, I'm not wearing a tie today either. Truth to tell, I only wore a tie on Monday because I had to go to court. With the sole exception of one judge, since retired, I can't imagine a male lawyer deliberately going to court without a tie.

Of course, accidents do happen. I came to work once, some years ago, wearing a flannel shirt -- I think I was planning to move boxes or something -- only to realize, upon arriving at the office, that I'd forgotten a court date. Desperate, I scrounged a jacket from a colleague -- he was shorter than me, and thinner, so the jacket had no chance of buttoning and the sleeves came only about three quarters of the way down my arm -- but at least I didn't feel completely naked when I approached the bench. The judge -- with whom I'd been friendly when she was a privatus like me (we'd had some cases together) -- regarded me with exasperation: "Really, Curmudgeon? Flannel?"

But those kinds of accidents don't happen if one comes to work dressed in the uniform of the profession -- that is, wearing a jacket and tie. And it really was unusual for me to come downtown without both.

But that was then.

If this tieless look among professional men is a trend, and I think it is, what accounts for it?

I remember noticing years ago that Israeli politicians frequently sported an open-necked look. But I figured that was probably a consequence of the warm climate in that country. Who likes to wear a tie when it's hot out? But I only noticed the look because it was unusual. Out of the ordinary.

A few years back, I noticed that President Obama didn't always wear a tie, even while giving speeches. In the 2016 presidential primaries, it occurred to me that a lot of candidates were campaigning without neckties. I guess the idea was to appear more a 'Man of the People.'

Donald Trump, on the other hand, always seems to be wearing a necktie. Tied too long, but always on.

Oh, Lord, this can't be a political thing can it?

Please tell me that the disappearing necktie is an American phenomenon -- not just a Blue State thing....

This is a notice I'm not going to send today... but, oh, I wish I could....

Please Take Notice that, on January 15, at 2:00 p.m., pursuant to court order and Supreme Court Rule 214, we will make the [Clients' Name Redacted] home available for inspection by Plaintiff Clueless Construction [yes, I'm making that name up]. The inspection will be conducted without basis, purpose, or reason, but, rather, solely to harass [Clients' Name Redacted]. Just as the house was constructed by Clueless Construction, Plaintiff's inspection will be haphazard, ad hoc, and without any discernible itinerary, plan, agenda, or schedule. All counsel of record are welcome to witness Plaintiff's abuse of discovery in person, if you think you can stomach it.

Yesterday was my 10th Blogiversary -- but that wasn't my focus yesterday either

In many ways, yesterday was a pretty good example of how things stand in my life at this point.

My wife wants to get to school by 7:30 a.m. each morning, if not sooner. We hit this target better at the beginning of the week than at the end. If my wife is at school by 7:30 a.m., I can be in my office by 8:10. But not yesterday.

Oh, my wife was on time, and so was I. I even started a post on my 'real-life' blog before we left the house. And I had a client email that allowed me to finish a pleading that I needed to efile -- I didn't get the papers filed before I left the house, but I swapped out the signed pages for the unsigned ones in the .pdf file that I would later dispatch to the Circuit Clerk's efiling provider.

But I wasn't going into the office, not directly. I dropped my wife off at school and continued (through the foggy gloom) to Younger Daughter's house. I was on grandpa duty.

Younger Daughter is 'on the nest' again (sometime next April, if all goes well, I will have four granddaughters -- yes, I have been away for awhile). Anyway, my daughter is having a problem for which she must have occasional physical therapy. I won't bore you with the details for the simple reason that I don't know them.

Nor do I want to.

My only question is, is this serious? Younger Daughter says it's not -- but she has to do this PT anyway -- and that's enough for me.

Yesterday, as on a couple of recent occasions, I have been pressed into babysitting duty while Younger Daughter heads off to medical appointments. Yesterday her appointment was at 8:00. Even after doing my fatherly and grandfatherly duty, I had hopes of getting downtown at a decent hour.

The front door was unlocked when I arrived.

Granddaughter No. 1 was in the kitchen with her mother, but she squealed when she heard me bumble in. (I had my briefcase and a large bag of stuff. You don't think my wife would send me off to her daughter's house without sending something along with me, do you? Yesterday, it was two containers of pea soup and a container of assorted cookie cutters.)

"Grampy's here when I wake up!" Granddaughter No. 1 enthused.

I may have mentioned: I am now referred to primarily as Grampy. Long Suffering Spouse believes it is a contraction of Grandpa and Grumpy -- and she's almost certainly right.

"Come on, Grampy!" Granddaughter No. 1 came bounding out of the kitchen and grabbed my coat (my hands were full), obviously intent on dragging me somewhere.

"Can't I put down my stuff or take off my coat?" I asked.

"Come on, Grampy!"

Younger Daughter looked on, bemused.

At least the child was dragging me to the kitchen, where I could deposit the soup and cookie cutters. Younger Daughter was darn near excited as her daughter. "Mom made pea soup!"

I still had my coat on as three year-old Granddaughter No. 1 dragged me into her room. I had to see her "Inside Out" sheets. "This is Joy," she told me, "and this is Anger, and this is Sadness...." She also inventoried a dozen or so dolls and stuffed animals on her bed, singling out the Madeline doll she'd taken from my house just the day before. (Long Suffering Spouse saved a great deal of toys in anticipation of grandchildren; her foresight now pays regular dividends.) "And she has a boo-boo," Granddaughter No. 1 told me, lifting up Madeline's jumper to show me the appendix 'scar' on the stuffed toy.

Eventually, I got my coat off and deposited my briefcase. Younger Daughter gave me my final instructions and I gave her my car key so she could get to her appointment. Granddaughter No. 1 had a lot to tell me about the decorations on the Christmas tree. And she remembered to ask, like I'm sure her mother prompted her, "when are you going to put up your Christmas tree, Grampy?"

Eventually -- after she swung the little foam baseball bat that one of her uncles gave her and showed me how she likes to dance in her princess castle (a small tent, shaped like a castle turret, ideally sized for three year-olds) she subsided long enough for me to sit in my son-in-law's recliner and resume drinking my coffee. I even pulled out my iPad and sent the pleading I had finalized a little earlier off for filing.

It was while I had the iPad out that Granddaughter No. 1 came over and gave me the fish eye.

Insofar as she's concerned, my iPad is a device that she can use to play Elmo ABCs or Elmo numbers or maybe dance to a video of Harry Belafonte's Jump in the Line (she's got great musical tastes, especially for a three year-old). But the efiling website did not look like any of these. "What are you doing, Grampy?" she asked, in a slightly accusatory tone.

"I'm just trying to get a little work done," I said.

Well, this was unacceptable, as I realized the moment I said it. I quickly ditched the iPad.

It was time for TV.

I have been over to the kids' house often enough now that I can work the TV and the DVR all by myself -- but what I can't do is open up the childproof and grandparent-proof lock on the cabinet wherein the DVR resides. So we could watch whatever was queued up -- and, as was eminently predictable for this time of year, the DVR was loaded with the Frosty/Rudolph disc.

So we watched Frosty the Snowman. Then we watched Rudolph.

But, for the most part, we didn't really watch. Granddaughter No. 1 was playing with stuffed toys. Or looking at books (she "reads" to me, but I am not yet allowed to read to her). Then she announced she had to go potty.

Uh-oh.

The last few times I've sat I've managed to avoid any of this -- but not yesterday -- I tried to tell her that this was not in my job description, but she just looked at me and pretended not to understand.

But Granddaughter No. 1 is very independent and managed her business pretty much by herself. I hovered outside the door, coming in only to make sure that the bowl from the little potty got poured into the big potty without spilling. I probably was supposed to let her flush.

At her birthday party a few months back, one of her father's friends brought her a giant bubble wand -- and I mean bubbles several feet in diameter. I don't think they're substantial enough to show up on the radar at nearby O'Hare, but some of them -- when generated by an expert, at least -- were that big.

The bubble solution is long gone now, but the wand looks very much like a sword and Granddaughter No. 1 brought it out of her playroom to run me through with it. I died several horrible deaths -- my granddaughter thinks I'm a great actor -- before I was able to pry the wand away.

Of course, the only reason I succeeded was that Granddaughter No. 1 was tiring. She climbed up on my lap and we watched a couple of minutes of Rudolph.

She sings all the songs, of course. I'm allowed to accompany her now, sometimes. That's real progress. She wouldn't let anyone (except on rare occasions her mother) sing to her for the longest time. She threw a fit when the assembled company sang "Happy Birthday" to her at her party.

But a couple of minutes rest was all that was required. The next thing I knew, she'd unzipped her PJs again and zoomed into her bedroom. She was pointing to her closet when I walked in. "You want to get dressed?" I asked. She pointed again.

Of course. She needed her Princess Elsa dress. I helped her wriggle into it.

Thankfully Mommy came home soon thereafter. It wasn't even 10:00 -- and I felt I'd already done a full day's work. Younger Daughter said I'd done a good job, though, which helped.

But then it was time to shift gears and head to work.

Back to reality.

Back to a$$hole lawyers.

I have a matter pending now with one of the worst lawyers I have ever met. His word means nothing. He has violated even his own, unilateral agreements. I can't talk to him anymore without getting furious. I can't even correspond with him. He has filed a fraudulent case, in furtherance of his client's desire to bankrupt my clients. Thanks to liberal discovery rules and an indifferent judge, he may yet succeed. And I may yet have a stroke.

And that case was tops on the pile -- as it is most days, these days -- when I got into the office.

Here's the problem: I find it hard to shift gears from happy Grampy to the gear necessary to deal with jerks like this one. The emotional transition is just too jarring. I'm finding it exhausting.

Maybe I'll talk about that case here sometime. Depending on whether or not I stroke out.

At work on the day before Middle Son's wedding

This wasn't the plan at all. I was hoping to take today off and rest up for the events of the coming weekend. Heck, I need to rest up if only so my hand doesn't shake too badly when I present the charge card at the end of the rehearsal dinner tonight.

The rehearsal dinner is going to provide one of those Circle of Life moments: There are a lot of people standing up for Middle Son and Margaret tomorrow, and they all have spouses or Significant Others, and there are a number of visitors from out of town to be accommodated. So smaller, closer venues were eliminated as candidates for tonight's event. That left a restaurant in not-quite-as-nearby-as-would-be-optimal Lincolnwood -- OK, maybe not in Lincolnwood, but across the street therefrom -- the same restaurant where, believe it or not, Long Suffering Spouse and I had our rehearsal dinner 33 years ago.

A lot of memories are coming back as tonight's event approaches. I remember, for example, how bemused I was that my father took the day off before my wedding. I remember thinking, why does he need to do this? I'm the one getting married. I worked all day the day before my wedding, barely making it to the church in time for the rehearsal. I had to turn in my timesheets at the wedding reception to our office manager. I remember being up early on my wedding day filling them in; they were folded up in the jacket pocket of my tuxedo during the Mass. Time off before the wedding indeed! Who gets that? I wondered.

Well... Middle Son does, for one. I think he worked some, possibly from home, on Thursday. Margaret has been off work since Wednesday, because that's when her family arrived from Michigan. And the kids will be going on a 10 day (or is it two week?) honeymoon. It boggles my mind. But, then, they are his and her CPA's now (Middle Son passed his last test earlier this year; his license just arrived in the last month) and they are traditionally accorded some serious slack after tax season.

But here I am in the office. I was here to 7:00 last night setting up stuff to be filed in court this morning and I will start running just as soon as I hit the "Publish" button.

Thirty-three years ago I couldn't figure out why my father thought it necessary to take the day off before my wedding. Today I'm wondering, how in the world did he get away with it?

This was the week that was, and I wish it weren't

Technically, I realize that the week isn't over yet. It's only Thursday afternoon, but I'm done for the day. I never really got started.

I got the office bills paid today and my portion of the rent deposited. I made a payment on a charge card (I have a 0% promotion on this card, which is good, but it expires next month, which is really bad, particularly because there's still an $18,000 balance on the card -- although that's down from $23,000). I spent a good chunk of yesterday figuring out where my personal finances are going. I was downloading updates and security software on my new laptop so I can work more efficiently yesterday, too. But I never actually made it into the office.

I started the day at Younger Daughter's house. She had to get a blood test; I had to babysit Granddaughter #1. There are worse ways to pass the time.

But the reason I was there -- the reason for the blood test -- stinks. Just a week ago Tuesday Younger Daughter told Long Suffering Spouse and me that she was expecting again and we were over the moon happy. Wow, we thought, what a 2015 -- Youngest Son graduates college (he still has to do student teaching), Middle Son gets married, and both daughters have babies....

But Younger Daughter miscarried Monday. I'm in a fog. I know I should just muscle through this -- hey, it was really early -- these things happen -- she's still young -- and, besides, I've been through this before with Older Daughter and, before that, with Long Suffering Spouse, and you know what? All of that's true -- and none of it seems to matter.

Long Suffering Spouse is coping better than me. As usual. (The weaker sex! Ha!) In addition to comforting her daughter and trying to keep her own mother from dumping her recollections on Younger Daughter (Abuela had five miscarriages 50 years ago -- and she insists on reliving each one, in gory detail, with whoever goes through a similar loss), Long Suffering Spouse is trying to buy a dress for Middle Son's wedding (to Margaret) next month.

Next month already!

The department stores are full of fancy dresses -- it is prom season, of course -- and if you're 18 and in prime physical condition, tall, taut and rail-thin -- you can find a fairly flattering dress without too much trouble.

If you're over 18, though, and if your figure is more womanly than girlish, you are SOL. (You can look up that abbreviation on your own.)

This has left Long Suffering Spouse incredibly depressed. She started looking for dresses a while back -- before we went on vacation. She had Younger Daughter and Granddaughter #1 with her on one of her first outings in this quest. She found a number of dresses, tried them on, and burst into tears. (Younger Daughter ratted her out to me.)

There have been several outings since. I've gone with her three times -- which, to the female readers of this blog, may seem like nothing -- but any male will tell you that we would rather do anything -- and I do mean anything -- teeth cleaning, colonoscopy, prostate exam -- rather than accompany our Significant Other on a Quest for The Dress. I went questing with Long Suffering Spouse once on vacation (if you read closely, you may remember I mentioned the Macy's in Winter Haven) and again yesterday (we went to Woodfield, visiting Lord & Taylor's, Macy's, Nordstrom's, and a few other places besides). There were no tears on these outings -- none that I saw -- but Long Suffering Spouse was, by last night, beginning to despair. "Maybe I just won't go to the wedding," she said at one point, after we'd come back empty-handed once again. (No, she doesn't mean it.)

The Eventual Dress (really, we have to capitalize the object of the Quest) must have sleeves. Long Suffering Spouse did not like the way her arms looked in Oldest Son's 2010 wedding pictures. ("Why didn't anyone tell me?" she complained.) It can't have too low a neckline. ("I'm going to be bending over all day as it is, scooping up kids," she pointed out.) It can't be too gathered in the middle. ("I look like a cow," she says.) And The Dress must be sufficiently fancy. The bridesmaids' dresses are short -- tea length, I think, is the term -- and the bride's mother has already bought a shorter dress. Therefore -- my wife says -- she must also buy a shorter dress. I don't remember reading this in Leviticus or anywhere else but -- my wife insists -- the entire universe of long dresses is closed to her here.

I have, from time to time, ventured suggestions, pointing to this dress, or that one, but -- although I think my wife appreciates my bravery -- she hasn't liked any of my suggestions so far. "That might be a nice dress to wear to a wedding," she's told me, "but it won't do at all for the mother of the bride or the mother of the groom." I have tried to ascertain what "fancy" means in this context. It appears to involve (a) a solid color, (b) sparklies, and/or (c) lace.

Long Suffering Spouse plunged back into the retail jungle today. She has sent out pictures from the changing room of possible candidates to me and/or Younger Daughter. I liked one -- it had sleeves and everything -- and, although it was blue, it appeared sufficiently lacy, and therefore, within the criteria established for The Dress. I said so, in response to a text. But the sales clerk had already vetoed it as not adequately "fancy." Recent communiqués from the mall (Old Orchard today) have been encouraging and I maintain a degree of cautious, if probably unjustified, optimism that an acceptable garment will soon be found... if only because Long Suffering Spouse is going to have to turn her attention soon from The Dress to Middle Son's wedding shower on Saturday the 11th.

Meanwhile, the work piles up on my desk. I took a briefcase full of files with me to Florida to work on -- and I actually did get some work done. It just wasn't enough. And new crises have arisen on my return, meaning that much of what was undone when I left is still undone.

Weekends are supposed to be catch-up time, right? But two weeks ago we went to Michigan for a wedding shower put on by Margaret's family (this was a very proper wedding shower in a tea room -- no menfolk allowed -- but it was five hours' driving each way and I really had to go along to keep my wife company). Last week, Long Suffering Spouse and I both had birthdays -- and we had kids in the house, and grandkids, from Friday afternoon through Monday morning when we left for work. In between, we went to an 80th birthday party for my one "surviving" aunt. I use quotation marks there because the poor woman has Alzheimer's -- she doesn't know anyone anymore, poor thing, and can't even speak. She's been in a home for years -- but this was the very first time her daughters asked any of the extended family for anything. How could we not go? It was nice to see my cousins at something besides a funeral.

Anyway, I can't count on catching up much this weekend -- it's Easter.

I think when I was younger I could handle a lot of outside distractions and still keep on working efficiently. Maybe I'm lying to myself again. I don't know.

But it's Thursday afternoon. And, although my insides are churning with Paleolithic fight or flight adrenaline and my arms are actually numb from stress, I'm done. If I could just tough my way through a couple more emails, I'll get out of here.

Curmudgeon goes to a funeral, comes away moody

My friend Steve and I went to a funeral yesterday. I wouldn't tell you whose it was -- that would compromise my anonymity -- and, frankly, if I described it, even, I'd give it away. So maybe I'll tell the story of why I felt I had to go some other time, when it won't be as easy to connect the dots.

The decedent had been politically involved. I can say that much. His eulogist said a lot more about that. A lot more.

And it was very entertaining. Very funny. Very impressive. But the man couldn't have been home much in the evenings.

He was divorced. I knew that. So many lawyers are, you know. I served a term in the state bar Assembly 25 years ago -- my father used to go to the conventions each year, up in Wisconsin, and my wife and I could have dinner and a couple of drinks with him and my mother.

The highlight of the convention, each year, was the installation of the new bar president. We've had a few women presidents since, but in those days, at least, they were all men. And at the big dinner on the last night of the annual meeting, the bar president would give a little speech and proudly introduce his family.

"Isn't that nice?" Long Suffering Spouse would say. "And each daughter is prettier than the next. But where's the wife?"

And my father would lean over and tell her. "See that one on the right? The youngest looking? That's the wife."

My father would lean over to tell my wife this so he could watch the horrified expression on her face as his message sunk in. He was very amused by it. "I think that's the second wife," he'd say, unless he said, "I believe that's wife no. 3." And then he'd add, "You have to spend a lot of time away from home if you want to be president of the bar association."

And that was just state bar politics. You can imagine how much time somebody involved in politics-politics must have been away from home. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it takes its toll on the family, too.

The decedent, we were told, was very proud of his family. He had a son and a daughter. His daughter he saw every day. I got the distinct impression he didn't see much of his son or his son's family. They live out East somewhere, and that surely explains some of it. Maybe most of it. But the eulogist, a nephew of the decedent -- making him a first cousin to the decedent's son and daughter -- made it a point to address the son's kids directly from the pulpit. "You don't know me," he began....

You don't know me? Well, my first cousins have roughly 30 kids among them and I don't know them all either. But the eulogist was with their grandpa every day for several decades, he said, as driver, as confidant, as traveling companion, as factorum -- surely if those kids knew their grandfather, they must have known the eulogist as well, right? Well, apparently not....

I have two grandchildren (a third is pending) and both were over at the house over the weekend. I don't suppose the house can be overrun with grandchildren when there are only two, but my wife and I weren't planning on quite so much family togetherness this weekend -- we have a ton of work to do if we hope to get to Youngest Son's Spring Training next week in Florida -- and we were able to accomplish very little. Although going home at nights put an effective kibosh on my political ambitions, at least my grandchildren may get to know me -- if I live long enough. These were heretical thoughts to have, I suppose, during a long eulogy suffused with prominent political names, but there you have it.

Steve and I were walking back to the car after the car after the Mass.

"Charlotte got one of those new iPhones," he told me. Charlotte is Steve's wife.

"Oh?"

"Yes," he said, "and she feels compelled, now, to show me anything that she finds interesting. Your new Facebook picture, for example."

Oh, that. As long as the grandkids were over, I made sure that their mothers got some pictures of the kids sitting on my lap. I put one up on Facebook as a new profile picture (in case you're wondering, Long Suffering Spouse doesn't want her picture on Facebook because she's a teacher). "Yeah, I saw she 'liked' it," I said. "I don't know," I went on, "maybe I'm being morbid. But I keep thinking I need new pictures for the tables at the funeral parlor. Just in case."

Steve laughed.

"You know," he said, "we used to go to weddings and take away ideas. I don't like this -- or I'd like to do that -- and we'd try and remember them for our own. Remember?"

"Yes," I said, as we pulled out into traffic, heading back home. "You're doing it at funerals now?" He grunted an affirmative. "Me, too," I said.

Attack of the oxygen suckers

They're everywhere, you know. We lawyers seem to attract them, but they can be found in every walk of life, every nook and cranny of our daily existence.

An oxygen sucker is any person who demands -- and requires -- everyone's attention.

Every lawyer who's been in practice for more than a few weeks has a story of the client who provides maybe 1% of the lawyer's fee income -- and takes up 99% of his or her time.

No amount of hand-holding or reassurance is ever enough. Not only does the oxygen-sucking client sap the lawyer of energy and strength, he or she costs the lawyer money. Other clients, anyone who needs any attention, drift away, miffed.

Sometimes lawyers are the oxygen suckers.

Last week, while a colleague was on vacation, I agreed to be 'on call' for her office. My colleague had done her best to schedule all matters out of the week she planned to be out but she's a real estate attorney -- and emergencies crop up.

Sometimes the emergencies aren't.

Aren't emergencies, that is.

My colleague had a matter where the buyer's financing fell through at the last moment (this happens in 100% of real estate closings as far as I can tell, but my colleague assures me that the true number is much lower -- maybe only 90%). Anyway, my colleague and her client took the bad news in stride and rescheduled the closing -- with everyone's agreement, you understand, including the buyer's attorney -- to this Monday, when my colleague would be back in her office.

Somehow, though, the buyer's attorney decided, late last Wednesday, that this matter would have to close on Friday, before my client returned.

Now, it's true, banks can stall forever on approving a loan -- but then, when they fund the loan, insist -- demand -- that the closing come together in 24 hours. Banks are institutional oxygen suckers.

But, in this case, the bank still had not funded the loan. There was no "clear to close." The buyer's lawyer insisted, however, that he would have funding by Friday and that the sale must close by that date. His client was a single mother, he said, and prone to breaking down in tears because of the delay.

The delay caused by her bank, but whatever.

Here's the way this works: The real estate lawyers schedule closings when -- and only when -- the bank says it has money. When the bank puts that in writing. When the bank gives the "clear to close." In a disturbingly large number of these cases, even after the bank has said, in writing, that it has the money it "pulls the package" or the loan "gets questioned by the underwriter" and the money isn't there when all the lawyers and clients and Realtors (the only ones who actually make money from real estate closings) show up.

The buyer's attorney didn't have anything in writing. One of the Realtors -- his, undoubtedly -- understood that there was a "clear to close," but she also had seen nothing in writing.

That did not stop this man from calling my colleague's office five, six, seven times on Wednesday afternoon and another 25 times on Thursday morning, demanding that the closing proceed on Friday. After trying to move mountains to accommodate him -- the uncertainties of his financing notwithstanding -- my colleague's office had finally concluded that there was no way they could get an attorney to the closing and they told him that the closing would have to take place, as scheduled, as scheduled by contract amendment, on Monday. (I was covering another closing downtown, supposedly -- it ultimately fell through -- isn't that a surprise?) But he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. He kept calling. He successfully sucked all the oxygen from my colleague's office -- her staff was actually feeling harassed -- and I was asked to intervene.

I said, sure, have him call me. I'd put him right. But my colleague's staff was so rattled, they couldn't find my office number -- even though I call over there nearly every day. Instead they gave out my cell phone number.

Now, perhaps, you're the sort of person who answers their cell phone no matter who calls. Me? I'll talk to my wife. Or one of my kids. Or if I've specifically told someone to call that number (because I'm not in my office). Otherwise, no. If I don't recognize the number, I don't pick up. I have voice mail on the cell phone -- I couldn't find a way to disable it -- which says, "Please don't leave me a message here. I won't listen to it. Call my office instead. I'll listen to the voice mail there. If you don't know my office number, you shouldn't be calling this number anyway, so just hang up." (That may not be the message verbatim, but it's close. My kids can't decide if that's hilarious or horrifying.)

Anyway, I ignored the unknown call when it came in -- and then I figured out who it must have been. A quick bit of snooping on the Internet gave me the attorney's email and I sent him a very nice, polite we're-closing-on-Monday-so-stop-calling note. I put my office number on the email.

Sure enough, he called me. Pouty. Put out. Hurt. "I'm sorry," I began, but he interrupted. "Don't say you're sorry because you're not. You don't care." OK, I said, I won't say I'm sorry. But we'll close Monday. And -- wonder of wonders -- the calls stopped. Mostly. He insisted that the closing be set first thing Monday (that would have been my first guess) but then he had to call to reschedule it to later in the afternoon.

Today the oxygen suckers were an out-of-state lawyer and a prospective client. I had talked with this dynamic duo in March -- at the request of my sister-in-law Josephine, really. Her husband, Ferdinand, is best buddies with the PC. I quickly saw why they get along. They both have the same sort of creepy, over-the-top, touchy-feely pseudo-religious patter. The good news for me was that the PC had his own lawyer in Pittsburgh and I talked with the lawyer -- who seemed relatively normal -- and I volunteered some suggestions for how they might proceed in the suit (which was filed here in Chicago).

A brief conversation with the PC was enough to reassure me that he couldn't afford his friend in Pittsburgh, much less the both of us. So I didn't mind that these two dropped off the face of the earth from mid-April until the last day of June. That's when I heard from the PC again. Had the lawyer called me? he wanted to know. Well, we both want to talk to you, the PC said, and we will. Soon.

"Soon" turned out to be yesterday. First the PC called, then the lawyer. Apparently the matter was up in court this morning and, they were wondering, could I wander over and ask for more time for them to do whatever they were going to do?

Well, I can beg and grovel with the best of them -- but I know an out-of-state lawyer can't represent anyone unless he is admitted to practice pro hac vice. Pro hac vice is a Latin phrase which means, roughly, we'll let you in once, but only for this case and don't even think of opening up an office here and competing for business with the rest of us.

Here is how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I knew that motions for admission pro hac vice used to be made to the trial court by local counsel. I knew, too, that the rule had changed so that these motions were no longer to be brought. I hadn't actually read the new rule -- I didn't care about the new rule because no one had hired me on as local counsel. The PC couldn't afford it, remember?

But -- if it would make Noche Buena dinner less awkward because I was helpful to Ferdinand's bestie -- I wouldn't mind being pressed into service to stepping up in court. I like to go over to court.

Still, I needed to know what to say. Did you ever get your pro hac vice appearance straightened out? I asked. Oh, yes, the attorney said. It took longer than expected, but all the paperwork was finally done.

The lawyer had questions, too. Do they really charge for an Appearance in Chicago? the lawyer asked. Is it one fee for all three defendants (the bestie, his wife, and their corporation) or do separate fees have to be paid for each? Just one fee, I said. That's a relief, the attorney said. (If the client can't cover the filing fees, how the heck is he going to cover anybody's bill... no matter how reasonable? But I didn't press the point.) The lawyer had served his Answer, he told me, but the Clerk didn't file it because he hadn't paid for an Appearance. And he was going to call opposing counsel and make sure he had the Answer, and let him know I was coming.

And over I went this morning.

That's when all the oxygen got sucked out of my day.

The case wasn't called. It wasn't called because a default judgment had already been entered against the PC and the other defendants -- a default judgment because nobody had appeared or answered or, apparently, made the arrangements he said he'd made.

And that's when I figured out I'd better look at the new pro hac vice rule. Because I was afraid the Pennsylvania lawyer really hadn't.

Hoo boy.

Yes, the rule has changed so that local counsel doesn't have to bring a motion to the trial judge -- but there still has to be local counsel. To an outsider looking at the situation... well, someone might conclude that I was supposed to be local counsel. And that would make the default my fault.

Oh, brother. I went into full defensive lawyering mode. I disclosed the default judgment to the lawyer and the PC, explained how it can be vacated (if somebody does something in the next 10 days or so it'll be easy -- after that it will be well nigh impossible), and pointed out that the out-of-state lawyer had either not obtained permission to appear in this case or misrepresented himself (and, more important, from my selfish standpoint, misrepresented my involvement) to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. After explaining that he has to hire local counsel under the rule, I told the out-of-state lawyer that I could not be that person.

I gave a couple of reasons. I'm about to start work on another appeal -- this is true -- and it will take up a lot of my time in the coming weeks. And I said I can't afford any 'off the cuff' clients at this time -- I have a full book of non-paying clients already. This, too, is true. Sadly. I said there were other reasons besides, which I chose not to disclose.

But you know one of them: After today, if this lawyer told me it was raining, I'd run to the window and expect to see bright sunshine. I don't need to get teamed up with folks like that. I was diplomatic as hell (I think I was, anyway) but I left no wriggle room. I don't care if dinner is awkward on Christmas Eve. I have a license to protect.

But, in the meanwhile, all the oxygen got sucked out of my day.

An article on shoe shines and flat fees sets the Curmudgeon off on a rant

The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin was sitting outside my office door as I closed up shop last night. I don't always take it with me on the train home, but I did last night.

There was an interview with the name partner of an insurance defense firm on page three; I won't link to it or mention the firm name. I have nothing against these kinds of puff pieces generally; the firm probably paid a pretty penny to some PR firm to pitch the 'story' about the firm's 25th anniversary. The firm will buy a million reprints (or, I suppose, in this day and age, digital reprint rights) and send it to every client and potential client it can imagine. These kinds of things happen all the time and there is nothing illegal, immoral or fattening about any of it.

And maybe -- I want to be as positive as I can here -- maybe this firm really has evolved from the way I remember it into something actually worthy of this sort of puffery. I try to think the best of everyone.

But when I read about the name partner bragging on providing shoeshines three times a week so that all the attorneys can look their professional best, I saw red.

"We dress up during the week," the name partner bragged. "Saturday is a casual day."

Did you get that? What a great two-sided slam: We're not like these other, sloppy, slovenly firms who have gone "business casual" except when lawyers go to court -- and our galley slaves row on Saturdays, too. But we let them wear khakis then.

Oh, yes, I remember this firm.

They had a handful of lawyers, back in the day, the two name partners and an ever-changing collection of associates, each with a staggering caseload -- or a caseload that would be staggering if the firm had any intention of doing any work on each file.

In MBA-speak, this firm had what are euphemistically called "alternative billing arrangements" with its insurance company clients. Flat fees. Like Earl Scheib painting cars, they'd defend any case, no ups and no extras, for one flat fee. The moment anyone actually did any work on the file, the profit margin on the case was nearly shot to hell. So no one there did any work on any file except when they absolutely had to.

The firm profiled in last evening's article wasn't the first to invent the flat fee concept. I was young then so I don't know all the details, but I think, at least in Chicago, that honor goes to another outfit, the one that the named partner not interviewed came from.

Judges hated both of those firms.

Around the time that this firm now celebrating its 25th anniversary was set up, the Illinois Supreme Court decided to impose "case management" on cases. Before these rule changes, some cases could linger nearly forever on the Law Division docket. Eventually, cases would be called, in desultory fashion, for trial. Sometimes a case made it out to trial because no one remembered to show up and ask for another continuance. Oh, these lingering cases were meat and cheese for flat fee lawyers. They might even "win" when the plaintiff could not be found or the doctor was no longer in practice or the witnesses had vanished like the villagers in Brigadoon. Most cases weren't like this. Many plaintiff attorneys pushed their cases diligently to trial; some defense attorneys pushed plaintiff's attorneys to push their cases.

But the Supreme Court was embarrassed that the average months-to-disposition time for Cook County Law Division cases (and cases in other Illinois counties) grossly exceeded the ABA 'standards.' And so case management was imposed.

That meant that every 60 to 90 days or so (the intervals are shorter now, and the scrutiny more intense), all the attorneys would have to show up and tell the judge what they were doing and how soon they'd be done doing it. For outside hourly insurance defense firms this was a boon -- a billable hour that even the skin-flintiest claim adjuster couldn't question (the court made us do it!) -- and for most everyone else it was just a nuisance. But for the flat feesters, like this law firm profiled yesterday, it was nothing less than a judicial assault on their profit margin.

A lot of times, in the early days, the flat fee firms blew off these 'progress calls.' They just didn't show up. This worked for awhile. But then the judges were told to take these 'progress calls' seriously. When judges began entering orders requiring counsel for all parties to appear on pain of default, we saw the beaten dogs these flat fee firms sent over.

To be honest, I never noticed if lawyers from this firm had shiny shoes. I don't think anyone else did either. You generally never saw the same associate twice. The burnout rate was astounding -- and entirely predictable, given that these poor mopes spent their days getting lambasted by judges for (a) not knowing their files and (b) not having done anything on their files. I never once heard a judge excuse a flat fee attorney's complete ignorance of the case being called because s/he had shiny shoes.

Answering interrogatories is a pain in the tochus in the best of circumstances. The kids at the flat fee firms were doing their discovery responses under threat of default, on a final 7 or 14-day extension, producing insureds for deposition in other cases in similar straits, and, of course, going back to court on still more cases and getting judicially reamed once again. And they had to do it fast, because they had a million other cases in similar shape. And they weren't supposed to spend time on any of them.

Sometimes plaintiffs or even co-defendants sought sanctions against these flat fee firms, and sometimes the court would decide to impose sanctions sua sponte (that's Latin for 'you don't even have to ask, I'm so pissed I'll do it myself'). That's when the flat fee firm celebrated in the current edition of the Law Bulletin would roll out the heavy artillery: The other name partner in the firm profiled yesterday would come over to court on a pacification mission. She would tell the judge that the lazy dog associate who had messed this case up -- it was always the fault of the associate, never the fault of the business model -- would be beaten severely or had already been fired or will have his dripping, bloody head erected on a pike in the firm lunchroom as a warning to any other associates in our firm to never, ever miss one of your deadlines again. If you had so much as a molecule of empathy in your bloodstream, you couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor schlub who was being thrown under the bus by this partner. Judges should possess more than a molecule of empathy; they often backed down. Some would even offer counsel -- you know, you really need to hire more people to handle all this work, they'd say -- and the other partner would say, yes, judge, we're a new firm and we're having some growing pains, but we hired three new people just this week. The judge would beam and the other partner wouldn't be obliged to acknowledge that these three new bodies replaced three others who had been kicked to the curb or who had fled in terror.

I don't believe I've ever met the partner who was interviewed in the Law Bulletin last evening. So maybe he had no part of any of this.

Maybe.

But, in the same interview, in addition to shiny shoes, the partner bragged about alternate billing arrangements with insurance clients. Maybe he and his other name partner have come up with some more realistic business models, or more realistic pricing at least, in the last 25 years. They probably have because they're still in business.

All I know is that, back in the day, firms like this created unreasonable expectations among insurance companies about how little it would cost to defend a case. In other words, they hurt all the other insurance defense firms' business even as they were angering judges, opponents and co-defendants alike with the way they weren't handling the business they had.

There's a lot to be said against hourly billing. Hourly fees can be terribly abused. But hourly fees are like representative democracy. Representative democracy is the worst form of government ever -- until you compare it against every other form of government ever tried by humankind. The hourly fee model is the worst legal business model ever -- until you compare it with flat fees. Even with flat fees and shiny shoes.