Beyond Biglaw: Keeping Your Taxi Clean

Lawyers must respect the tools we use to make a living, according to columnist Gaston Kroub.

On a typical day, my alarm (BlackBerry) starts buzzing at 5:26 a.m. One or two snoozes later, I am usually walking out the front door for my five-minute walk to synagogue, first for my morning class studying Maimonides’ epic codex of Jewish law, and then for morning prayers. On most days, I catch one of my down-the-block “neighbors” walking his dog, but otherwise there is a pleasant stillness as I trundle down the normally bustling, but then quiet, tree-lined Brooklyn streets. It is easy to forget that I share a hometown with millions of other people in those moments. We all need moments of peaceful solitude, and my morning walk allows me to experience those moments on a regular basis. Sure, I could drive, but what I would gain in time saved would be costly in terms of personal time to reflect.

Every so often on my walk I encounter an “only in New York” sight: an older couple, Southeast Asian by appearance, working in tandem to hand-wash the husband’s taxi in the early morning, pre-shift, hours. They work deliberately, dipping their towels into a sudsy bucket, and carefully scrubbing the taxi to a glossy sheen. There is no hose to rinse anything off — they are literally cleaning the parked taxi along the side of the street. The first time I saw them I did not pay much attention to what they were doing, but as I saw them again and again, each time working as carefully as the previous time, my appreciation for their small act of dedication to the source of their livelihood deepened. Who knows how long it took them to earn enough to pay for that cab, or whether the money that they have earned through that “unglamorous” form of employment has allowed their children to enter into a more “noble” profession?

When I see them clean their taxi in those early morning hours, it is hard not to think of those lawyers I have seen over the years — many of them brilliant and decent people — throw away their careers due to various forms of self-abuse. For that couple, their cab is their source of income. For lawyers, all we have are our minds and our work ethic. You would think that we would treat those tools with the utmost of care, but unfortunately many in our profession do not do so. Whether it is some form of substance abuse, or an inability to maintain healthy relationships, or even something as simple as staying in decent shape, the rigors of practicing law seem to take an emotional and physical toll on too many lawyers. Perhaps a lack of self-respect is the culprit in the sad stories that are all too familiar to many of us. At the same time, I have yet to meet a lawyer who does not have at least some accomplishments worthy of respect and a measure of self-pride. Watching people hand-wash a cab at dawn — knowing that it will get quite dirty over the course of the day anyway — can be a great reminder of how important it is to respect the tools we use to make a living.

But that is not the only thing that comes to mind when I see that couple. Because I also know that just an hour or so later, my children’s school bus will be heading down that very same street, and sometimes I wish that they would be able to see the car-washing ceremony themselves. In fact, one of the main advantages to living in the city from a pedagogical perspective is that my children are constantly exposed to people of all different socioeconomic strata. I consider that an advantage, if only to ingrain in them the point that it is not only people “like us” who are worthy of respect. In Brooklyn, no matter how nice a neighborhood you live in (and all the neighborhoods are expensive relative to the vast majority of the United States), you are never far from a housing project, or at least lower-income people who may be relying on some form of public assistance. As a parent, I want my kids to appreciate that “successful people” do not have a monopoly on hard work, and that there is a quiet dignity shared by people across the spectrum of material success when they apply themselves wholeheartedly to their jobs.

You do not need to live in the city to find worthy examples of people in other professions who can provide you with these important reminders. Perhaps your dry cleaners, or landscapers, exhibit a dedication to their craft that can provide a potent example for you, or your children, of the importance of self-respect when it comes to your work. Or a reminder of how important it is to be appreciative of whatever material gifts you and your family have, while recognizing that there are others who work just as hard and never get to enjoy that bounty. Don’t feel like looking outside the law?  Well, there are plenty of lawyers who provide vivid examples of what it means to truly care about the work that you are doing. You may not get to see a taxi getting cleaned, but with careful observation, I am sure there are other things that you will see that can impart the same lessons.

N.B. With summer upon us, I think that it is a good time to mix things up a bit. It would be fun to address some “reader questions” relating to the topics addressed by this column. So if you have any questions you would like to see answered (without identifying any questioners, unless requested otherwise) in these pages, feel free to email them to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com.


Sponsored

Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique. The firm’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

Sponsored