(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
There’s nothing worse than staring at a blinking cursor on a blank document when on deadline. Well, there are some things that are worse: Michael Avenatti facing a raft of problems both here and back in New York; the State Bar of California learning that there are more than 2,000 convictions that lawyers here in the Golden State were obligated to disclose and didn’t; that it’s taken more than 100 years for a particular law school to appoint its first woman dean. When will we get over and beyond the “first” syndrome? Actually, it was 106 years, two years less than it took my Cubs to win the World Series in 2016.
One of the interesting factoids from the State Bar is how few felonies there are. Out of more than 2,000 previously unreported convictions, only 20 of them are felonies. Let’s see, given my lousy math capability, that’s one percent of the total. So much for people claiming that lawyers are nothing but a bunch of crooks. Since the deadline for compliance is April 30, the bar anticipates more criminal records to come.
The problem is in reviewing the lawyer RAP sheets, of which there are so far been approximately 6000. Reviewing RAP sheets is something I used to do routinely as a financial institutions lawyer to comply with the relevant federal law and insurance bonding requirements. RAP sheets are exasperating, as they are usually incomplete. They will show arrests, but no information about convictions, and if there’s information from other jurisdictions, it can be even more incomplete. It can be a huge game of “huh?” trying to interpret other states’ criminal statutory schemes and how certain crimes are treated elsewhere. However, the moral of the story, if there is one, seems to be that it’s better to disclose than not, given the variety of consequences the State Bar can impose.
I don’t know how other dinosaurs feel about the term “retirement,” but I don’t like it. To me, that term connotes packing it in and up and going to live in a cave somewhere.
The late neuroscientist Marian Diamond commented on the lack of a word that provided a positive spin on retirement: “Have you ever looked up the word retirement in the dictionary? Retire definitely has a negative connotation. It means to withdraw, resign, regress, recede, abdicate and on and on. There is no synonym indicating anything upbeat or forward-thinking or optimistic. We know Robert Browning’s famous stanzas ‘Grow old along with me / the best is yet to be / The last of life for which the first was made . . .’ What an exhilarating perspective! His words certainly do not suggest the necessity to resign, retreat, regress, recede or withdraw from life.”
Dr. Diamond was spot on. And I don’t think that some lawyers, in good health (that can be an issue) and with reasonable assets (another issue) just want to sit, play bridge, and/or golf. Look at all the lawyers still practicing post 65, which is the “retirement” bone that millennials have to pick with us: “Can’t you just leave already?” Or: “Aren’t you there yet?”
She coined a term that I think is much better for us dinosaurs who want to continue to contribute, using the term “redirect,” which doesn’t connote the doddering old folks of our parents’ generation. “Redirect suggests moving in a different direction but continuing to surround ourselves with stimuli to fulfill the remaining one-fourth of our one hundred years.”
While Dr. Diamond didn’t live to 100, the term “redirect” makes so much more sense in a society where dinosaur lawyers and others have much to give after “retiring” from Biglaw, corporate law departments, or any other kind of law practice arrangement. (Read Dr. Diamond’s thoughts on aging on pages 3-10 in the link. Perhaps Exhibit 1 for keeping lawyers involved and in the mix?)
However, if anything can make me feel dinosaurial, it’s the 16-year-old admitted to nine law schools. How many clients would be comfortable with a brand new lawyer not even old enough to drink in many jurisdictions? Would this be Doogie Howser redux?
Did anyone know, let alone care, that yesterday, April 2, was Equal Pay Day? I thought not. Women have to work longer for the same amount of pay. Any surprise there? Given that women lawyers make less than male lawyers, no wonder we have to work harder, not just for the pay, but to be accepted as equals.
Being accepted as an equal is not easy, neither is being first. I just finished reading Evan Thomas’s biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, aptly entitled “First.” I found it to be a fascinating look at her life and career, both on the court and off, and regardless of how you view her jurisprudence, she is a woman to be admired. The book is also a love story of the O’Connors’ enduring marriage and the sacrifices they made for each other.
Dinosaur women lawyers: do you remember where you were when you heard in July 1981 that President Reagan had nominated her to the Supreme Court? I do. I was an in-house counsel at the time, making less money and having a lesser corporate title than a man who had a family; I had just a husband. (Millennials weren’t even born then.)
For those of us already in practice at that time and sick to death of hearing how women “didn’t make good trial lawyers,” that women didn’t have the business acumen to represent clients, that the only women in the courtroom were either the clerks or the court reporters, and other women lawyer bashing back in 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor’s nomination, subsequent confirmation, and her years of service on the Supreme Court started to change the way that society looked at women lawyers. Progress is ongoing and painfully slow, but women lawyers are a lot better off than in 1981. Thank you, Justice O’Connor.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].