‘I Grow Old … I Grow Old’

My title comes from T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Click through and read the poem if you’d like to do something more productive with your time than reading blog posts at Above the Law.

I used a similar title for one of my columns at ATL about four years ago, but I figure about 90 percent of my readership has turned over since then. And the substance of this column is very different from the substance of the old one.

Here’s the substance of this column: You should always think about your audience, including the age of your audience, when you speak. After all, as difficult as it is to believe, it isn’t about you when you speak; it’s about your audience. If, as is likely, you’re not yet 50, please consider the fact that your audience might have a great deal more experience than you do.

I acknowledge that I may just be getting old and crotchety. But suppose we have a new person join the human resources department at my joint. We’ve been holding meetings annually that cover precisely the same topics for 15 years; I’ve been attending for the past ten. But the new HR person has never before attended one of these meetings! So it’s new to the HR person. That person spends a half hour discussing the topics that we’ll cover during the meeting, forgetting that everyone in the room, apart from the speaker, is fast asleep, knowing full well the topics that we’ll be covering.

Misplayed, no?

Suppose you’re a 45-year-old partner at a law firm. I left the private practice of law (at Jones Day) when I was 53. This means that I practiced law as a partner at a reasonably good firm for eight years longer than you — before I moved in-house and started supervising cases. Or suppose you’re an eighth-year associate at your firm. I don’t even remember when I was an eighth-year associate, but it must have happened long ago, lost in the mists of time.

So please don’t put on your I’m-advising-the-client voice, puff yourself up, and start explaining to me that filing a notice of removal divests the state court of jurisdiction, so the state court status conference won’t go forward as scheduled.  I was writing articles about removal before you were born (I think). If it matters that the state court loses jurisdiction when you file a notice of removal, mention that fact, of course, but please don’t think that it’s news to me.

Similarly as to many, many other things.  I’m familiar with the fact that discovery is expensive, the other side is unpredictable, it’s hard to win summary judgment in state court, motions to dismiss are based on the pleadings and documents subject to judicial notice, and all the other basic stuff. I even know a couple of sophisticated things; after all, I’ve been practicing law for much longer than you have. Please don’t waste time telling me these things.

If you’re handling a case in an obscure area of the law, you might ask if I need specialized advice: “Have you ever before handled an escheat case in Colorado? If not, I can spend five minutes telling you how these things play out.”

Thank you! I do need that advice, and I’d appreciate the primer.

But there’s really no need to have your third-year associate explain to me that the court will weigh the probative value of the evidence against the amount of prejudice it causes when assessing admissibility. I understand that’s news to the associate, because this is the first time the associate has ever researched the issue. And this was news to me, too — in 1984. But it’s not news today, and you really could have considered that before you started to speak.

Age.

There’s a reason why it makes us crotchety.

But please do consider the age and experience of your audience before you begin to talk.

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Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].