Category: Memoir

FEBRUARY 11, 2024 – (Cont.) While most classmates I knew had signed up for the formal daily in-class review sessions for the bar exam, I bought only the materials and decamped for the cabin. The last place I wanted to spend June and July was inside a stuffy auditorium at the prison from which I’d …

FEBRUARY 10, 2024 – Coincidentally, just before graduation, Briggs & Morgan held its annual firm-wide dinner party at the venerable Minnesota Club a few blocks away. I thoroughly enjoyed the occasion, as I hobnobbed with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. On demand emanating from a table well-supplied with beer and wine, I took …

FEBRUARY 9, 2024 – (Cont.) I remind the reader that embedded in my murder case is supreme irony. Except . . . to appreciate the full scope of the irony you have to understand the improbable background to the story, only a portion of which has yet been told. Moreover, by now telling the tale …

FEBRUARY 8, 2024 – (Cont.) As I sat among my fellow law students hard at work on their exam essays and all destined to pass the course and successful lawyers, I was sure, I contemplated my alternative prospects and inventoried my employable skills. This didn’t take long . . . my only option was . …

FEBRUARY 7, 2024 – Yes. In my very first year of practice I handled a murder case—all by my lonesome, as my dad used to joke about solo efforts, usually in reference to cabin projects involving his clever deployment of wheel and lever. It wasn’t exactly a murder case per se. It arose out of …

FEBRUARY 6, 2024 – (Cont.) Well into the fast-moving trial I called Jeff to the stand. “Mr. S_________ [Jeff], can you tell us what you do for a living?” “Auto mechanic.” “How long have you had that occupation?” “About 25—30 years.” “Continuously?” “Yeah. I drove truck for a couple of years—year and-a-half, to be exact—summer …

FEBRUARY 5, 2024 – (Cont.) Two o’clock came and went without any word from the other lawyer. I didn’t need the stress. Since my phone call with him mid-morning, I’d been besieged with calls and emails on unrelated matters—matters of consequence for regular clients. The last thing I needed right then was the worry that …

FEBRUARY 4, 2024 – (Cont.) After my evening workout and supper, by which time I’d almost conveniently forgotten about John’s case . . . or was it Sue’s? . . . I realized I hadn’t even spoken with John about it yet . . . I pulled the skimpy contents out of the folder Sue …

FEBRUARY 3, 2024 – My craziest trial I conducted by the seat of my pants. My client was John, my office building superintendent by way of Sue, the in-house lawyer for Al, who worked for the building owner. Al had retained me as well on matters pertaining to other companies that Al managed. Sue herself …

FEBRUARY 2, 2024 – (Cont.) I liked the jury pool. I was looking for alert, practical people whose mouth corners at rest were turned up—a sign of folks less severe and buttoned down. The plaintiff and his lawyer were of the opposite ilk: rigid and serious. Walter was anything but rigid. He could get out …

FEBRUARY 1, 2024 – (Cont.) After numerous attempts, I finally nailed down a block of time when I could begin prepping Walter for his trial testimony—my direct examination and opposing counsel’s likely cross-examination. Upon emerging from his office, Walter ushered me into a small conference room. Walter began pacing as I dumped a load of …

JANUARY 31, 2024 – (Cont.) The arbitration took place in a room of the old Minneapolis City Hall, a massive structure built of Cyclopean granite blocks to withstand a direct hit by a nuclear warhead, even though its construction was completed 60 years before the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the building was deemed …

JANUARY 30, 2024 – As I explained to a non-lawyer recently, my half dozen or so jury trials (and a couple dozen court (judge as trier of fact; no jury) trials and various evidentiary hearings in between) represented but a small fraction of my entire practice over 40-plus years. Yet it was those jury trials …

JANUARY 29, 2024 – (Cont.) My case-in-chief took a day. For the rest of the week, the defense fired a Gatling gun of spitballs into the courtroom. I had to bite my tongue on my principal objections to the lawyer’s unorganized evidence: lack of foundation and irrelevance. In a trial, you always have to be …

JANUARY 28, 2024 – (Cont.) Seasoned jury trial lawyers will tell you that to prepare your case for the crucible of trial, you need to work backwards, starting with jury instructions. These are proposed and negotiated between counsel and the judge, then finalized and presented by the judge to the jury after closing arguments and …

JANUARY 27, 2024 – It’s safe to say that if I live to be 100 and practice law till I’m told I shouldn’t, I won’t see another day of head-to-head combat in front of a jury. I’m too well entrenched in my future—writing about my past. Besides, I never considered myself a trial lawyer despite …

JANUARY 26, 2024 – Something I learned early during my year-long rotation in the firm’s litigation department was that full-bore jury trials were a rarity among the high-powered lawyers who surrounded me. For the most part the department’s clients were business concerns, and successful businesses are about principal (and interest), not principle. This isn’t to …

JANUARY 25, 2024 – I remember my very first client. Actually, the “remember” part is an overstatement. She didn’t make much of a lasting impression one way or the other. Over four decades later I wouldn’t be able to identify her in a police line-up, and if her name appeared with one other name on …

JANUARY 24, 2024 – Blogger’s note: Having concluded three posts ago my series, The Sales Job, I now commence another series of job-related posts under the rubric, War Stories. For the most part they are light-hearted, but in the course of amusement, some tales will offer my observations about law, business, politics, and more general …

JANUARY 21, 2024 – Almost everyone I know who is a grandparent shares the same sentiment: grandparenthood is bonus land, where the grandparents get a second chance to correct all the mistakes they made as parents. I say that facetiously. You’re fooling yourself if you think that in your capacity as a grandparent you’re going …

JANUARY 20, 2024 – I walked overland to the nearest westbound freeway entrance to hitch-hike to Moore’s Lane. It didn’t take long before a driver stopped. He said he was headed for the next exit after Moore’s Lane, but after he heard my story, he was kind enough to take me to the front entrance …

JANUARY 19, 2024 – In the same letter to Cynde I continued the saga of . . . my quitting. At 3:45 p.m. my landlady gave me a ride into the city to the bus station. The day was hot and the air heavy with humidity. And I was headed south. We drove past the …

JANUARY 18, 2024 – The letter to Cynde continued with the next chapter in my most challenging part of the job: quitting. Saturday. I slipped into a phone booth off Bailey Avenue in Buffalo. The windows were all broken and the traffic made hearing difficult. I dropped a dime in the slot and waited for …

JANUARY 17, 2024 – A key to Southwestern’s business model was making it difficult for any salesman to quit. In the first place, the only way you got paid was to work all the way to the end of the summer. During the third week of August the company would ship books to a centralized …

JANUARY 16, 2024 – My family and friends cautioned me to be wary when they heard that I’d been hitch-hiking deep into inner-city Buffalo in the morning and back out in the evening. If I had reason to worry, I was never afraid. Ironically, where I faced the most imminent threat—by far—was in the wilds …