Category: Reminiscence

WAR STORIES: CHAPTER TWO – “First Trial”

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 …

WAR STORIES: CHAPTER ONE – “First Client”

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 …

WAR STORIES: INTRODUCTION

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 …

GRANDPARENTHOOD AS BONUS LAND

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 …

THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER ELEVEN – “Dog Chaining”

JANUARY 11, 2024 – Each day brought memorable encounters with the people of Buffalo. Going door-to-door, you meet all kinds of people—happy, sad, smart, dumb, kind, mean, guileful, guileless, short-tempered, tall-tale-tellers, people mad at the world and folks at whom the world is mad—and once you’re invited to cross the threshold, you see all kinds …