My Profession

Sometimes, being a lawyer is depressing.

Don't get me wrong. I love the business I have built from the ground up, I love how Kurt and I approach being lawyers ourselves, and I love the career I have become part of. I love how our clients are almost always happy with us, nobody bitches about their bill to us because we are reasonable, and how we try and make the best of difficult situations for our clients.

So, you ask, what don't I like? Pretty much 50% of lawyers out there. OK, maybe the number is slightly higher or lower, who knows. But some days, I am hit right in the face by the condescending/snobby attitude of a lot of my peers.

I feel so many light years emotionally beyond the majority of the lawyers I know. Not all. The ones who are like us, easy going, friendly, etc. I love them. Love dealing with them, settling cases with them, working with them. But the others? Truly, they need to take everything into perspective. You only live so long. Do you really want to spend your time arguing over senseless shit, being rude to others? Why do you get so personally involved in your cases? They are just that, CASES. Your clients' lives. Not yours personally. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and chill out. Mediation and yoga does wonders. You arent doing your clients any justice by getting so worked up and emotionally involved. In fact, you are doing a bad job.

Where is all this coming from? Well, the post originated after a phone call today. I do feel this way every once in a while, but these posts seem to come right after dealing with an idiot.

**Private Bridge in Pinconning, MI.

Story. We have a case that was sent to Arbitration. The Arbitrator is probably the slowest arbitrator on Earth to issue his decision. He did not issue his decision until the case was dismissed, which is no big deal, we just sign a Consent to Reinstate and it becomes a case again, and we enter the Arbitrator's decision. Well, Annnoying Attorney (AA) is the lawyer for the husband and other side on the case. His client is pretty much nutty, a drunk, etc., so I imagine the client is driving him bonkers. I sympathize, truly. Anyway, we are STILL waiting for the arrbitrator to decide some post-decision stuff, and cannot enter a judgment until he does so. So we wait. Fine. Our client understands this. AA calls our office daily about this. Him and Kurt have been playing phone tag. He calls every morning, when Kurt is in court (he apparently does not have as busy of a court schedule, which is not surprising with the way he treats people). When Kurt calls him back in the afternoon, he is NEVER there. So finally, Kurt gives me a list of things to talk to AA about since I am around in the mornings most of the time.

I call a week ago, leave a message. Finally, a return call today. I start to talk to him, and he is giving me an atitude from the start. I don't understand why, but keep talking. I am giving him answers to everything he asked and needed to know from Kurt. He stops me and says "I really wanted to talk to Kurt about this. You two need to decide WHO is working on each case and have one atty on each case." I was really taken aback, but OK. I respond by telling him thanks for the advice, but we work on all of our cases together. Which we do. Our clients love it because one of us is almost always in the office and available to talk to them. He starts arguing with me about the way we run our office. Umm, none of your business, buddy. Which I basically tell him, "Look. Like I said, we work together. If you don't like it, it's really too bad, and you are just going to have to deal with it." He says he does not like it. Duh, you already said that. Then proceeds to say what really pisses me off "I called here to talk to Kurt, not his wife." I then say "Stop being obnoxious, I am an atty at this office and you will not talk down to me like that." He finally backs off a little bit, but this is the attitude I will get from the morons like AA until I am around longer. But cmon. Seriously. Why do attys have to try and struggle for superiority over others? So extremely retarded.

Am I Kurt's wife? Yes. And proud of that and my marriage. But at the office, I am Lori, an atty, who has built an extremely successful law practice with my PARTNER.

Sigh.

We have dealt with AA a lot in the past and he has never acted this way. I really wonder if there is something more going on in his life, and hope that there is some sort of explanation behind his treatment, because I hate seeing another one of the normal ones "going to the other side". But, it appears that another one bites the dust. Oh well.

Worked really late tonight, came home and the bird feeder was empty again! I poured more food in, but once this is gone, the birds will have gone through 50 pounds of birdseed already! It's craziness!