Connections

The inside cover of America magazine always has a column entitled “Of Many Things.”  A recent piece by Edward Schmidt, S.J., focused on the importance of connections. “Connections great and small help us find balance and identity”, he wrote. Is that what I was seeking as we drove southeast from St. Paul headed to Milwaukee for my reunion?

Reunions of lawyers are like other reunions in that they connect or reconnect those that life has flung to places, close and far, from where the original connection took place. But lawyers are sui generis, and I use that term thinking of Justice Hugo Black who, I am told, did not use Latin in his opinions. Our uniqueness comes from our training and what we do. Over the years I have used examples of my “job” such as this past weekend’s match between Nadal and Federer. For every stroke of one, the other quickly and frequently with devastating accuracy counters with a stroke intended to thwart or defeat the other. Not unlike a wide receiver trying to run a post pattern or Dirk trying to stop our beloved D Wade, the lawyer is constantly countered by defenses offered by another lawyer. Unlike athletes, we seldom have throngs cheering our moves. Frequently the cause we advocate is unpopular

What we have done over the years has formed what we have become.  

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Random Thoughts on Approaching Reunion

Later this week, we will drive down to Milwaukee for my thirty-fifth law school reunion. I look forward to the event for a number of reasons. Those three years of incredibly hard work could not have been survived without the friendships that truly were forged in the foreign territory of Civil Procedure, Property, Torts, and Contracts. Today all of these topics and many more – no one taught health law back then – are part of my fiber and who I am.

I am a lawyer and neither apologize nor think twice about the fact that I think like a lawyer. We hope that means a rational review of facts, marshalling those facts, and then advocating for one’s client. Would that there were more today who were lawyer-like, concerning themselves with the facts before advocating for their issue or cause.

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