Stay of Execution

Discouraging

After a week of rest I'm not wincing anymore when I walk down the stairs. My left shin doesn't hurt at all, and my right one only hurts a little bit. So I thought I'd go for a run today. I just went on the web and read about shin splints and the six training sites I went to said largely the same thing -- ease back into it, with an emphasis on the ease. Don't just take a week off and then go back to what you were doing. Which of course makes sense. But it doesn't really comport with the new half-marathon deadline of October 25.

Meanwhile I thought I'd fiddle around with Java today before a flock of women arrives late this afternoon for a bachelorette party. But when I went here to get it, I was baffled about the choice presented by the two columns. I hunted around a good long while through the tutorials and introductions before gleaning that "JRE" means Java Runtime Edition, while "JDK" means Java Developer's Kit. I think I need JDK, and that's what I'm downloading. But yikes. I'm in for a lot of new vocabulary words and new concepts, aren't I?

Painting Over It

I spent most of today painting my bedroom.  I'm not very good at painting and left something of a swath of destruction in my wake, but that's all cleaned up now and the walls are done and I've moved my bed into the far corner and the trunk to the left of the bed and the place looks pretty nice.  The new color is a sort of buttery sand color, but I have a dormer wall and the ceiling painted a color called "Marmalade" which gives the buttery sand a sort of peachy glow to it.  The effect is warm and peaceful and a zillion times more liveable than my previous wall color, which was called "Indian paintbrush" and was vivid orange. 

While I was priming and painting over those walls I asked myself a bunch of times why bright orange walls ever seemed like a good idea to me.  And as I painted and thought I realized it never really did seem like a good idea, but I wanted to do it anyway, and that was kind of the point.  For as much of a free spirit as I like to think I am, I'm awfully conservative about the way I dress and the colors I choose for things and what I eat and the music I see.  I've been experimenting with more bright colors in my life and it is something of a revelation that I can occasionally inject a pair of hot pink pants or an orange or chartreuse purse into my khaki and navy and brown and black wardrobe without shocking anybody.  And I've slowly realized that color makes me smile.  And that I don't have to take myself so seriously all the time -- I can wear things that make me laugh a little bit, that are sort of silly.  This has been a nice thing to learn.  I think that was part of what I was experimenting with when I painted the walls orange. 

There's more, though.  While I was painting I thought about old boyfriends. 

I Can't Decide

I can't decide what my favorite part of today was. It might have been when a big flock of ducks splash landed into the duckpond as I walked beside it into the woods behind the cemetary. Or it might have been eating toro and tobiko at my favorite sushi restaurant. Or the sense of abundance I felt when I checked out a pile of books from the library full of variety and potential (Persuasion, Lives of Moral Leadership, Shared Values for a Troubled World, Writers [on Writing], The Between Boyfriends Book, Safe Area Gorazde, On to Java, The Count of Monte Cristo). Or else when I decided to take my old Wicked Witch of the West three-speed bike into town to meet some friends for dinner and pedaled the whole way standing up like a little kid, heart beating fast and wind in my hair and a sense of fun that I forgot is part of riding a bicycle. Or the surprise at dinner when the guitarist playing on the back patio turned out to have a soft spot for the same semi-obscure sentimental songs that I do and played one after another of my particular favorites. Oh yeah, or I almost forgot, the satisfaction of finally getting the paint and the masking tape and prepping my bedroom to paint the walls a color I will like much more than the present, ill-advised orange.

In any event, it was a good day. I hope yours was just as good, and tomorrow even better.

Chilly Morning

It's not light anymore when I get up. I guess it's not completely dark, but it's a low grey light, not a sunshiney morning. And it's chilly, and dewey, and I want to wear a sweatshirt over my tank top. When we got home from our walk this morning (an easy one, with my shins still complaining) I went around the house shutting windows.

My California-native Housemate and I were talking the other night about the extreme seasonality of Maine. How different fall feels from summer, and what a bittersweet relief it is to have night come on earlier. She asked, "Are summers always this...intense?" They are. A Maine summertime is a sprint of outdoor playtime, midweek adventures after work, laughter and cocktails on the porch, visiting houseguests, wedding festivities, boating and gardening and yard projects. The onset of fall, with the shortening of the days, the departure of transient guests from away, and the routine imposed on people who have academic schedules, is a dramatic change. Nights get dark and suddenly you want to gather in your kitchen again, with a couple of close friends and something bubbling on the stove, or curl up on the sofa reading under the warm light of a lamp. Friends who were scattered away, on their own summer sprints, start to reappear. The places you feel like going and the things you feel like doing change. It's like coming inside after recess.

It's still gorgeous out there -- more so than in any other month, I think, with the low yellow light and the reddening of the leaves here and there. But the tilt of the earth and the chilly clear dark nights begin to remind us of the pleasures of the indoors, too.

Question for Practitioners

How many years of practice did it take you to feel competent to say to a client, and really, deeply, truly believe it, "Yes, I can take care of that for you, I know just what to do."?

I mean cases that you'll handle yourself, not that you'll bring in to a firm and pass off to people who know more than you.  I think this case is directed more toward small firm lawyers, but to big firm young associates, I'd ask, how comfortable are you taking referrals that come in from your social network, and opportunities to do things that aren't simply assignments from senior lawyers who will presumably be supervisingyou?  Do you take such cases?  If so, do you handle them alone, or do you seek oversight, and how do you get it?

And how wide is the scope of client problems that you would say that, "Sure, I can take care of that for you" about? 

And do you take on cases in which you can't say that yet, but you'd like to be able to say that about?  What do you say to a client who has a problem that sounds interesting to you but that you've not tackled before?

I'm speaking at a Professional Responsibility class next week about lawyer competence.  These are some of the questions I'm thinking about.  I have my own thoughts, but I'd love to hear yours.   

Free Advice

I just responded to a nice email from a rising 3L who has some nagging doubts about her summer experience at BIGLAW. Her particular question was private, but my advice needn't be. If you read my blog I don't think my advice will surprise you. In fact, I think she chose me to turn to for advice because it was this advice she wanted to hear: Trust your instincts.

If you suspect you won't like or admire the people you're going to work with, think about re-interviewing, not just taking your offer. A bird in the hand is worth something, I suppose, but not that much. An opportunity that will kill you slowly might not be that great an opportunity after all. Give your instincts some choices and then trust what they tell you.

It's not reasonable to expect that when you interviewed as a 2L you knew exactly what you were looking for in a law firm employer, at least not as well as you do now. So if you are wondering about re-interviewing, I think it's worth doing. Then if you end up choosing to take the offer you have you'll do it knowing it's an informed choice.

If you want free advice about trusting your gut feel free to email me. I'll tell you what you want to hear.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time a handsome and exciting man, far too old and accomplished for me, flew me to New York City to see him on a warm fall weekend. We ate lots of good food and he put me on the back of his bicycle and I held on to his waist and we barrelled through the streets at high speeds, weaving in and out of all of the people and traffic. I was dizzy holding on to him and looking at the buildings, smelling the smells, watching all the shapes and sizes of people and trying to read the graffiti as we passed. We stopped at a dark and strange eating establishment for the sweetest fresh-squeezed orange juice I've ever tasted and then zoomed off again to circle the city on the bicycle. He cooked for me and played Charles Trenet very loud and then I baked an apple pie while he dozed on the sofa. We tried to go see a movie but it was sold out so we rented one and curled up together and fell asleep watching it. The next day I worked on my law school homework; he had business phone calls to make. We held hands and walked around the city. He showed me the architectural plans for a building he was renovating in Paris. We didn't know one another very well or have too much in common but we liked being together and we laughed and pointed things out to each other and leaned into one another while we walked. We ate Krispy Kreme donuts. There was a gingko tree on the street outside his little brownstone and as I left I tucked a leaf from there into my journal to remind me of the sense of magic you can sometimes get from visiting someone else's world, just for a weekend.

Found

Looking for a blank book, I found in a pile a journal I started and then left mostly unfilled about five years ago. Back then I did a lot of illustrations in my journals, and they are colorful and quite lovely to look at. This particular book has a bunch of my thinking about spiritual things and my own place in the world. When I found it and looked through it I was both charmed and impressed by what I knew then.

For example, one page, colorfully illustrated, contains these observations:

My joy and wonder in the world comes largely from my senses: sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, movement, curiosity, exploration, adventure, adrenaline, sleep. The joy I get from sensual things is pure.

My anxiety and my external reinforcement come largely from my brain: other people's admiration or scorn, the internal judge, critic, snob, gatekeeper, my ambition, my desire to please or impress. I rely heavily on my brain to feel worthy. Most of the feelings of self-worth I get from my brain are transient and superficial, and relate to other people's perceptions. Exceptions: solving problems that are new and hard, using my brain to understand what I see and notice and feel, responding quickly to things I am seeing or experiencing for the first time.

On another page of the journal I found this Rumi poem, that I'd forgotten about, and was glad to remember (make sure to scroll down; the page isn't laid out as well as it could be). It might be time to pull the Rumi book off the shelf and put it back on my bedside table.

September

This is the best month to be in Maine. And it feels like a month of beginnings. I expect I'll start my next professional gig, whatever it might be, in September. I'm going on a couple of dates this week. The boat is out of the water getting her bottom redone -- an exciting and overdue project. The garden is heavy with tomatoes. The schoolbuses are on the road. People are back from their vacations. The air is clear and the light is flatter and more yellow and the nights start early. Things are starting.