Interests:So here's the plan: Atticus. give better than i get. finish what I start. fiber. learn to read and write. take lots of pictures. get a job either keeping colored people out of jail or putting rich white people into jail. direct a movie using plastic army men. bike to work. teach. marry a woman who inspires me. make her proud. buy my dad a boat. theology. learn to build stuff. read history. loads of barbeque. get my sleep. have kids like my 'tards from camp. work out. own a room with nothing but screen windows, tin roof, ceiling fan, and a hammock. get my paramedic's license. make tiramisu. win my fantasy football league. run a baby triathalon. have weekly dinners with my family like those crazy Asians in Eat Drink Man Woman. lots of ultimate. hardwood floors, dimmers, and lots of light. get in a fight. run for office. write a newspaper column. eat my veggies. rebuild a Karmann Ghia or a convertable Galaxy. be a personal trainer. publish. do my part in saving the world. Expertise:"Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation ... It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." -Robert Kennedy, Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966
I said this a while ago and I'll say it again. I want to live a life like Alexander Hamilton's.
On a lighter note, I thought I'd written about my new poker resolutions for the new year, but I guess I didn't really get into it. In short, I want to actively focus on trying being a better poker player. I've always wanted to be a better at cards, but this is different. I want to be actually do something about it. I want to be more thoughtful about what I'm doing and reflective, afterwards.
The good news is that since the Vegas trip, where this all started (with my list of rules for myself) so far I've:
1. Turned $40 into $200. 2. Lost $150 something. 3. Turned $40 into $80. 4. Turned $60 into $130. 5. And then turned $80 into $140.
This all isn't about making money, of course. In large part, this is all a proxy for improving my understanding of risk. Also, when I play cards, I think I rely heavily on trying to feel out and understand other people. So I'm hopeful that improving my card game would involve my improving those kinds of perception and empathy skills as well.
Outside of general "improvement," I also have one quantifiable poker goal for the year. It's kind of silly, but I want to have an open invitation to a regular game every night of the week. There're eight million people jammed in in twenty square miles. So I think this is really do-able. I figure that at any moment, there have to be at the very least three dozen home poker games going on within a short distance of wherever I happen to be. I just have to get off my ass and meet these people. I don't expect to be playing every night of the week, but I want to be welcome at the games (somewhere just shy of Norm's welcome at Cheer's).
On the one hand, the goal is practical. I can't improve unless I play with a lot of different types of players. And, more importantly, I can't improve unless I clock in the hours. Gladwell writes about the 10,000 hour rule -- that they key to success in a given field is practicing 10,000 hours in that field (I hate quoting Gladwell for anything, because I think he's always just summarizing other peoples' work... but wikipedia has failed me). The 10,000 number is kind of arbitrary, but I buy into it -- I've just passed 10,000 hours of legal practice (literally, given that I can quantify my billable work ever since graduating law school). And really, it's just recently that I've actually felt like a pretty good lawyer.
With that said, the invitation goal isn't just practical. Instead, it's a proxy for a lot of other things. Primarily, I feel like if I'm to the point where I have those kinds of open invitations, I've finally gotten off my ass and started networking like I should be. I don't mean business-networking, but rather just meeting new people -- being exposed to groups of people from all kinds of different pockets of life. Some of my best friends are people that I literally met through card games. And similarly, some of my best friendships are with people that I play cards with -- I think because the game is such an interactive push-and-pull, where you really have to feel each other out. Of course, the goal would require that I actually be likable enough that people would want to hang out with me (or at least take my money), which is something that I'm sure I could work at. And also that kind of networking would mean that I would finally have gotten my work-life balance back in some kind of, well, balance.
Anyway, we'll see what happens. Until then, more cards, more cards, and more cards.
2007.11.17 (another self-improvement project) (it's cool. two years ago, I guess I had just started on trying to actively learn to improve my photos; a year ago, I was pining for the camera that I recently bought; and today, I shot photos at a charity event because the organization is starting to come to me for their photo needs.)
- Not art, just trying to keep in the habit of writing -
1. Poker Report.
I lost a load of money in my last poker game. Granted, I lost less money that I won the week prior, which helps me put things in perspective, but it's no real consolation. Any idiot can win big at poker one night. Consistency is where skills are required.
I don't have any excuses for this one -- I was just retarded and played way too many hands, whittling down my stack. I know better than that, but was too frisky. Must. Play. More. Cards.
2. Law firm report.
My co-workers and I have been noticing a trend in the department: While we don't have a lot of junior associates, we have a serious glut of highly-qualified senior associates that are crowding the top. I think this means that there has to be another round of law firm layoffs, whether the economy picks up or not.
When things got bad, the law firms tightened up their hiring practices, which is why we have small numbers of junior associates. It's really hard to find a job as a junior lawyer. But once you make the cut and are hired by our firm, you have a ton of work to do because we've hired so few of you.
In contrast, though, we have too many senior people. Before the economy fell apart, the law firm model assumed that 1/3 of the associates would leave every year. Hiring practices reflected that. Now, though, no one is leaving. So the group of senior associates pushing their way through our lockstep system isn't getting any smaller. Firms aren't making people partner right now, though. And even in healthy years, our department only makes a partner or two every two years or so out of our department. There's a big line of people on the escalator but no one is getting off.
It's a shame, because all of these attorneys are incredibly impressive and qualified. The firm has quietly done its usual pruning of quiet-firing underperforming attorneys. And we've had one round of layoffs. These guys are what you'd normally be proud to have left over -- they're all, to a person, really excellent lawyers.
The practical effect of this is that I think we'll have another round of attorney lay-offs, even though the economy is much improved (my firm is actually very busy right now). It's a real problem for the eighth and ninth-years. I don't know what this means for me, sitting as a sixth year. Theoretically, if I wanted to leave my firm, this is my last year where I'm most attractive to other firms. I have no plans or desire to head anywhere else. But I guess I am acutely aware that I am now the law firm equivalent of the 31-year old girl in the club.
I get my annual evaluation tomorrow and Tuesday, though. So we'll see.
3. Personal Law Firm Report.
The last two weekends, I was asked to pinch hit and write briefs for teams that were swamped. I'm realizing now how much I enjoy the process. If and when I leave big firm practice, I think I'm going to miss being able to spend the time that I spend writing. (At my billing rate, if I work on a brief I guess it costs the client around $30,000 a week. Most times it takes me at least a week to turn something around -- and that's kind of quick. Having clients that will pay you to take the time to write like that is kind of a luxury.)
The experience is always a blur because there's so much going on. I have to learn the facts underlying the case and the documents I can use to tell my story. I have to learn the history of the litigation, so that I'm telling a story that's consistent with what the team has done. I have to learn the law of the case. And then I have shape my vehicle according to the appropriate procedural rules, taking into account any local or judge-specific issues that would alter things. And, of course, I have to write well. So when I'm in the process, my office becomes this ridiculous nest of stacks of books and printouts in various circular patterns of expanding size, all loosely centered around my chair. (I take a lot of satisfaction in throwing everything away, returning all the books, and going back to a clean, empty desk after the process.)
It's kind of an exercise in diligence, because I have to make so many judgment calls throughout the process that if I don't make the right call the first time, I won't have the opportunity to go back and correct my work. So every sentence that I write has to be weighed out -- does the case that I'm using actually stand for that statement (and is there no contrary case or nothing in the case that can be used against us?). Last weekend, I spent six hours researching a one-sentence line in a footnote.
It creates this weird trust-relationship between myself and, uh, myself. I have a horrible memory. I'm not one of those lawyers that can rattle off case names or quote documents, like you see in the movies. Instead, I guess I make my bread and butter by having a reputation for doing things carefully and correctly. So when I read something that I've written, I often have no recollection of what I was thinking when I was writing it. But I trust that the work is good and then build on it. (It's sort of like when I was a law student and was cold-called. I'd look down and have no idea what I had read the night before. But there were always margin notes in my handwriting that led me through the Socratic questioning. It was very Fight-Club, but I guess that's just how I work.)
When I was a Freshman, my roommate and I used to joke that our dream jobs would be to sit in our own offices doing the odd Calculus problems out of the book while pretty girls brought us drinks. Brief-writing is about as close as that comes for me. My time is pretty much my own -- no one bothers me. I get the same feeling of "flow" and incremental learning through the process. And, while we don't have pretty girls, we do get free food and drink.
It's kind of funny, because when I applied to law school, brief writing was the farthest thing from my mind. I had barely ever written a college paper (and my grades reflected it). Now, though, it seriously is my favorite part of the job.
4. Senate Report.
I keep thinking how different the Health Care Reform would be if Tom Daschle hadn't been bushwhacked for not paying taxes on his car service use.
My totally uninformed perception of the health care debate is that the Obama team has been too far removed from the legislative process, leaving too much up to the discretion of ridiculous legislators that are too busy positioning themselves for their own interests to push the rock across the line. I wish that he had an ass-kicker like an LBJ that could go down there and push a heavy finger into the chest of each motherfucker and get the job done. There's no better person for that than Daschle, who was the goddamned majority leader of the Senate.
The Republican's ability to obstruct the Obama team at every step in every corner has been really surprising to me. Here, I think they essentially neutered the process long before it started over an issue as trivial as whether a guy paid taxes for car and driver services. It's such a shame.
Lifetime
