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 Volume 5, No. 1 - October/Octobre 2007
Greetings from the Chair Access to Information: Building a Law Library for Sole Practitioners and Small Firms Google's Best Kept Secret Living with Integrity
Sole, Small Firm and General Practice is published by the Sole, Small Firm and General Practice Section of the Ontario Bar Association. Members are encouraged to submit articles or suggest story ideas. The articles that appear in this publication represent the opinions of the authors. They do not represent or embody any official position of, or statement by, the OBA except where this may be specifically indicated; nor do they attempt to set forth definitive practice standards or to provide legal advice. Precedents and other material contained herein are intended to be used thoughtfully, as nothing in the work relieves readers of their responsibility to consider it in the light of their own professional skill and judgment. |
| Greetings from the Chair
Bonnie Patrick* On behalf of the Executive of the Sole, Small Firm, General Practice Section of the Ontario Bar Association, I extend greetings. You will note that we have some new Executive members this year and I am sure that they will be wonderful additions to our “group”. There is still room for the Executive to grow in number and if you are interested in joining, please contact me (goulinpa@wincom.net) and I will ensure you are provided with the documentation you require to join us. I remind you that our Listserv is up and running and encourage all of you to access the information provided to you by way of this service. If you have not done so already, follow this link (http://www.oba.org/en/main/listserv_en/) and sign up as a member. I remind you that membership in the Section does not automatically mean you are a member of the Listserv; you must actually make the effort, and I assure you the effort is very small, and sign up. We are fortunate that James Morton, Past President of the OBA provides us with case comments on a regular basis which are shared with the members of the Listserv. As well, if there are issues and problems you have in your practice for which you would like some advice the listserv is a wonder avenue to request advice. Stay tuned for information about the OBA’s Annual Institute for 2008. This Section will be hosting a breakfast again this year and we all hope that you will be able to join us there. Thanks to Dan Pinnington, who has put together this newsletter for you. If you have some ideas for content, would like to write some content, have comments about this content, etc., please advise Dan (dan.pinnington@lawpro.ca). The Executive is here to assist you in any way we can. However, we need your input. Enjoy the first newsletter for this “Section year” and we hope to hear from you. * Bonnie Patrick, Goulin & Patrick, (519) 258-8073, goulinpa@wincom.net. |
| Managing Conflicts of Interest: How Does Your Firm Measure Up?
Barbara A. Schwartz* According to the January 15th issue of Canadian Legal Newswire conflicts of interest was a “hot topic” in 2006 and will continue to be one this year. In the wake of recent court decisions and the upcoming Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in 3464920 Canada Inc. v. Strother, bar associations, publications and continuing legal education programs proclaim the importance of effective conflicts management programs as part of a firm’s risk management arsenal. The goal of a conflicts management program is to ensure that potential conflicts of interest are identified early and handled appropriately. The questions below and the discussion that follows highlight some of the common pitfalls encountered regarding conflicts management programs and recommended best practices. How strong is your firm’s program?
If you did not answer “Yes” to all of these questions, read on. 1. Up-to-date written policies and procedures define the controls the firm has put into place to ensure adequate, systematic screening of new business for conflicts of interest. These policies and procedures discuss the professional issues regarding conflicts of interest, such as the various types of ethical and business conflicts the firm may encounter, as well as the administrative process that has been put into place to safeguard the firm. The conflicts policy should include the following:
Procedures should supplement the policy with the specifics of how to carry it out. Procedures are action-oriented. They outline the steps the firm expects people to take and the order in which to perform those steps. Operating procedures for a firm’s conflicts program should include the following:
2. Informal methods of conflict checking, which include discussions and e-mail/voice-mail messages to lawyers to find out if the firm is unable to act for a prospective client, are insufficient as the only approach. As firms grow, partners retire and lawyers move from one firm to another, reliance on a documented history of the firm’s clients, matters and related parties instead of on the memory of individuals becomes increasingly essential. 3. A database of client/matter information is indispensable for an effective conflicts program. Maintaining and searching a manual system requires significantly more time than a computerized one. Manual searches do not produce results that are as accurate and thorough as computerized ones, given the consequences of mis-filing of cards and the sophisticated search capabilities that databases can provide. Many firms use their accounting system for conflicts checking. Unless the accounting software has a separate conflicts-checking module, only names in the client, matter title and billing name fields can be searched. Because the matter title field does not always include the names of all parties involved in the matter, potential conflicts may be missed. For example, if a file reads “Mary Smith vs. Paul Jones et al”, who are the other parties? In addition, accounting software without a separate conflicts module does not have the advanced searching capabilities needed for conflicts checking because they are not needed for accounting functions. These functions include Boolean operators (which enable the searcher to broaden or narrow searches as required), synonym searching (which ensures that variations of a name are always searched) and phonetic searching (which protects against incorrect spellings in the database). Integrated systems with separate modules for time/billing, conflicts checking, records management, marketing, etc., are often preferred because pertinent client/matter information is automatically carried over from the time/billing module, where it is initially entered, to the other modules. However, the vendors of several excellent packages for conflicts and records management can often provide the necessary bridge so that client/matter information can be downloaded and double-keying avoided. Using software that marries the conflicts and records management functions ensures that proper names that appear in folder titles are picked up in searches, often revealing related party information not previously identified. 4. Responsibility for the conflicts database should be centralized within the firm. This means that one department or individual should enter names and relationships in the database, perform conflicts checks and report results. To perform these functions well, the assigned individuals need the following skills:
These skills are important because conflicts searching is a subjective and imprecise activity. Any type of database searching is subjective – two individuals performing the same search will probably enter different search statements. The imprecision of conflicts checking is the result of the lack of data integrity in most conflicts databases. Keep in mind that this data has been entered over a number of years, many of which were not governed by any quality assurance standards for either the types of information collected or how it was entered. This imprecision is also because the information submitted for searching is often incomplete or inaccurate. Given these issues, successful conflicts checking requires the right people for this important job. 5. The best policy, procedures and systems will not be effective unless the members of the firm who are involved with managing conflicts know about their roles and responsibilities in protecting the firm. Formal training of lawyers, legal assistants and the administrative staff who are responsible for maintaining and searching the conflicts database is required. All lawyers new to the firm should be informed of the policy and procedures as part of their orientation program. Legal assistants need training in the administrative procedures involved in conflicts checking and the principles behind them. All staff responsible for the conflicts checking system need to understand their role in conflicts management. Whenever the policy, procedures or systems change, those affected by the changes need to be apprised of them. * Barbara A. Schwartz is the president of Barbara A. Schwartz & Associates Ltd. A former law firm records manager, she has worked with Toronto law firms on managing conflicts of interest, developing retention policies and other records management initiatives since 1994. Barbara can be contacted at barbara@barbaraschwartz.com or (416) 690-7766. |
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Help for a Colleague — If You Don’t Help Who Will?
Leota Embleton* “A typical alcoholic lawyer may drink heavily for years before colleagues begin to notice that something is terribly wrong.” C. Waldhauser The Ontario Lawyers’ Assistance Program is rooted in the concept of “lawyers helping lawyers.” Our mandate is to promote wellness, prevent problems and assist when problems arise for individuals within the legal profession. In the early days the activities of “lawyers helping lawyers” were primarily addiction focused. Although the program has expanded to assist with a range of issues, we must continue to be vigilant and pay heed to addiction issues in the legal profession. Addiction takes many forms:
This article will focus on alcoholism — the addiction to alcohol. In his book A Lawyer’s Guide to Healing: Solutions for Addiction and Depression Don Carroll focuses on the specific challenges facing lawyers. Don Carroll is the director of the North Carolina Lawyer Assistance Program and has helped many colleagues overcome addiction and depression. According to Carroll, the most common form of addiction affecting lawyers is alcohol. He states, “If I had to pick the most common malady affecting lawyers, it would be alcoholism. Many lawyers use alcohol to self medicate against career stress and to cope with their own challenging personality traits which can include perfectionism, the need to control and grandiosity.” WHAT IS THE ISSUE? Lawyers often have incredibly high expectations of themselves and what they should accomplish on behalf of their clients. A lawyer is constantly looking for others to make a mistake, while at the same time feeling that others are diligently looking for him or her to slip. These thoughts dramatically increase a lawyer’s level of stress. A question often asked is “Are lawyers really more likely than the general population to become addicted to alcohol or drugs? The answer is “Yes”. In the United States, an estimated 9.4% of the general population abuse or are addicted to alcohol and 18% of lawyers are. The Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse identifies 13% of the population as high risk drinkers. If we use the same ratio, the percentage of lawyers in Canada who are high risk drinkers would be 26%. WHAT IS ADDICTION? The following are two definitions of addiction.
WHY DOES IT MATTER TO LAWYERS? In general, the abuse of illegal drugs and alcohol casts a shadow on virtually every aspect of life—truancy, crime, mental illness, career, family life and disease. According to the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse, 20% of those who are problem drinkers report some form of harm to themselves and 33% report harm by someone else’s drinking.
For every person with a substance abuse issue, four others are affected in a major way. How does this affect lawyers? Why do lawyers need to know anything about it? Clients as well as colleagues are affected by alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Lawyers are held in high esteem by the general public and are role models often with a high profile. “Lawyers are in a natural position to make a difference in the lives of their clients, their co workers, their families, their communities and themselves” GP Solo magazine (ABA) July /Aug 2001. FIRST STEP: WHAT DO YOU NOTICE? The first step in helping a colleague is taking notice. Lawyers who help lawyers take notice. Colleagues can play an important role in primary identification of a problem with alcohol use by becoming familiar with signs and symptoms of alcoholism. A change in the following areas can indicate that something is wrong:
If you suspect that the changes have any connection to alcohol use, take notice of the following behaviours that may be related: Alcoholic Behaviour
ARE LAWYERS SPECIAL? WHAT CHARACTERISTICS DO LAWYERS HAVE IN COMMON?
Lawyers have some general characteristics that are unique to lawyers. It is a good idea to be aware of these characteristics when suggesting help or identifying a possible problem. In order to offer help, or to seek help, it is important to consider the factors that are often part of the lawyer personality:
SECOND STEP: IF YOU ARE CONCERNED WHAT DO YOU DO? The second step is taking action. This is a difficult thing to do—to approach a colleague and indicate a concern. Personal behaviour is a private matter and crossing the boundary to suggest a problem or offer help is often considered out of bounds. Lawyers often practice alone and are isolated even if they work in a large law firm. There are things to consider before taking action that will help the process.
WHEN DO YOU ACT?
The Ontario Lawyers’ Assistance Program assists lawyers who are abusing alcohol and assists the family members who are affected. OLAP understands lawyers. A counselor or peer volunteer will be able to help you help a colleague. Peer volunteers are lawyers who have faced a problem and have found help. They are ready to share their message of hope. It is the tradition of “lawyers helping lawyers.” It is a powerful message when given by a concerned colleague who has been there. This material was presented, in part, at the Ontario Bar Association Annual Institute, Ontario Lawyers Assistance Program Breakfast, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, February 5, 2007. References Don Carroll, J.D., A Lawyer’s Guide to Healing, Hazelden, Minnesota, USA, 2006 |
| Access to Information: Building a Law Library for Sole Practitioners and Small Firms
Nicole Ewing* Lawyers need to have access to information, and building a collection of legal resources is essential to having an effective practice. Not having the resources readily available not only reduces your efficiency but also impairs the quality of your work. Those who work in large law firms have the benefit of healthy library budgets and multiple firm members, including skilled legal librarians, who are dedicated to the collection and maintenance of legal resources. This article is intended to assist sole and small firm practitioners build a library of legal resource essentials that provides the maximum benefit while taking into consideration limitations on time and finances. Why You Need a Library of Legal Resources Sole and small firm practitioners in urban areas should make the most of their County Law Association’s Law Library. These libraries are full of valuable tools. Staff are pleased to assist their members and they have access to excellent collections on a variety of legal topics, including online search tools. Participation in your regional Law Association also brings you into contact with other lawyers you can call on and exchange knowledge with. However, there are certain resources that should also be in your office, as it is often not practical or possible to get to the local law library or contact a colleague for assistance. These are the resources that keep you up-to-date with current events and trends and are essential to even the most preliminary stages of issue formulation and case analysis. Considerations for Selecting Materials In choosing the materials for your law library, there are a number of factors to consider, including permanency, ownership, storage and maintenance costs, indexing and currency.
Essential Resources a) Foundational Materials: Legal Dictionaries, Text Books and Statutes Having resources at your fingertips means you will be more inclined to flip through them when an issue arises. A good legal dictionary such as Black’s should be within arm’s reach from your desk. Looking up words and phrases in the dictionary will help clarify less familiar terms and can also highlight the elements of a cause of action or possible defences to a claim. A legal dictionary is like a “choose your own adventure” and should be the most dog-eared book in your collection—follow tangents, look up terms and see where they lead you. Having text books on the core areas of legal practice is equally important. While it is not necessary to have an extensive collection that includes subcategories and sub-subcategories of specialized areas of practice, lawyers should have ready access to the core texts in the areas in which they practice. If these tools are not readily accessible, we are often too inclined to determine they would not be of much use anyway, and we give ourselves permission not to pursue an avenue that may well have been beneficial to our clients’ interests. Key statutes in your area of practice should be kept on-hand and up-to-date. Provided you have Internet access, this is seldom an issue. However, if you live in an area where Internet access is periodic or slow, you should have hard-copies of statutes readily available. b) Currency Materials: Reports, Digests and Other Legal Publications Subscribing to resources that are sent directly to your home or office is beneficial for a number of reasons: we are more inclined to actually read them if they come across our desk, and it is important to be aware of trends as they are developing (not months later at an annual conference). Subscribing to a resource with a general scope will also expose you to things that are happening in areas you do not normally practice in and may plant the seed for you to recall the article or case many months down the road. With all of these factors in mind, the following are the resources no sole practitioner or small law firm library should be without:
Although maintaining a legal library can appear to be expensive and time-consuming, sole practitioners and small firms must consider it an essential career investment. Once the core materials have been assembled, a regular maintenance schedule can be established to ensure the materials are up-to-date and the collection is complete. The time and money you spend now on establishing your law library will be quickly reclaimed by increased quality and productivity. * Nicole Ewing is a partner at Advocate Assist LLP, an Ottawa-based law firm that specializes in providing legal research and writing services to other lawyers. She can be reached through the firm’s website at www.advocateassist.com or by email at nicole@advocateassist.com.
1 For more information on specific law reports, see D.T. MacEllven et al., Legal Research Handbook, 5th ed. (Markham, Ontario: LexisNexis Canada Inc., 2003) at 63. |
| Google’s Best Kept Secret
You’ve somehow lost the details of the past few weeks of your billing records. You either wrote it on a piece of paper that you misplaced, or you stored it in your computer billing program but the database has become corrupted and you have no backup (bad, bad boy! bad, bad girl!), or you just can’t remember what you worked on yesterday (or today, for that matter). How do you recover some record of what you did? If you don’t remember, you’ve lost many dollars worth of billings. You can try to assemble a record of your work by looking at your files for documents that you’ve drafted. You could look at your office correspondence file if you have one. But either of these solutions will most likely result in your still losing quite a bit of your billable hours. Or perhaps you’ve edited or deleted a document and now would like to see the prior version, but it’s no longer on your PC. Is there a way that you can recover the original? Here’s a solution for both of these problems that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere else (tell them you saw it in Being Solo first): Google Desktop’s timeline feature. What, you’re not jumping up and down on the floor in ecstatic joy? You’ve never even heard of this feature? Or where to get it? Read on to become brilliant. One Part Heart of Toad . . . Nah, just kidding. It’s much easier than that. Go to http://desktop.google.com/ and select “Agree and Download”. Download and install Google Desktop, which has many features, including the one for which it is mostly known: its ability to instantly search for all documents, e-mails, websites viewed, etc., on your PC that contain a key word or words. It can do this “instantly” because Desktop indexes your entire hard drive, making searches a breeze. [One word of caution: be sure that you do not already have PC search software operating on your computer—only one indexing software application can operate effectively on your PC at a time.] A feature that is not even described on the Google Desktop feature web page (http://desktop.google.com/features.html) is Timeline. Timeline tracks each document that you’ve opened, every e-mail that you’ve sent or read, and every web page that you’ve visited, and it maintains at least one cache copy on your hard drive. Once you’ve installed Desktop, simply go to www.google.com, select “Desktop,” and then select “Browse Timeline.” A page will come up in your browser that you’ve probably never seen before: a list of links to all e-mails, files, and web pages that you have accessed, with the most recent first. For most lawyers, this will cover a lot of their day’s activity. Pretty nifty tool if you ask me. There is one line for each file, with the time of indexing displayed at the beginning of each line. Files are indexed fairly close to the time of their creation or editing, so if you see that a client document has been indexed at 12:34 pm on Monday, this can jog your memory and give you a pretty good idea of what you were doing at that time. Perhaps you wrote an e-mail to the client after you finished the work, including the document as an attachment. A link to the e-mail will be displayed with a time reference, giving you more information regarding your activities. To the right of the page is a calendar that allows you to jump to any date that has been recorded. Another amazing Google Desktop feature is that you can open prior versions of edited documents and documents that you have deleted, even if emptied from your Recycle Bin, because Google Desktop caches all of your documents onto your computer. Just click on the link to open the document. The timeline view lists files, e-mails, and web pages all together, but if you are just interested in a single category, say files, you can click on the link “Files” on the top of the page, and that’s all you will see. There is also a link for “e-mails” and “web history” if you wish to select either one of these for separate viewing.
Spy on Your Own PC If others have access to your user account on your PC and you are concerned about whether they have used it in your absence, or if you simply want to monitor user accounts for other PCs in your office for which you have log-in information, Timeline provides an excellent way to do this. (Yes, this will work on your teenage son or daughter’s computer as well, if you have their log-in information). You can see what websites were visited, what documents were opened, and what e-mails were drafted. Better yet, if documents worked on have been deleted in an attempt to hide this activity, Google Desktop has kept a copy in cache that you can open and review.
But What about Your Privacy? Google Desktop is a remarkable software product that permits you to search for any term on your PC with results returned to you immediately, and it provides a detailed record of your computer’s use. But what if you don’t want anyone else to have access to this information? Desktop has an optional feature that requires entry of a password before searching your PC. In addition, Desktop does not index secure web pages unless you choose this option, so your online banking transactions and other such activities will not show up in a Desktop search. You can encrypt index and data files created by Desktop as well, although this will, in Google’s words, “reduce the performance of Google Desktop.” Timeline permits you to remove any of the entries that it has made (and provides a one-click feature to remove all entries) without affecting the underlining records. This provides at least some measure of protection. Beyond that, I recommend that you not be too casual about allowing others to use your computer or leaving your computer in an unlocked area without the requirement of password entry before using it. Your clients’ documents are on that PC, so you do want to take certain measures that will provide a reasonable amount of protection from unauthorized access.
You Already Know about Wearing Your Seatbelt Feeling brilliant? I hope so. You now have access to a whole set of very useful tools for your law practice that are absolutely free. I just hope that this doesn’t lead to sloppy computer habits for all the solo attorneys out there who have just read this column. This article is reprinted with the author’s permission. It was first published in the June 2007 edition of the American Bar Association magazine GPSOLO. * David Leffler is a member of the New York City law firm Leffler Marcus & McCaffrey LLC, which represents clients in business matters and litigation. Prior to that he was a solo attorney for more than a dozen years. In his spare time he blogs at staringatstrangers.com. You may write to him at lefflermailbox@aol.com. |
| Living with Integrity
Ellen Freedman* I have a close friend who is my role model where integrity is concerned. That’s because she does the right thing, always, just because it is the right thing to do. She does what is right regardless of who is watching or who will know. She does the right thing regardless of whether or not she can get away with not doing it. She does the right thing regardless of pressure to do otherwise, or the expediency of doing otherwise. Like many of you, I am of a generation which grew up rebelling against the status quo. Rules which made no sense were to be challenged or, in many instances, disregarded. I have always considered myself to be pragmatic in thought and action, and highly existential from a philosophical standpoint. I have followed rules my entire life, but those rules have been largely those which I have constructed in part from what others establish, and just as often out of whole cloth. And I have felt more comfortable than not with that arrangement, in that I have consistently been true to myself. But my friend, I acknowledge, is not only true to herself, but to all of those around her. And I find myself sometimes in awe of her depth, personal conviction, and unwavering dedication to doing what is right, instead of what is expedient. Even though I am a moral and honest individual, I humbly admit I am not made of the same stuff as my friend. And having worked with her organization on a consulting basis, I can see that her integrity has had a tremendous impact on the culture of the organization. I recently attended an educational course entitled “Living Right Side Up in an Upside Down World,” which opened by introducing the notion that the greatest challenge in the 21st century workplace is living with integrity. The presenter, David W. Thomas, is president of IntegriTalk, a company which stresses the importance of integrity through motivational speeches and interactive seminars. And I admit that although other educational sessions at the Association of Legal Administrators’ Educational Conference offered more tools of the trade, none offered more food for thought. All around the world, we see examples of lack of integrity in the news: lack of regard for life, people spreading and reacting to false rumors, failure to examine the facts in order to push one’s own agenda, corruption and bribery, and pushing the limits of the law. One need only pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV news to find daily examples of spectacular lapses in integrity: Enron. . . .Cobb / NASA. . . our entrance into the war in Iraq. . . tainted pet food. . . Duke University cheating scandal. . . A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. trading irregularities. . . World Bank sex scandal. And sadly, more than one top-tier law firm with a proud past of unquestioned integrity has recently found itself facing serious accusations of corruption and criminality in the wake of accelerated growth and financial performance. Now I challenge you to ponder who at your firm has made a conscious effort to set an example of unwavering integrity, and to create a sphere of influence which weaves the desire to do the right thing into the very fabric of the firm. Who at your firm not only has a point of view about what is right, and actively works to do what is right, but who also demonstrates integrity at the highest level by taking a stand to correct what is not right? It’s easy to lose one’s way in today’s challenging environment. It all starts with a deceptively small compromise. Or an even smaller rationalization. I’ve heard or seen it all over the years, I think. An attorney who is unable to meet the goal of billable hours strays by rounding up time spent, by charging two separate clients for the same research time because it is applicable to both, or even by adding a few extra hours to that contingent file because in the grand scheme of things, it has no apparent impact other than making the goal of hours achievable. We all know of an attorney who has charged two clients for the same time while traveling for one and simultaneously working for another. Sure, there’s an ethical Opinion to the contrary, but it’s easy to rationalize that it’s ok because the client gets a discounted rate, or the firm requires too many hours, or maybe just because no one will know. A partner at a firm would routinely record 3,000 billable hours a year. In his area of law a trip to court for the day could cover the work for dozens of matters. All were billed for the same time. All of the partners were aware of the practice, but it made this partner very profitable, and it was apparently his only justification for existence at the firm, because he was an impossible and intolerable person otherwise. Here’s a simple one that happens all the time in the name of client service: drawing on funds from the trust account to pay the client before the insurer’s settlement check has cleared. Sometimes before the check is even deposited. It’s just a formality, the partner rationalizes, as he demands of someone working for him that the check be cut before it should be. We’re not really using other client’s money because the check is “good” we’re told. Or how about telling job applicants that your law firm is a “lifestyle” firm in order to get them to accept an offer, using the logic that when they arrive and find out you’re going to ask for 2,000+ billable hours, it will be too late for them to change their mind? Is that just fair recruiting technique, and buyer beware, or a lapse in integrity? I once had a managing partner threaten to fire me because I refused to install a bootleg copy of software on his computer. He felt entitled because he had already purchased many legitimate licenses for the office. He was the boss, and he was outraged that I would not comply for that reason alone. I did learn something about integrity back then. First, we have to have a fair amount of courage to stand up for our convictions. And second, we have to be prepared to take responsibility for and accept the consequences for our actions. I stood up to the managing partner, and ultimately did not get fired. But my backbone cost me dearly for several years in “payback” behavior. My response to that reality, which has been carefully crafted from years of experience, is, “Oh well!” Probably one of the defining aspects of integrity is the manner in which individuals and organizations deal with adversity. It’s easy to do the right thing in good times. But doing the right thing in the worst of times shows what people and organizations are really made of. At one firm, the Director of Administration discovered that a partner had been stealing from a significant client for quite some time. The client was unaware of the problem. The firm reimbursed the client before he became aware of the misdeed. They required the partner get intensive counseling. The R.P.C. required that the attorney be reported to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. But the firm management committee rationalized that this would not help the client, the firm, or the attorney in question. What example was set? Not too many years later the partner in question repeated his actions with yet another client. Integrity is one of those intangibles which can affect us in very tangible ways. It is also one of the only things we can possess which cannot be taken from us without our consent. People can have the power to take our wealth, health, objects of desire, and even our ideas. But they cannot take our integrity without our willing consent. And most things of importance in our lives must be defended. But integrity needs no defense. No one has to make an excuse for being truthful and honest in all regards. Our firms, and the people within them, are led from the path of integrity in many ways. One of the top ways is a lack of an ability to prioritize. Where do we place integrity in the constant juggle of the key components of our life: work, family, friends, materialism, and so forth? It becomes so easy to set aside our principals in the name of family or friends or success. How easy is it for us to rationalize that maintaining integrity is not of the highest priority? First there’s the “everyone does it” argument. If it’s accepted practice can it really be wrong? I can just hear my mother saying, “If everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would that make it the right thing to do?” Her generation is a lot clearer on answering these integrity questions than mine, I must admit. Her world was and is much more black and white, whereas mine is a blizzard of gray. And of course another source for rationalization is the “who’s going to know?” and if no one knows, is anyone really hurt by it? It’s the old “if a tree falls in the forest does it really make any noise?” or “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” conundrum. Oh, if only it were possible to compartmentalize our lives such that WE would not know what we’ve done, or such that what we did in one area of our lives didn’t bleed over into all other areas. So aside from the fact that time and circumstances will eventually bring most actions or inactions to light, the simple fact is that WE will always know what our actions have been, even if no one else ever knows. So who is hurt by it? As my mother’s generation would say, “You’re only cheating yourself.” Thinking about these things will not make you wealthier. They may not even make you happier. But I promise they will not be an exercise in futility. A version of this article originally appeared in the June 4, 2007 issue of The Pennsylvania Bar News.
* Ellen Freedman, CLM, Law Practice Management Coordinator, Pennsylvania Bar Association.
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| Notes from the Middleground
Peter K. Hrastovec
My cell phone is dead. Well, not really. It is still sitting on the mantle of the fireplace at home where I left it. It is still charged but is turned off. But for all intents and purposes it is dead. I liked this phone. It was simple and easy to use. No gizmos or fancy gadgets. Just a phone. I remember when I bought it three years ago. At the time, the salesperson tried desperately to get me to purchase a camera phone. 'Why do I need a camera phone?" I asked with apparent naiveté. He looked at me with the incredulous glare of a twenty-something. 'Why, almost everyone wants one of these", he said pointing to the camera phone. I guess I was in the one percent minority who was clueless or, at the very least, undecided on the issue. I just wanted a phone. Period. After the intellectual debate regarding best phones was over, I walked out of the store with the phone that I wanted. Hail to the victor (they still killed me on the monthly plan, so call it a draw). I mean, after all, should I not get what I want? A phone. A simple, easy-to-use, 'I-just-wanna-call-somebody-style' phone. That is what I thought. That is what I believed. That is, until last week. My phone had-you know, the one that I wanted and the one that I bought been dropping some calls as of late. And the screen started scrambling and sometimes did not flash on at all. In essence, I was witnessing the beginning of the end. Some chronic digital disease was attacking my phone. My future engineer son assured me that this was planned obsolescence, the natural order of things. 'Technology does not last", he proclaimed. "It is not good for the economy for things to last". I suppose I could say the same about his college bank account but that wouldn't be fair. And, after all, he was just trying to be helpful. With my phone terminally ill or on prolonged wind-down, my good wife made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She took over some of my Saturday afternoon errands while I was directed to go to the Phone Store and replace my dying relic. SO, off I went to buy a new one. Again, I wanted to buy something simple. But I learned quickly that life is no longer that simple. Someone must have spiked my fruit juice that morning. Or perhaps it is the onset of old age. I walked out of the store a half-hour later with a combination telephone, organizer, messenger, MP3 player, camera and file storage system. Don't forget the thick user manual and simple-to-use DVD loaded with helpful instructions and easy hints on productivity. Was I nuts? I took this thing home and plugged it in to charge the battery. This was an overnight requirement so I convinced myself that I did not have to read the heavy-duty manual that day, opting instead for the newspaper, a music magazine and whatever else I could get my hands on instead of the dreaded manual. Task avoidance at its best. The next day, I fired up the machine and was dazzled by the colours, the lit keyboard and the sudden realization that this thing is really a minicomputer. I barely understand how my big computer works, the desk model that, on most days, has a life of its own. Now, I have a miniature version, with tiny keys and tiny letters and me, the farsighted wonder, scrambling for his reading glasses because I can no longer make heads or tails of the labels in the spice cabinet let alone the small writing on this new contraption. Unlike my last phone, I no longer had to dial. I just touch the screen with the stylus. Just like using a calculator. Or, I can scroll down my calling list, touch a name, and, voila, I have contact. In truth, I bought this thing not bemuse I wanted to be hip, up-to-date or on the cutting age. I figured that by buying a multi-purpose gadget like this, I could avoid having to carry around an organizer, a phone and whatever else I need to make it through the day. In addition, I could not find the right "manbag" to carry all of this stuff in my jacket pockets. I was starting to look like some latter-day Captain Kangaroo, pockets stuffed with machinery, weighing me down and making me look "thicker" than normal. At family gatherings, I was the awkward one in the photo shoots. 'Why does Uncle Peter look so fat in his suit?" my nephews would ask. "Be respectful", their mother would say, "he is on technology overload and just can't help himself". Like I have some run-away gland problem. So, I now have this multi-purpose phone that can play music, organize my day-month-year-life, take and store pictures of my wife, kids, friends, clients, documents, the fender-bender outside my office window, allows my suits to fit better and, at the same time, lets me make phone calls. Say, wasn't that the real reason why I bought this thing in the first place? The phone calls. Then I realized something. I am getting fewer phone calls than I did, say, a year or so ago. And now, I am getting three or four times as many emails. Not to mention the text messages that people send. And I can retrieve all of these with my new, supposedly easy-to-use gizmo. Someone also suggested that I now have enough fire power to set off a space shuttle. I look at the screen and decide that I need stronger reading glasses. Such is progress in my little world. The old phone still sits on the mantle gathering dust. The metaphor, like this article, practically writes itself. This article originally appeared in Caveat, Essex Law Association, 2007 Volume, Issue 4. |