I recently ran into Horace Middlemier* who has enjoyed a long and storied career in his legal community. He was more reticent than usual, and eventually our conversation turned serious. He asked, essentially, "How do I remain relevant." That one took me by surprise.
It is a valid question for anyone, but perhaps should be preceded with a careful and thoughtful consideration of whether your perceived present relevance is real or in your mind. The question in this context was with a view to ending a legal career, to retirement from the challenges and exhaustion that are litigation.
I have witnessed a great many attorneys reach the point they no longer want the conflict, the hours, the stress, and more that define legal practice. They have invested lifetimes in the problems of other people and find that brings permanent wear and tear.
I spent a great many hours in my youth in kitchens. For a time, I thought my career path might lie in cooking. Despite the conceited tone it carries, I was once an artist in the kitchen. No, not a Julie Child, Emeril Lagasse, or Giada De Laurentiis. No, those folks are inspired creators. I was never that imaginative, but I was (superciliously) very good at repetitively and consistently producing sandwiches, entrees, and pizzas.
I once perceived a career path there. But, in time, I found the repetition challenging. Each work of art I produced was consumed with gusto and was no more. Each effort was in vain, too soon forgotten. In the restaurant business, it is far more likely that a customer will speak up with a complaint than with a compliment. With each excellent rendition from the kitchen, I merely reinforced expectations. The exceptional and memorable evolved into the norm. It is too easy to allow that repetition to evolve into boredom and even discontent.
I never worked in fast food but had friends who did. One sticks in my mind, employed at a burger place. I recall one burger (out of millions over a lifetime) at that particular place. My friend prepared it, and the result looked just like the picture over the counter. I mentioned that was unique and my friend said, essentially "Oh, yeah, we can make them that way, we just don't." The theme in that setting had abandoned quality and commitment and had become speed, just about slapping together ingredients and pushing it out the door.
I departed the "widget making" of cooking and pursued other paths. After many years of legal practice and profession, I realize that the product is different but the process is not so much. With each project or assignment, lawyers are tasked with producing some excellent rendition. The discovery, contract, plan, complaint, answer, memo, letter, brief, or otherwise requires attention, devotion, and focus. I realized, eventually, that the professional role is not that different from cooking.
Lawyers are afforded a raft of potential ingredients. Each must have an appreciation for what can stand alone, what does or does not go together, and that care is appropriate in the what, when, and how much. There are artisans in the profession. Some are creative and innovative. There are sound practitioners who may lack that creativity but who deliver quality again and again, day after day.
Unfortunately, among the many artisans producing exceptional output, there are a great many in "fast lawyering" who, like the burger joint, are merely slapping together the same ingredients and pushing it out the door. They see no value in the output, no art. The output is merely a means to an end. They file a motion like the one they saw someone else file and are amazed that it did not work for them in their case. They are immune to the distinction, nuance, and relevance.
There are artisans in this world. There are carpenters but also nailers, artists but also painters, cooks but also assemblers, lawyers but also automatons and even dullards.
How do I remain relevant?
Are you relevant now?
Life is a journey. I explained to Horace that I am at a moment now when I can see the runway. My journey is not over, but I am confident I can make the field from here, even in the event of a catastrophic system failure. Horace crossed that threshold some time ago, and he has likely landed (some landings you can hardly tell). The remainder of his current journey consists mostly of taxiing to the ramp. When he arrives at the gate, this journey ends.
When that occurs, he still has valid choices. He might file off with his fellow passengers, return home, and sit in his chair. That is a valid choice. There should be rewards for a journey's conclusion.
He might proceed immediately to another journey, be it by Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (Paramount 1987).
And, even if his immediate choice is the chair, that does not preclude a revision tomorrow and a new departure. No decision needs to be permanent.
Dr. Seuss long ago titled a book “Oh the Places You’ll Go.” The children’s book was long a favorite graduation gift for young adults. After an educational journey, it was a reminder that the world lay before you.
To some extent at least, aspirations become limited over the years. We were likely all told at some point we could grow up to be anything. That is the promise of youth. As the years pass, forks in the road are passed and choices are made. Each decision likely makes some ultimate outcome less likely and perhaps less possible.
That does not mean that your destination is foretold or destined. The end of any journey can be the beginning of yet another. The only truly critical element in that process is you. If you decide that tomorrow will bring challenges, then it will, even if you have to look for them to some degree. If you decide that you are no longer up to challenges and want to go home and sit in a chair, that is valid too.
In either, there is relevance. Horace’s perception is that relevance must be in activity, engagement, and involvement. Since that is his relevance, then he is right. If your relevance is less energetic or frenetic, so be it. It is nonetheless relevant because you chose it. You decide what relevance means for you.
And in that, we answer the question above quite simply: "Are you relevant now?" You decide. If you don't like your answer, then change your course.
*Editor's note: Horace Middlemier does not exist. He is, at times, a figment of the writer's imagination, and, at times, an amalgamation of various personalities or tacks. Any resemblance to any particular person, living or dead, is purely coincidental, accidental, or apocryphal (and perhaps all three).
