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A cool breeze caressed my face as I slept in the first class cabin of the British Airways flight waking up to the sensation of clouds passing so quickly that the window I was staring out of was blurred. I sat up in the bed and stretched. Like most mornings I fleetingly thought of the day ahead and in particular why I was going back to America. I was involved in a legal action over a contract I had with a Japanese publishing company.
My father had been a court reporter and my mother a legal secretary. I grew up with a love of the law and old Hollywood movies. I went to law school reluctantly, following my parents example, but quickly fell in love with reading law books. During a month long vacation in Spain I re-read the law books I had been studying and came to the conclusion that my studies were not relevant. I realized that the law books I was reading were not the law, they were interpretations of the law. My father set me on the right track and pointed me in the right direction.
At the age of twenty I was a lot more confident, after I completed my law degree, than I was at sixteen. Law school was more like a game of chess than a field where it was more important to be athletic than intelligent. The smartest people were the ones that could out manipulate their opponent in every possible way.
My only real girlfriends were in law school. When I graduated at the age of twenty two, I decided that in order to achieve success I must go to the best possible school. I applied to Harvard, Stanford and Yale law schools. In the end I settled for Harvard as it offered a smaller class size, better facilities, and an environment that was familiar to me.
There was a lot of cutting edge theory in class but I found it mostly difficult to understand. My teachers had no problem. They sailed through the course work and their grades were always around the top of the top percent. I was doing okay at Harvard. I scraped through the first year with a 2.2. It was not a bad grade, it would get me into the graduating class, but in a number of tough challenges, I was easily out done. Like in most course work you are given essay questions to write on. The test is pass/fail. On one essay, I was easily beaten by a girl called, Peggy Chao. I remembered her from the orientation dinner. She was an Asian-American with a strong personality.
The class passed us to the bar exam because we were the top students from our year. For the bar exam I practiced very hard. Unlike in high school and college I was unable to get top grades in law school. I was ok, but that year someone really stood out. We were all in our thirties and the common experiences we had shared meant that we quickly gelled as a group. By our mid twenties we were class telling the professor that while we wanted to explore different avenues and we would not be interested in large multi-million dollar law firms, we would be interested in small high end law firms. The professor called us together and told us that we could not be shy or refuse to compete with another law firm. We almost all immediately voted to join a small, Midwestern law firm. After the vote the professor told us that if we could find another five people, that wanted to join the law firm, we could be the first partners of the company. Every lawyer that applied to join the law firm was turned up, but I was the only one who applied. The class was only comprised of about twenty five people tops.
I got a call a week before the bar was scheduled to take place. I was told that I had been selected to be one of the partners! I was ecstatic, but also hesitant. I was told that there would be a press release, but I was under no obligation to join. I had a modern, attractive girlfriend so I was not in some competition with other partners. I went to my family before I took the final decision. In the end I decided to join the firm and I loved every moment of my time there.
The first few years I did mostly small-fry cases. The clients would get $20,000 and they would find it hard to do much with it. A great deal of the legal work done by lawyers was done in the courtroom and during bar exams. Whenever there was a difficult case I turned to the partner who had the case and supervised me. I learned quickly and the work kept me busy.
When I was 29 I formed my own practice and opened an office in downtown Chicago. The business grew quickly. I was busy in the weekends and night. I had to go home and see my girlfriend. I think she was the only reason I left Chicago.
Conclusion:
It was wonderful to be at Harvard as an adult, but as soon as I could afford it, I moved to Chicago and I did not look back.
I had heard of a famous actor who died when he was in his sixties while on an airplane. His house was burgled the day before and he left everything in his house and the papers from his office. His death was never really explained and although the papers were very important for several reasons, it was never explained why he had all the papers with him.