Victory, And Gratitude

The past few years of my life have not been easy.

Eight years ago I ruptured a lumbar disc and endured agonizing pain day and night, which was nothing compared to learning that I couldn't risk playing soccer or volleyball again (and I was damn good at both). Shortly after that, my then-wife and I decided that we had had enough of where we lived and wished to start a family on the opposite side of the country, settling on Montana. As an attorney, however, I would have to prepare for and take the bar exam again, since Montana lacks reciprocity with other jurisdictions. Despite working a full-time job, I studied every chance I got during mornings, lunch, evenings, and weekends. At last I took the exam and passed it, also securing a job on the same trip and feeling alive with hope for the future. Even though I was taking a massive pay cut, I told myself it was worth it.

Just a few months after shipping all of my possessions to this new place and hunkering down to do my work, my wife ripped my soul from my body. With cold-blooded ease she lied to me and about me in order to engineer a separation and run off into a depraved subculture she had discovered online. The fact that I saw through her lies and exposed her is something for which she will always hate me. At this point she has thoroughly polluted and destroyed herself in mind, body, and soul; as I've mentioned before, I don't consider the creature she has become to be the woman I married, who is long dead. At the time, though, I lacked such perspective and proceeded, zombie-like, to confront my first Montana winter by myself. Each day I would wake up in the early darkness to don a ski-suit and shovel snow out of my driveway so I could go to work (where I had committed to remain), and I often had to shovel again upon returning home. I was in a frigid place where I had no family, no friends, a job that paid peanuts, and no direction.

During all of this time -- both before and after the move -- I had to work with some of the most petty, insecure, egotistical, envious, conniving, and passive-aggressive people on the planet. I could write a book on the outrageous behavior I have witnessed in the practice of law, and I would wager that much the same could be said for any "professional" setting. Stealing credit for my work. Attacking me for decisions that were not mine to make. Saying one thing to me in person, but then sending (and circulating) an email saying the opposite. A general cult-like atmosphere that targets people who desire simply to do their work and live life outside the office. Smothering good, winning motions -- thus ignoring the ethical duty to the client -- because victory might end the file along with the billing gravy train. And of course, the hatred of excellence. This last one has bubbled to the surface on numerous occasions. One time early in my career I was having what I thought was a friendly conversation with a partner and shared my belief that there is no single "right" way to make an argument, since each person has a unique style or voice. I soon was drummed out of her division; when I prodded, I learned that she had told everyone that I didn't care what partners think. Not only had I never said this, but I had won numerous cases for the division on motion practice alone (which is likely what did me in). On another occasion I inquired why my bonus was several orders of magnitude smaller than in previous years, especially considering the excellent quality of my work and my results. The answer was a rare moment of candor: "Quality doesn't matter." I wanted to leave the firm immediately rather than spend another day in such a sickening atmosphere, but I didn't have a path charted yet.

Now I do. I decided to take the plunge and start my own business devoted to legal research and writing, knowing full well that it could fail because life isn't fair and nobody owes me a damn thing. Armed with that knowledge, I dipped into savings accumulated over thirteen years of thankless toil, and I fought every day either to find work or to do it. I wrote legal articles; created my own continuing legal education course; handed out business cards to countless people who weren't interested, in the hopes of finding someone who was; under-billed when necessary; and generally swallowed my pride to do what I had to. It has worked. New business is coming in all the time from around the country, most often from other attorneys, and I have growing numbers of clients who depend on me on a regular basis. They know that quality does matter, and they also know it's hard to find in a modern world where "just good enough" is the reigning ideology.

This has been the greatest challenge and triumph of my life. If I die tomorrow, I will die a happy man who is independent and free. No treacherous wife. No children. No debts. No Stalinist HR department. No cult of mediocrity. No psychotic, scorned paralegals. And no boundaries. I can rise and sleep whenever I like, or work from anyplace on the planet that has an Internet connection. The world is my oyster, just as I felt it was when I graduated college -- only this time it's for real.

I will be the first to admit that I did not do this on my own. Many friends and family helped me even though it was not their duty, and I feel immense gratitude toward them all. I feel equal gratitude toward every person who has sought to hurt or destroy me; if you weren't the twisted, bitter souls that you are, I never would have gotten here, so my thanks go out to you as well.