Our work so frequently is triage – one of us pours chamomile tea for a saddened client whilst others are strategizing how best (& creatively) to snatch back assets thought greedily hidden.
Every day – well, nearly – we are challenged to grasp the heartfelt breathless fleeting glimmer of creating life changing hope. And for those gossamer snatches of change, we are eternally grateful.
Sometimes, these snippets are nearly unrecognizable. They occur with merely a glance or a grimace – unless watchful, those “this is what I am really thinking” bits of contact slip away.
And so we practice mindful lawyering. Mostly, listening. Pondering, holding hands, thinking. Human contact
Engaging in life-altering crises means understanding. Not just the framework of a body of law, but thoughtful engaging mapping – each decision bears consequences … on family, friends, on a life well-loved and on a past badly scarred. And factoring in future is essential to creative lawyering.
Our work would be simpler were we the sort of legal grindstone of others – pushing and prodding fee-generators through an assembly line – work drones following a taught pattern with little thought to consequences.
But we are not so wired. We cannot pound down emerging fears in a cattle call environment. We are ponderers. We are contemplative. We whisper and think and create.
Our families are our dearest. It is the whiff of a loved one’s dying breath or the memories of our snoring children that are embedded.
And embedded they shall remain. So that yours shall also be.