zero to sixty, and back again.
Sorry for the extended absence--it seems that all of the excessive hours spent writing and editing this blog at my desk during the workday had caused quite the backlog of overdue reports and unanswered emails, and I really needed to spend all of Friday and most of the weekend in the office playing catch up.
And then on Monday afternoon I got a call from the court saying that one of my cases in the November trial pool was being called for jury selection first thing on Tuesday morning. That set off several hours of scrambling trying to get things lined up--notifying my client, arranging for my expert, and getting coverage for all of the commitments on my schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday. As it turned out, my client had recently moved and never gave us any of her new contact information, my expert was unavailable due to a personal matter, and there was only the bare minimum of insurance coverage available for protection. I've gone to trial with less before, and won, but since there was a risk of a runaway verdict, my company felt it was safer to settle. So after all of that, things wound back down to a normal pace and I had to go back and reconfirm everything on this week's schedule again.
I had mixed feelings about the outcome. Settling the case in that situation was the safest thing to do, and my ultimate responsibility is to do what's best for my client. It was a little stressful trying to get everything done under the wire before trial, but I actually look forward to that type of stimulation and work well under pressure. It's been some time since one of my cases has actually gone to trial and reached a verdict, so I kind of miss the energy of being in a courtroom. Ever since my recent discovery of blogging, I've been using it as a way to get my creative fix during the day, because I would climb the walls if I just had to churn out legal opinions in an office all week. But I think I might have to pull back a little and balance things out, or maybe do most of my blogging at home early in the morning or late at night. I can see that it's going to be hard to quit cold turkey during the day and that I'll need a distraction to help cope with the withdrawal.
Maybe I'll just have to take up smoking or something. Do they sell a patch for blog withdrawal?
And then on Monday afternoon I got a call from the court saying that one of my cases in the November trial pool was being called for jury selection first thing on Tuesday morning. That set off several hours of scrambling trying to get things lined up--notifying my client, arranging for my expert, and getting coverage for all of the commitments on my schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday. As it turned out, my client had recently moved and never gave us any of her new contact information, my expert was unavailable due to a personal matter, and there was only the bare minimum of insurance coverage available for protection. I've gone to trial with less before, and won, but since there was a risk of a runaway verdict, my company felt it was safer to settle. So after all of that, things wound back down to a normal pace and I had to go back and reconfirm everything on this week's schedule again.
I had mixed feelings about the outcome. Settling the case in that situation was the safest thing to do, and my ultimate responsibility is to do what's best for my client. It was a little stressful trying to get everything done under the wire before trial, but I actually look forward to that type of stimulation and work well under pressure. It's been some time since one of my cases has actually gone to trial and reached a verdict, so I kind of miss the energy of being in a courtroom. Ever since my recent discovery of blogging, I've been using it as a way to get my creative fix during the day, because I would climb the walls if I just had to churn out legal opinions in an office all week. But I think I might have to pull back a little and balance things out, or maybe do most of my blogging at home early in the morning or late at night. I can see that it's going to be hard to quit cold turkey during the day and that I'll need a distraction to help cope with the withdrawal.
Maybe I'll just have to take up smoking or something. Do they sell a patch for blog withdrawal?
posted by TJ at 5:30 PM
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