I know it's been mighty quiet today, but I've been in and out of the office all day. A breakfast meeting with someone who is becoming a new friend, I think. That's awfully nice. He's a little younger than I am but has led quite an interesting life -- government agent to B-school to the brave world of venture cap investing. It's exciting to make new friends and I think it happens less and less often as we get older. Friendships form from shared interests or shared experiences and, as you get older, I think you may become less open to all of these things and more focused on your home and home life. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about this tendency in his brilliant book, "Democracy in America". He thought that we as Americans had a tendency to withdraw into our little fortresses and hold off the outside world. Personally, I think he was projecting a bit from his experiences growing up in France where the motto might as well be: "Strong fences make for good neighbors". Although, that didn't work as well as they liked, of course, with the strongest fence they ever built -- the Maginot Line (caution, this link is to a real Time Suck of the Day site). He also thought that community democracy as practiced through the concept of "self interest properly understood" was the only saving grace which could pull us out of our caves. I love Tocqueville. I think he was a genius. He was also only 26 when he wrote that book. I felt quite depressed when I got to 26 and had not managed an equivalent accomplishment.
Someone wrote that you should never apologize for not blogging. I don't really understand why that would be, but so be it. I'm not apologizing for not blogging today. Instead, I regret that I was not able to blog. I was thinking about it while I was waiting for the judge to call our case in the bankruptcy court today and I was looking around the courtroom trying to imagine the interior lives of the other people. This, to some extent, is a reflection of my interior life. I have to think everyone has one. I just don't know how rich it is. Do they reflect on things as they happen? Do they question their observations? Or is it all one long variation of reality television for them? Something not at all like "all the worlds a stage and I am just a player" because they remain too passive and don't even rise to the level of a player? You follow me, right? I suppose everyone has dreams, but do they critically examine their dreams or are the dreams just disconnected images of nice cars and swish clothes purchased with that lucky lottery ticket? What were the people in court thinking about today? Their dry cleaning? The next case? It's a total mystery to me. I'm glad I have this, though. It makes me happy to write and happy to reflect. It forces a discipline on my own meandering process of reflection which I think can only redound to my benefit. It's also a creative outlet in a career where creative writing takes a mighty big back seat to persuasive writing.
I mentioned in a comment that I'd post an example of a snarky line I included in a brief this weekend. It was in reference to a motion I was working on -- and am going to argue to the court tomorrow -- to disqualify opposing counsel on the grounds that they are engaged in a conflicted representation, having represented my client in the very recent past and are now suing my client. As Canadian counsel asked me, are you allowed to do that in NY because we certainly can't in Canada? No, I told him, we cannot either. In the affirmation in opposition put in by opposing counsel, she discusses how she met her current client, the plaintiff, in connection with the representation of a another client seeking capital financing which that client unsuccessfully pursued through the plaintiff. It occurred to me that opposing counsel just violated another disciplinary rule by disclosing without permission, confidential information concerning the representation of a prior client. Look at it like this, would you like your lawyer putting into publically filed documents that you Mr. Joe Smith had been turned down for a mortgage and credit cards? This was the equivalent, it seemed to me. She had also revealed client confidences of my client in her papers. So, I referred the court to this gratuitous piece of information, and asked, "Has this law firm ever met a client confidence it felt compelled to keep?" There, you just read a lot of text to get to one snarky line. I hope it was not a disappointment.
Wish me luck for argument tomorrow. I feel very good about it now. That could change in a heartbeat tomorrow.
The title is meant as a reference to the sound you might have heard if you pulled up the blog today and found. . .nothing. At least, until now.
Posted by Random Penseur at June 29, 2004 04:41 PM