On May 1, 3Ls are still sweating their final exams. By May 31, most law schools have held their commencement ceremonies. In a few short months, the 2007 crop of law school graduates will be starting their jobs as first year associates, clerks, ADAs and even solo practitioners.

A humorous gift from The Billable Hour Company is the perfect way to help your special law grad relieve the stress of studying for the bar exam. Plus, through May 31, get a complimentary Original Pocket Briefcase (a $12.95 value) with any order of $40 or more when you enter promotion code GRAD2007 at Step 2 of Checkout.

In thinking about all of the balls most lawyers have in the air at any given time, I came to a realization: being a lawyer is a lot like playing a game of Twister®! Consider the "circles" a lawyer has to touch on a regular basis:

• The client circle: delivering excellent and timely client service;
• The team circle: coordinating with colleagues and staff who assist you (and whom you assist) in providing client service;
• The administrative circle: billing, reviewing mail, and keeping up with all of the tasks around your office;
• The business development circle: attending networking functions, writing articles, speaking, attending "social" functions with clients and potential clients;
• The skills development circle: reading advance sheets, legal and business news articles, and blogs; staying abreast of what's going on in your area(s) of practice;
• The in-office social circle: chatting with colleagues and staff, which keeps you in the loop and creates the goodwill necessary to get things accomplished; and
• The career advancement circle: making sure you're advancing the way you want to in your career, which may include time spent with a mentor.

And don't forget the personal game of Twister® going on in the background! Those circles include:

• The self-care circle: sleeping, exercising, eating, grooming, and so on;
• The relationship circle(s): connecting with a spouse or significant other, dating, hanging out
• with friends, etc.;
• The commuting circle: a twice-daily necessity for most of us;
• The family circle: especially pressing for parents or children of aging parents;
• The relaxation circle: vacations, reading, playing sports, or whatever refuels your batteries;
• The housework circle: laundry, housecleaning, etc.;
• The financial circle: paying bills, dealing with investments and taxes, researching and making financial decisions;
• The spiritual circle: attending a house of worship, spending time in nature, inspirational reading, etc.; and
• Many, many other circles depending on your interests.

Now, think about playing Twister®: if you're in reasonably good shape, in a reasonably good mood, reasonably flexible, and playing with people you like and trust, it's a lot of fun! Sure, it's physically challenging, and it can even be mentally challenging to figure out how to balance while moving from one circle to another. Under the right circumstances, it's a stretch (in the most literal sense) and it's a good way to pass some time.

But imagine trying to play if you're in a bad mood or feeling pessimistic. Imagine what it would be like to resent the game or the person giving directions everytime you had to stretch out to another circle. Or, worst of all, what if you didn't even want to be playing Twister® and got yourself into the game just because you'd attended the party and everybody expected you not only to play, but also to be great at playing and to enjoy it? And if, to add in some serious pressure, people were counting on you to manage every stretch and to maintain every pose flawlessly, with no complaint? Yech. Recipe for disaster.

I see two ways in which the practice-as-Twister® presents serious challenges to lawyers. First, in the preparation for the game: wanting to play, being flexible, knowing the rules and the techniques, having the physical and mental strength to maintain some pretty uncomfortable poses for a time, and choosing to play with trustworthy and talented people. And second, being forgiving enough to recognize that sometimes, it just isn't possible to touch all of the circles required at the same time and checking to see how important each circle really is. The preparation part is critical, but let's focus on the second part for today.

Lawyers often feel they're going to collapse as a result of trying to put enough time in each of the Twister® circles. The balance becomes too difficult to maintain, because unlike a game, the practice of law deals with serious requirements: it isn't just a red circle, it's your client's business (or life), or your own business, or the health/happiness/wellbeing of your family or yourself. The stakes are high, and most of us intend to show up ideally to meet every demand. And sometimes, that just isn't possible.

Do you ever feel as if your mind and body are rarely occupying the same circle—worrying about home when you're at work and worrying about work when you're at home? Do you wish that you had more time for important activities like planning your future, or more time for "selfish" pursuits like working out? How often do you say out loud, or even just think to yourself, "Well, I'll get around to it one of these days," even though you know it never happens?

Too many lawyers feel trapped in their game, unable to satisfy all of the demands they face and yet unwilling to make a change. Maybe you've been there, or maybe you've tried the common tactics—work harder at "time management" (but the cleverest systems fall by the wayside, crushed by the burden you're shouldering), contract for the help you need (but no PR agent will make new business contacts like you can, and does your spouse really want a substitute partner?), or just cope with "reality" and recognize that life isn't perfect (perhaps anesthetizing the voice that reminds you of all you want out of life with another glass of wine or a brownie, even though you know the voice won't go away—and yet you fear that it might) . . . .

It's time for real change.

So push the "pause" button for a minute, and consider these questions.

What do you want? Just for a minute, release the expectations that your partner, your parents, your children, your colleagues, your friends, or even society at large may have of you, and ask what you really want from your life. What values do you want to express in the way you live? If family is your top priority, how will you choose to honor that? If work is at the head of your list, how does that square with your behavior?

What would your life look like if you honored your priorities? What changes would you have to make? And how would you go about making them?

When would you make the changes?

Whether you engage in career/life satisfaction reflection on your own or you work with a coach or some other assistance, these are the kinds of questions you'll examine. You'll find your own answers—and they won't be like anyone else's. The solutions to the traps in which lawyers can find themselves are as varied as the attorneys in practice. With guided exploration, strategic approaches to overcoming the obstacles that face you, careful attention to designing an environment that support you in making the changes that you desire, and being held accountable for what you say you want to do, your success is almost guaranteed. And you'll find your own way to play Twister® . . . and find satisfaction in it.

Julie Fleming Brown provides professional and personal coaching for lawyers on topics such as client and professional development, job searches, career transitions, and work/life balance. She is also certified to provide the DISC® assessment. Please visit http://www.LifeAtTheBar.com/ for more information and to arrange a complimentary coaching exploration session.

With both Mother's Day (on May 13) and law school graduation time coming up this month, we couldn't choose just one cartoon to feature!

©Stu Rees. All rights reserved.

Like these cartoons? Send them to friends, clients or colleagues on greeting cards. To order, visit The Billable Hour Card Store.

When personal computers became widely available, lawyers rushed to embrace them. First they were used as typewriters on steroids, now they are essential to almost all law office functions including billing, filing and communications. The technology became smaller, cheaper, and portable. Terrific, right?

John Henry raced against a steam hammer, won the race, but died as a result of the effort. Maybe technology makes us more productive and efficient. But it doesn't necessarily improve the quality of our lives. You can generate documents on the beach, take a business call online at Disney, check your e-mail on vacation. As Chris Rock once observed, "just 'cause you can do something doesn't make it a good idea."

I don't have a Blackberry. I do have a mbira (a/k/a thumb piano—a musical instrument from Zimbabwe). They are both portable devices. They are held and played the same way. Blackberries send and receive e-mails. Mbiras make soothing music. I prefer having a mbira to having a Blackberry.

I have a cell phone. I do not have a Bluetooth. When I am talking on my cell phone, other people know right away that I am having a telephone conversation. I hold it against my head just like any other telephone. When other people use their Bluetooths (or is it Blueteeth?), it seems like they're talking to me (even if I don't know them). Worse, if they're yelling, I think they may be dangerously deranged.

I think it one of the great myths of our time that new technology makes our lives more efficient and productive. If my car were as reliable as my computer, I would probably be writing this article in the passenger seat of a tow truck. I believe that every computer is endowed with a soul, and that soul is evil. My computer likes to play hide and seek with my programs and vital data. It always wins.

When I was a child, my ideas about what my world would look like now were shaped by The Jetsons and 2001: A Space Odyssey. My car doesn't fly, robots don't clean my house, and we haven't colonized the moon, made contact with alien intelligence, or traveled the limits of space and time. Sadly, we have managed to build HAL.

Open my e-mail now HAL.
I'm afraid I can't do that, Mark.

Sean Carter's humor column will return next month.

Last month, we invited you to browse our website to find a picture of the April Fool. Anyone who spotted the Fool was eligible to enter the Find the Fool contest by making a purchase using the coupon code under the Fool's picture or by simply telling us where the Fool was.

We're pleased to announce that Whitney Dawkins of Atlanta, Georgia, who spotted the fool on the Billable Hour 3 CD Set product page, is the winner of our Find the Fool contest. Whitney has won any single item of her choice from our store. Way to go, Whitney!

Fifteen years ago, when I was even handsomer (if that's possible), an "online lawyer" was someone listed with Martindale Hubbell or Findlaw, or on some ALM affiliate site, or just one of hundreds on an unused online bar association directory. Maybe the firm had a website. Probably had an e-mail address.

Legal issues arising from internet use were in their infancy, and pretty much byproducts of established practice areas: trademark/copyright infringement; some privacy issues. A patent here or there. Defamation.

Welcome electronic court filings, computer forensics, cybersquatting, process patents, spyware, worms, file swapping, internet porn and identity theft. All this in addition to substantial, rapid developments in tax issues, libel, trade-secret theft. And welcome with it the developing specialty of internet law.

The ABA Section of Business Law recognizes the area—sort of—in its subcommittee on Internet Law, with the following mission statement:

The Subcommittee on Internet Law addresses legal issues faced by businesses on the Internet. Our focus is on practical advice and information for the general practitioner. Subject areas include use of the World Wide Web, Web development and Web linking agreements, liability issues online, and case law developments.

Lawyers Weekly now publishes The Internet Lawyer. ALM publishes several glossy periodicals with computer/internet biases, including Law Technology News. Over 136,000 listings appear on Google under the search tag "internet lawyer" as those claiming the specialty beef up their meta-tags.

None of this is especially amusing, except the irony that for most of us over age 50 writing an e-mail, sending docs online to the Bankruptcy Court (with great reticence) or checking out an old acquaintance on classmates.com just about exhausts our techbilities.

But just as a patent lawyer might specialize in chemical engineering questions, they now might specialize in process algorithms: a bread-and-butter aspect of computer and internet law. Detectives who chased that stolen purse are now chasing down stolen credit card numbers. Alas, even journalists who had a week until their next issue are scooping themselves daily in weblogs and on their affiliated media sites, lest they be scooped by others.

One of my mentors, an ex-COBOL programmer—who, seeing how his mentee turned out, requests continued anonymity—summed up the revolution in internet usage this way:

The internet is not the information superhighway, it is the information McDonald's. The value of what it offers is based on its accessibility rather than its quality. The result is a population of squinty-eyed, info-fat, knowledge anorexics who measure truth by Google ranking.

But he's right: accessibility coupled with the pace of information disclosure, the relative anonymity of its source—not always accompanied by a substantially lesser degree of confidence in it—and the judgment-proof nature of so many of the miscreants makes for significant obstacles in obtaining justice for the defamed, the ripped-off. A legal system used to horse-drawn communication speed has difficulty responding quickly to search, appropriate, cut, paste and spam.

Substantive law aside, it is dealing with these challenges of speed, anonymity and proofs where the online lawyers will, or won't, carve out a real niche.

Bob Pladek is the normally civil Special Sections Editor for New Jersey Lawyer. This article is reprinted with their permission, which wasn't overly begrudgingly given. Bob's views, thankfully, are entirely his own. Send a nice note to him at Robert.pladek@njlnews.com

To view Juris Comic, click here

Refrain/Chorus:

Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lawyers
Don't let them drive Volvos and write them old briefs,
Get'em a guitar and save them that grief . . .
Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lawyers,
Cause they work 8 days a week, just to hear themselves speak,
On topics that nobody knows.

Verse 1

Lawyers like little silk hankies - stuffed in pin stripped pockets,
Short-winded judges that lounge in their long flowing robes, Each
morning finds him with hands cupped round the next fix of caffiene, and
you can't find him at night, 'cause the night belongs to Michelob . . .

Chorus

Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lawyers
Don't let them drive Volvos and write them old briefs,
Buy'em a banjo and save them that grief . . .
Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lawyers,
Cause they work 8 days a week, just to hear themselves speak,
On topics that nobody knows.

Verse 2

Lawyers use initials when the rest of us all seem to have first names,
They go to their "autos" while most just go to their cars.
"Prior" and "Subsequent" is just a fancy way they say "before" and "after"
And if you can't understand him, it's probably because . . .
He just passed the bar . . .

Chorus

Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lawyers
Don't let them drive Volvos and write them old briefs,
Find 'em a four-wheeler, save them that grief . . .
Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lawyers,
They work 8 days a week, just to hear themselves speak,
On topics that nobody knows.
they work 8 days a week, just to hear themselves speak,
. . . and WHO GIVES A DAMN?

(Disclaimer - No lawyers were injured in the making of this parody.)

Just one of the hilarious songs on

Many a stadium throughout the nation
Is named just to advertise some corporation,
A choice never passed on by judges or scholars,
But solely to gather in millions of dollars.

Others, to elevate civic renown,
Are named for their county, or city, or town;
Still others, to sate egotistical dreams,
Are named for the owners of their tenant teams.

In New York, we may think it's quite apropos
That when to a Mets competition we go,
The ballpark in Flushing to which we all journey
Is named for no ballplayer, but an attorney!

Fred C. Russcol, Esq. is Of Counsel to Castro & Remer, P.C. in White Plains, New York. This poem was originally printed in the Westchester Bar Journal and is reprinted with the permission of the Westchester County Bar Association.