Attorneys and Barristers of the Lounge

[memphislawyer]

Nope, that's our sweet little Mikki, in her only outfit.

 

[CRH]

Spats, you're a champion. Wonderful set of pens. I've never used a fountain pen. My life is incomplete. I must remedy this or how dare I call myself a real lawyer! Great pics.

Don't feel bad, ET. Just because you practice law doesn't mean you're not a chicken scratcher! It's an educational problem rooted in primary school anyway....

Way to show 'em Spats! :eusa_clap

 

[Spats McGee]

. . . .Just because you practice law doesn't mean you're not a chicken scratcher! . . . .

I am walking proof of this. My penmanship is awful, but it'd be that way whether I used a ballpoint or fountain pen. But I still like my fountain pens.

Thanks, CRH.

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Hell yeah guys. My writing's so bad even I can barely decipher it!

 

[Edward]

Get a headstart and read up on the first two cases you'll learn in law school: Donoghue v Stevenson and Carlill v The Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. You'll find them on Wikipedia. I have an orginal Carbolic Smoke Ball Co ad framed on my office wall.

It's funny how those early Law School cases still make us lawyers smile.

Hoooo, ys. I carry fond memories of L'Estrange v Graucobb, R v George, Liberace v Daily Mirror, and many more....

Atticus Finch - undoubtedly one of the greatest and most admired characters in American literature and for all of the right reasons. There have been many times when I have been a little angry with my daughter and I have asked myself how Atticus would handle the situation.

I love the book, the movie and the stage production I saw in Stratford, Ont. last summer. Unfortunately, no matter what movie I watch with Gregory Peck I see Atticus Finch playing the character.

It was a book that I read at school, at the age of fifteen, and it's, eh, post-idealism, if you can call it that (the stage of a man's development when he loses all illusions about human nautre and yet still fights for what is right) was a big influence upon my young self and quit probably ending up studying law later on. Funnily enough, when eventually I saw the film, it took me a bit to get used to Peck - for some reason, Atticus in my imagination, even now, looked like George Bernard Shaw. [huh]

Not a lawyer, myself but do also work for the aforementioned company but in the UK.

Small world! We use Westlaw a lot here!

Interesting how many lawyers there are in these parts - I thought I could smell brimstone more strongly than usual.... I am what I believe is properly referred to as an academic lawyer. Here in the UK, law can be taken as a primary undergraduate degree, and like many of my contemporaries I had already decided by my final year that practice was really not for me. Long story short, I fell into a Masters degree in Law & Computers, did rather well, ans my tutor encouraged me to consider an academic career - even sent me the details of a job on the go in London. Two months later, I moved to the Big City to take up a post as Research Assistant in Electronic Commerce, on a twelve month contract. Over ten years later, I'm still here, still in the same department, as a Lecturer in Media Law. I teach a wide variety of stuff, but my real area of specialism is content regulation, both online and in traditional media, including copyright, hate speech, obscenity and indecency, and especially defamation. Also online intermediary liability for third party content. Published quite a few things in my field, as is the expectation now. Increasingly bitter than the sector has been so skewed in recent years that your teaching is not valued the same anymore as publication, meaning that if your skill set falls largely into that (it has to be said, central function of what a University is about!!) you are in some circles very much a second class citizen. Otherwise, love the job.

I've always been mildly out of the norm in my dress sense; I have been defiantly anti-mainstream fashion since I turned 15 in 1989. Enjoyed a sharp suit from an early age, though vintage is a more recent development. Back in 2006 or so I finally felt too old and fat for drainpipes and bondage wear, and, like so many old punks, signed up to the rockabilly retirement plan. This largely led me here, which also stimulated my interest in 30s and 40s styles as well as early-mid 50s. Hats have been very much a part of my daily Winter wardrobe since undergraduate days in the early 90s - a coat with a hood was not cool with me back then, and in Belfast by the time it's raining heavily enough that you would be bothered putting up an umbrella, it is generally much too windy to deal with. I started off with several corduroy Greek Fisherman / Yachtsman type hats (also referred to by some as a 'Captain Scarlet', 'gay Spanish train driver' or 'that ****ing thing on yer head', gonig by some of the heckles I got on the street, lol ). Summer hats were a later thing, and for the most part they were US military Vietnam-style GI Boonie hats, the baseball hats of my childhood long forgotten as they didn't provide sun-protection on the back of my neck, where I burn easiest, and, more importantly, I always thought that once I started wearing my glasses all the time I looked like an eedjit in baseball caps. My first fedora, a wool-felt Trilby type with a fairly early 50s shape to it, I think (still in my wardrobe too!) was worn a lot for a couple of years from 17 before being retired to 'formal wear' - it went with me on my first forays into black tie. Around 2006, I started to wear a wool 'western' type hat (not quite an Open Road style, but much closer that than a cowboy) a fair bit, after buying it for a Yul Brynner costume. Then around the time I first landed here, or just before, I bought my first fur felts - a modern, black Biltmore for Miller.com Fedora, new, for GBP12.50 on eBay, and a vintage, black Homberg. That must have been pushing the back end of 2006, or maybe 2007. Since then, I've bought a silly number of hats - still wear the corduroy and wool caps I had before, plus a few more, and also now have a couple of straws and cotton eight panel caps for warm weather, with a whole bunch more furfelt fedoras which are worn daily. Since June 2007, I have left my flat without a hat on approximately three occasions - every one of them a costume-occasion, on which my had was covered either by a wig, fully bandaged (as Claude Rains), or covered in make-up.

My writing instrument of choice has been a fountain pen since I was 13 (though I used biros in exams and at lectures in university). I was taught to write with pen and ink at primary school, then they modernised (partly, ironically, to help we left handers) to a Berol Handwriting disposable pen after the first 18 months I had been writing with pen at school. I returned to fountain pens simply as a matter of personal preference, both stylistically and as they make my handwriting much neater. For years I stuck with cartridges, but have now grown to prefer a true fountain pen and use bottled ink, even with the cartridge pens I have (using the appropriate converters). I generally hav two or three in my pocket at any one time, and am rarely caught on the hop ink-wise. Most commonly I write in a regular blue, sky blue, or a nice mid-brown. I tend not to use black so much as my rather messy handwriting seems a touch less so in a less stark hue. I have amassed about a dozen pens in the past year which all are used regularly (cleared out some others that I had from before, though also kept a few). I have a 1940s Waterman that needs repair, and a whole bunch (maybe half a dozen) P51s that need a service - some Aeromatic, some Vacuumatic. I have two 1950s Parker 51s I used regularly (one black body, one grey, both steel / lustrum caps - one is short arrow, the other longer, don't recall which way round, so one of them is 48-51ish, I think, the other 51 to 58 - both pre-58 as they have the airhole on the end, not the side as it was moved to after that). I also have a modern Hero 100, the Shanghai Fountain Pen Company's knock-off of a 51, and the next best to the 'real thing' there is - it'd be close to perfect if only it were just a touch thicker in the body, as the 51. (I'm presuming this, like the greater commonality of very fine nibs, is a nod to the typically smaller hands and more intricate script characters of the primary market for that pen). I tried to find more when I was in Beijing last May, but no dice - I'll have to wait til I visit Shanghai itself. Still, at least then they're more likely to be legit; I gather a very high proportion of Hero pens sold within China are fakes. FWIW, mine is the export version, with the plain clip. I gather in the home market, where they play fast and loose with intellectual property laws, they often have a Parker Arrow on the cap. I like the difference - it's a perfectly good pen in it's own right, let it stand up and be proud as itself. The other pens that are pressed into very regular service are my Waterman Phileas models, one of each in the marbled blue and green finishes. In the medium term, I have my eye on a couple of Pelikans - M200 and M215, I think are the model designations. Those, plus more Hero 100s (especially the all-steel Flighter model), and more Aeromatic P-51s.

Watches - I have about a dozen wristwatches, including a Japanese Pulsar (a subsidiary of Seiko) - gold plated, metal bracelet, daily wear - and an old, chrome-plated brass bodied (with silver-tone expandable bracelet) Vostok, automatic, Russian military watch. The rest are various fakes (Rolex, Piaget, Omega, etc) that I have picked up in Beijing markets. All very decent watches, it has to be said - I'm careful not to buy the cheapest of the cheap. Keep time just as well as the real thing, and I can afford a slew of them - as opposed to never being able to afford even one of the real things. lol Also have three pocket watches - a late30s or early 40s (not sure yet) Oris, silver, sourced on eBay for about GBP16.00, which I wear with a solid silver, double albert chain that came down the family - possibly Victorian or Edwardian at least. also a late 60s / early 70s one with a small face, designed to give the impression of being a half-hunter, again, cheap on ebay - about a fiver, mint. Came with its own braided leather strap. Lastly, I have a cheap Chinese skeleton hunter, which is nice and keeps good time, came with its own stainless steel chain. Awaiting use, I have two vintage (30s, I think) leather straps, plus one 1930s rose gold-plated brass single albert chain with a compass fob. Ideally I'd like a half hunter and full, double hunter each in yellow gold, rose gold and silver tones. Either vintage or new, doesn't matter so much to me. For watches in general, I have but one rule: must be mechanical - NO quartz! Oh, and add to that: no digital. I am well aware that quartz will always be more accurate than a mechanical, but what with the Earth's dwindling resources clockwork seems more responsible, and there's just something satisfying about wearing a little mechanical machine on your arm that a digitised, quartz confection cannot match. It's like writing with a Parker 51 as compared to writing with one of those space pens that will work upside down, underwater, and on any surface: technically, the latter is much more reliable, but lacking in soul.

Jewellery.... like all the best mob lawyers, I do like just a touch of bling.... lol As with watches, I tend to stick to the old-school silvertone for evening / gold tone for daywear 'rule'. I don't think it matters that much these days, really, but I like to go with it. I do have a tendency to wear anything up to four rings at a time - two per paw - though more likely to be four with silvertone; gold tone (once I pick up the two more I'm after and have my existing gold ring resized) I won't go over three - it has always seemed to me you an get away with more silvertone before it looks cheap and ridiculous than you can gold. I have had a real affection for cufflinks for about twenty-one years now, and wear them whenever possible. I also now wear a tie clip and usually also a clip-on collar bar whenever I wear a four in hand.

Question..... do we lawyers gravitate to vintage because we're maybe that bit more often expected to dress formally to the point where it becomes second nature.... or is there something more fundamentally rooted in our DNA that brings us to both vintage and the law for separate, but perhaps related, reasons?

 

[memphislawyer]

Question..... do we lawyers gravitate to vintage because we're maybe that bit more often expected to dress formally to the point where it becomes second nature.... or is there something more fundamentally rooted in our DNA that brings us to both vintage and the law for separate, but perhaps related, reasons?

I think a bit both. I think once we practice a bit, and see some clients that also dress up, we want to set ourselves apart. One way is a car we drive, and where we live, but another way is more visible, our uniform if you will. That is why I took to wearing cufflinks and then to get ties and shirts (with texture appeal) to set myself apart. Vintage seems to be a natural gravitation I think.

Sam

 

[billyspew]

Small world! We use Westlaw a lot here!

Well good. [salespitch]Better than the main competition (I've worked there also)[/salespitch]

Let me know if you ever feel like providing feedback!

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Hoooo, ys. I carry fond memories of L'Estrange v Graucobb, R v George, Liberace v Daily Mirror, and many more....



It was a book that I read at school, at the age of fifteen, and it's, eh, post-idealism, if you can call it that (the stage of a man's development when he loses all illusions about human nautre and yet still fights for what is right) was a big influence upon my young self and quit probably ending up studying law later on. Funnily enough, when eventually I saw the film, it took me a bit to get used to Peck - for some reason, Atticus in my imagination, even now, looked like George Bernard Shaw. [huh]



Small world! We use Westlaw a lot here!

Interesting how many lawyers there are in these parts - I thought I could smell brimstone more strongly than usual.... I am what I believe is properly referred to as an academic lawyer. Here in the UK, law can be taken as a primary undergraduate degree, and like many of my contemporaries I had already decided by my final year that practice was really not for me. Long story short, I fell into a Masters degree in Law & Computers, did rather well, ans my tutor encouraged me to consider an academic career - even sent me the details of a job on the go in London. Two months later, I moved to the Big City to take up a post as Research Assistant in Electronic Commerce, on a twelve month contract. Over ten years later, I'm still here, still in the same department, as a Lecturer in Media Law. I teach a wide variety of stuff, but my real area of specialism is content regulation, both online and in traditional media, including copyright, hate speech, obscenity and indecency, and especially defamation. Also online intermediary liability for third party content. Published quite a few things in my field, as is the expectation now. Increasingly bitter than the sector has been so skewed in recent years that your teaching is not valued the same anymore as publication, meaning that if your skill set falls largely into that (it has to be said, central function of what a University is about!!) you are in some circles very much a second class citizen. Otherwise, love the job.

I've always been mildly out of the norm in my dress sense; I have been defiantly anti-mainstream fashion since I turned 15 in 1989. Enjoyed a sharp suit from an early age, though vintage is a more recent development. Back in 2006 or so I finally felt too old and fat for drainpipes and bondage wear, and, like so many old punks, signed up to the rockabilly retirement plan. This largely led me here, which also stimulated my interest in 30s and 40s styles as well as early-mid 50s. Hats have been very much a part of my daily Winter wardrobe since undergraduate days in the early 90s - a coat with a hood was not cool with me back then, and in Belfast by the time it's raining heavily enough that you would be bothered putting up an umbrella, it is generally much too windy to deal with. I started off with several corduroy Greek Fisherman / Yachtsman type hats (also referred to by some as a 'Captain Scarlet', 'gay Spanish train driver' or 'that ****ing thing on yer head', gonig by some of the heckles I got on the street, lol ). Summer hats were a later thing, and for the most part they were US military Vietnam-style GI Boonie hats, the baseball hats of my childhood long forgotten as they didn't provide sun-protection on the back of my neck, where I burn easiest, and, more importantly, I always thought that once I started wearing my glasses all the time I looked like an eedjit in baseball caps. My first fedora, a wool-felt Trilby type with a fairly early 50s shape to it, I think (still in my wardrobe too!) was worn a lot for a couple of years from 17 before being retired to 'formal wear' - it went with me on my first forays into black tie. Around 2006, I started to wear a wool 'western' type hat (not quite an Open Road style, but much closer that than a cowboy) a fair bit, after buying it for a Yul Brynner costume. Then around the time I first landed here, or just before, I bought my first fur felts - a modern, black Biltmore for Miller.com Fedora, new, for GBP12.50 on eBay, and a vintage, black Homberg. That must have been pushing the back end of 2006, or maybe 2007. Since then, I've bought a silly number of hats - still wear the corduroy and wool caps I had before, plus a few more, and also now have a couple of straws and cotton eight panel caps for warm weather, with a whole bunch more furfelt fedoras which are worn daily. Since June 2007, I have left my flat without a hat on approximately three occasions - every one of them a costume-occasion, on which my had was covered either by a wig, fully bandaged (as Claude Rains), or covered in make-up.

My writing instrument of choice has been a fountain pen since I was 13 (though I used biros in exams and at lectures in university). I was taught to write with pen and ink at primary school, then they modernised (partly, ironically, to help we left handers) to a Berol Handwriting disposable pen after the first 18 months I had been writing with pen at school. I returned to fountain pens simply as a matter of personal preference, both stylistically and as they make my handwriting much neater. For years I stuck with cartridges, but have now grown to prefer a true fountain pen and use bottled ink, even with the cartridge pens I have (using the appropriate converters). I generally hav two or three in my pocket at any one time, and am rarely caught on the hop ink-wise. Most commonly I write in a regular blue, sky blue, or a nice mid-brown. I tend not to use black so much as my rather messy handwriting seems a touch less so in a less stark hue. I have amassed about a dozen pens in the past year which all are used regularly (cleared out some others that I had from before, though also kept a few). I have a 1940s Waterman that needs repair, and a whole bunch (maybe half a dozen) P51s that need a service - some Aeromatic, some Vacuumatic. I have two 1950s Parker 51s I used regularly (one black body, one grey, both steel / lustrum caps - one is short arrow, the other longer, don't recall which way round, so one of them is 48-51ish, I think, the other 51 to 58 - both pre-58 as they have the airhole on the end, not the side as it was moved to after that). I also have a modern Hero 100, the Shanghai Fountain Pen Company's knock-off of a 51, and the next best to the 'real thing' there is - it'd be close to perfect if only it were just a touch thicker in the body, as the 51. (I'm presuming this, like the greater commonality of very fine nibs, is a nod to the typically smaller hands and more intricate script characters of the primary market for that pen). I tried to find more when I was in Beijing last May, but no dice - I'll have to wait til I visit Shanghai itself. Still, at least then they're more likely to be legit; I gather a very high proportion of Hero pens sold within China are fakes. FWIW, mine is the export version, with the plain clip. I gather in the home market, where they play fast and loose with intellectual property laws, they often have a Parker Arrow on the cap. I like the difference - it's a perfectly good pen in it's own right, let it stand up and be proud as itself. The other pens that are pressed into very regular service are my Waterman Phileas models, one of each in the marbled blue and green finishes. In the medium term, I have my eye on a couple of Pelikans - M200 and M215, I think are the model designations. Those, plus more Hero 100s (especially the all-steel Flighter model), and more Aeromatic P-51s.

Watches - I have about a dozen wristwatches, including a Japanese Pulsar (a subsidiary of Seiko) - gold plated, metal bracelet, daily wear - and an old, chrome-plated brass bodied (with silver-tone expandable bracelet) Vostok, automatic, Russian military watch. The rest are various fakes (Rolex, Piaget, Omega, etc) that I have picked up in Beijing markets. All very decent watches, it has to be said - I'm careful not to buy the cheapest of the cheap. Keep time just as well as the real thing, and I can afford a slew of them - as opposed to never being able to afford even one of the real things. lol Also have three pocket watches - a late30s or early 40s (not sure yet) Oris, silver, sourced on eBay for about GBP16.00, which I wear with a solid silver, double albert chain that came down the family - possibly Victorian or Edwardian at least. also a late 60s / early 70s one with a small face, designed to give the impression of being a half-hunter, again, cheap on ebay - about a fiver, mint. Came with its own braided leather strap. Lastly, I have a cheap Chinese skeleton hunter, which is nice and keeps good time, came with its own stainless steel chain. Awaiting use, I have two vintage (30s, I think) leather straps, plus one 1930s rose gold-plated brass single albert chain with a compass fob. Ideally I'd like a half hunter and full, double hunter each in yellow gold, rose gold and silver tones. Either vintage or new, doesn't matter so much to me. For watches in general, I have but one rule: must be mechanical - NO quartz! Oh, and add to that: no digital. I am well aware that quartz will always be more accurate than a mechanical, but what with the Earth's dwindling resources clockwork seems more responsible, and there's just something satisfying about wearing a little mechanical machine on your arm that a digitised, quartz confection cannot match. It's like writing with a Parker 51 as compared to writing with one of those space pens that will work upside down, underwater, and on any surface: technically, the latter is much more reliable, but lacking in soul.

Jewellery.... like all the best mob lawyers, I do like just a touch of bling.... lol As with watches, I tend to stick to the old-school silvertone for evening / gold tone for daywear 'rule'. I don't think it matters that much these days, really, but I like to go with it. I do have a tendency to wear anything up to four rings at a time - two per paw - though more likely to be four with silvertone; gold tone (once I pick up the two more I'm after and have my existing gold ring resized) I won't go over three - it has always seemed to me you an get away with more silvertone before it looks cheap and ridiculous than you can gold. I have had a real affection for cufflinks for about twenty-one years now, and wear them whenever possible. I also now wear a tie clip and usually also a clip-on collar bar whenever I wear a four in hand.

Question..... do we lawyers gravitate to vintage because we're maybe that bit more often expected to dress formally to the point where it becomes second nature.... or is there something more fundamentally rooted in our DNA that brings us to both vintage and the law for separate, but perhaps related, reasons?

Edward, you've written us a novel! Welcome to the Lidded Lawyers Room.

Poor academics (I'm also a part-time one). I've had the same complaint about academia here in Australia and regularly point out that academic journals are generally read by other academics - so their influence is reduced to a few others like them. Teaching, on the other hand, can change the world!
I love to teach. I also regularly write and have my own column, but I'd hate to be writing only to others like me. What a waste.

As for gravitating to vintage - I had a strange connection with the past long before I became a lawyer. I think I'd have found my way to vintage regardless of my profession. Thankfully, my profession allows me to indulge my interest. Wearing fedoras and pocket watches isn't too out of place here. Besides, we need to reintroduce some eccentricity into the ranks of this profession. We've tended to chase out all of law's "characters" so that we're just left with the pathologically boring and sensible crowd.

Time to life the bar Gentlemen. (Still no lady lawyers among us!)

Now Edward....about those photos....???

 

[tortswon]

Fellow Brother at the Bar

Brothers and other Gentlemen of the thread, Tutt and I have had a few back channel conversations since he arrived. I'm very pleased to see this thread and congratulate Tutt for this innovation.

Sorry I've not been around sooner but I spent Saturday and Sunday in synogogue preparing appeal papers for next Monday's day of atomenment. Hopefully the record I made in the last year will be sufficient to allow the true Supreme Court Justice to defer sentencing me to death for another year.

I have worn many figurative hats in my legal career. I started doing insurance defense work and then moved over to the plaintiff's side. Before being a lawyer, I went to graduate school in pharmacology so most of my legal career has been devoted to medical negligence cases.

As time went by, I was appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to serve as a hearing examiner for the Disciplinary Board. I served two three year terms, heard plenty of horror stories and finished up in April of this year (you can only serve two three year terms). I can hear the sphincters loosening from here!

I have also served as a hearing examiner for the liquor control board. That involved deciding whether to allow or not allow renewal of liquor licenses to certain bars.

In my spare time I teach about food and wine at Drexel University in Philadelphia as well as hospitality law.

Oh, and I collect hats and fountain pens too. Best, Sam

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Brothers and other Gentlemen of the thread, Tutt and I have had a few back channel conversations since he arrived. I'm very pleased to see this thread and congratulate Tutt for this innovation.

Sorry I've not been around sooner but I spent Saturday and Sunday in synogogue preparing appeal papers for next Monday's day of atomenment. Hopefully the record I made in the last year will be sufficient to allow the true Supreme Court Justice to defer sentencing me to death for another year.

I have worn many figurative hats in my legal career. I started doing insurance defense work and then moved over to the plaintiff's side. Before being a lawyer, I went to graduate school in pharmacology so most of my legal career has been devoted to medical negligence cases.

As time went by, I was appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to serve as a hearing examiner for the Disciplinary Board. I served two three year terms, heard plenty of horror stories and finished up in April of this year (you can only serve two three year terms). I can hear the sphincters loosening from here!

I have also served as a hearing examiner for the liquor control board. That involved deciding whether to allow or not allow renewal of liquor licenses to certain bars.

In my spare time I teach about food and wine at Drexel University in Philadelphia as well as hospitality law.

Oh, and I collect hats and fountain pens too. Best, Sam

G'day Sam,

It's always a pleasure to have an esteemed brother of the Bar - and indeed the Bench - among us. Welcome to the Lawyers in Lids Room. What are you drinking?

I had no idea that the Day of Atonement involved appeal papers - or a death sentence, unless you were an unfortunate goat or an Egyptian firstborn. Forgive my complete ignorance of such things - lapsed Protestant here.

So you teach food and wine too?? So...you'd know the best places to visit in search of these things?? Spill the beans!

And how about some photos of those lids and pens?? Feel free to post some you've used elsewhere.

Great to have you on board.

 

[tortswon]

Ah, Tutt, you selected the wrong night. I do not drink on Mondays to allow clearance of the alcohol of the weekend. So I'll have a club soda, no ice, no fruit, no straw.

The appeal "papers" are metaphorical. The death sentence is not. In Judaism, we get inscribed into the book of life one year at a time.

As far as food and wine are concerned, I'll try to help anyone who asks. Post or PM me here or foodprofessor@comcast.net.

Again, congratulations on a fine addition to the Lounge, Tutt! Best, Sam

PS Photos of hats and pens will be posted when I get replacement batteries for my digital camera.

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

I trust, Brother Sam, that you have some kind words for some of the excellent wines coming from this country in recent years?

I admit, I had to abstain myself on Monday night (last night for us in this part of the globe) as I did enjoy a couple of bottles of the local vino over lunch with the family on Sunday. A Jacob's Creek Reisling followed by a Western Australian drop - a blend of Semillon, Voignier and Sav Blanc. So nice I had to keep topping up!

Being spring, the whites are back in vogue, but it's hard to beat a good, big Aussie Shiraz when the temperature drops.

 

[tortswon]

Tutt, I could not find the original Monty Python version of this but here is the Ruude Boys homage to Python. Hope you enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4GvN4wGUZI

Personally I favor a fine Sydney Blue.

In seriousness, it is amazing how far Australian wines have come over the last 30 years. I am a great fan of Grange Hermitage. It is one of the great wines of the world.

One of the great and lesser known treasures from your land is Roaring Forties cheese. It is from King Island. Try it with a fine Sauternes or other sweet white. Truly spectacular.

More on Aussie wines soon. Best, Sam

 

[Doublegun]

Ah, this place is starting to feel like being in the company of old friends. I can smell the cigars and hooch. Time to settle in and get comfortable as I am sure one of you has a tale or two that can get the festivities started.

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Ah, this place is starting to feel like being in the company of old friends. I can smell the cigars and hooch. Time to settle in and get comfortable as I am sure one of you has a tale or two that can get the festivities started.

Well now Doublegun - good to see you again.

Gentlemen, remove your jackets and feel free to smoke em if you got em (Cigars that is - cigarettes can stay outside). Fine Australian Shiraz anyone?


Mr Tortswon, Sam to his friends, Grange Hermitage??? Now you're bragging! A tad beyond my feeble ethics lawyer price range. One of the consequences of doing something I love is that it doesn't pay as much as I could be making in practice. Then again....I'd hate to be a commercial lawyer, so I'd be bad at it. And that's where the money is.

As for Roaring 40's. I reckon it's one of the world's great cheeses! As is most everything from that tiny little Island off Tasmania called King Island. Those devils can sure make cheese. I'll see if we can have some delivered to the LIL Room with a bold Aussie red - and no I don't mean Nicole Kidman! Settle down chaps!

 

[Doublegun]

Funny how lawyers take things to excess, perhaps more so than any other professional. Food, wine, women, song, hats, pens, old shotguns, cars; whatever. No sense sticking your toe in the water when you can jump in and completely immures oneself, right? One can go completely around the bend and no one will say a thing or be surprised (except for a spouse).

 

[babs]

Here's a chuckle for ya. Would it be absolutely silly for a 41 yr old with two little ones (five and three), to consider the unfathomable idea of blasting the LSAT out of the water and committing an absolute career about face and going to law school?

I'm having a mid-career rethink. MBA possibly, Law possibly. I have the wisdom of 41 years except I also have the typical constraints of 41 years and a family. But I'm at a fork in the road, in my mind. Engineering isn't going to get me where I wanna go.

Figured I'd ask a captive audience.

 

[warbird]

Here's a chuckle for ya. Would it be absolutely silly for a 41 yr old with two little ones (five and three), to consider the unfathomable idea of blasting the LSAT out of the water and committing an absolute career about face and going to law school?

I'm having a mid-career rethink. MBA possibly, Law possibly. I have the wisdom of 41 years except I also have the typical constraints of 41 years and a family. But I'm at a fork in the road, in my mind. Engineering isn't going to get me where I wanna go.

Figured I'd ask a captive audience.

It is a tough way to make a living. It is no road to guaranteed success that's for certain. I would first think of the skill sets you have and what you enjoy doing. In reality there are many things one can do with a law degree besides practice law, but law school is far less flexible than MBA's and such as it requires class, either full time of part time at night. It is a tough way no doubt. The first semester especially, the first year pretty tough. If you make it through the first year, it isn't so bad. However it is a lot, lot of money, student loans every month remind me of that.

Many people get law degrees with big money in their eyes and find out later they hate it, some just didn't practice the right thing, some just hate it in general. There are enough attorneys in my house, I'd rather shoot guns. I'm a recovering lobbyist, yes my name is Warbird and I am a lobbyist. I need a sponsor. I guess if I were to ever practice law, I would have to consider patents with an aerospace degree and as a former pilot, that besides government relations which may or may not be practicing law, would be my natural fit.

If you have some natural link between what or who you know and what you could do that is the best scenario.

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Here's a chuckle for ya. Would it be absolutely silly for a 41 yr old with two little ones (five and three), to consider the unfathomable idea of blasting the LSAT out of the water and committing an absolute career about face and going to law school?

I'm having a mid-career rethink. MBA possibly, Law possibly. I have the wisdom of 41 years except I also have the typical constraints of 41 years and a family. But I'm at a fork in the road, in my mind. Engineering isn't going to get me where I wanna go.

Figured I'd ask a captive audience.

Well Babs...I started studying law when I was 39. For many lawyers here in the LIL Room, law was not our first career. When I started law school I was surprised by the number of my fellow students who were my age or older. Mind you, I was mostly attending night school, but nonetheless 41 would have been about the avewrage age of that group.
There's lots of things you can do with a law degree. MBA's are a dime a dozen. Trained chimps can do 'em and usually do!

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Funny how lawyers take things to excess, perhaps more so than any other professional. Food, wine, women, song, hats, pens, old shotguns, cars; whatever. No sense sticking your toe in the water when you can jump in and completely immures oneself, right? One can go completely around the bend and no one will say a thing or be surprised (except for a spouse).

You take women to excess, Doublegun??!! I wanna be you!