Can anyone tell me what happened on November 3rd ? No, it wasn’t my birthday, was it yours?
Here’s what has happened on various November 3rds in history: Henry VIII became head of the Church of England in 1534; John Adams was elected the second President of the United States in 1796; Ulysses S. Grant became president in 1868, the same year that the first African-American congressman was elected; John W. Menard from Louisiana, Utah, elected Martha Hughes Cannon in 1896 as the first female United States senator, the same year that William McKinley won the presidency; in 1908, William Howard Taft won the presidency; in 1936, FDR won a second four-year term as President; Clarence Birdseye marketed frozen peas in 1952; 1953 saw the first coast-to-coast television broadcast in color; in 1957, Sputnik launched with an astrodog; LBJ won the presidency in 1964; and Bill Clinton won his first term as president in 1992.
November 3rd should have been near and dear to lawyers: it was Global Love Your Lawyer Day, and no, I am not making this up.
How could we have missed this? We calendar court appearances, filing deadlines, deposition dates, birthdays, anniversaries, meetings, networking events, medical/dental appointments, holidays such as Administrative Professionals Day, anything and everything goes on the calendar. (Full disclosure, I still use paper calendars, and I chortle every time I have to wait for someone to boot up the calendar on the phone, while I stand there with paper and pen at the ready. Yes, I’m a dinosaur, but I’m a lot faster writing down appointments than someone who can’t type on a smartphone.) I digress.
Did you know that there’s an organization dedicated to promoting Our Day aka Global Love Your Lawyer Did? I didn’t. Now I do. It’s the American Lawyers Public Image Association (ALPIA).
The website says that it’s “…the only association in the world whose sole purpose is to promote a positive public image of lawyers.” (Do you think that it has its work cut out for it?) Formed in 2000, the Association describes itself as a “non-profit organization with an international reach.” It’s the organization that promotes “Global Love Your Lawyer Day.” ALPIA suggested a number of different ways in which people could have shown lawyers some love.
One of the initiatives for Global Love Your Lawyer Day, according to the website, is “… to ask lawyers to either perform one hour of pro bono work or donate the equivalent of one billable hour to their favorite charity.”
I thought the love was supposed to flow to the lawyer, not from. And how many billable hours have you written off? I guess “involuntary pro bono” doesn’t count.
Did you hear any lawyer jokes that day? Did any of your clients contact you by email, text, phone, or Harry Potter’s owl to thank you for what you were doing/had done on their behalf? Did you receive any gift baskets? A card? Any token of appreciation? (I think all lawyers would appreciate timely payment of outstanding invoices. That would probably show the most love.)
Did any client take you to lunch? Dinner? Even coffee? Did any client make a donation to charity in your name?
Did you receive any love at all? I thought not.
So here’s my own list of how you can help your client to show you the love on the next Global Love Your Lawyer Day in 2018. Please feel free to rip off any and/or all of the suggestions to share with your clients. This gives you (and the clients) plenty of time to prepare:
- Pay your outstanding bills, whether those bills are 30 days past due or months or even years in arrears. The lawyer works hard on your behalf; show him or her appreciation by paying those invoices. Lawyers have bills to pay, too. Contrary to what you may have heard or seen, not all lawyers drive luxury cars, live in luxury homes, and have luxury playthings that are way beyond the means of most of us.
- Respond promptly to your attorney’s emails, texts, phone calls, or whatever form of communication the attorney is using. She’s not contacting you for schmoozing purposes; there’s something (or some things) that need to be discussed, handled, resolved. Verifications to be signed? Perhaps there’s a settlement offer out there?
- Don’t be nasty with your lawyer. What good does that do you except piss off your lawyer and make communication difficult?
- Pay your outstanding bills, whether those bills are thirty days or months or even years. The lawyer works hard on your behalf; show him or her appreciation by paying them. Lawyers have bills to pay, too. (Yes, I know this repeats most of #1, but I think the premise bears repeating and I am a dinosaur lawyer so I repeat things.)
The Twittersphere had some comments about Love Your Lawyer Day. One of the informative ones: November 3 was also Sandwich Day, Cliché Day, Jellyfish Day, and Fountain Pen Day. Who knew? One Twitter poster asked whether every day should be Love Your Lawyer Day or should it just be when you need a lawyer? Is that a trick question?
How about a “Love Your Opposing Counsel” day? That could be the one day when lawyers must be civil and courteous, even pleasant to each other. Stop whining; it would only be one day. No nasty emails, faxes, letters, or texts permitted.
If a lawyer spurned that love, a court could be creative about the nastiness and incivility. Instead of the normal monetary slap on the wrist, why not a much more imaginative and thoughtful sanction?
While this was not a lawyer that had to comply with the court’s order, it does suggest a new way to get an attorney’s attention. Do you think you could write 144 separate and distinct nice things about your opposing counsel? All those in favor of Love Your Opposing Counsel Day, please raise your hand.
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