Many years ago, I attended a dinner for several hundred lawyers from around the world who were in the United States to learn about the U.S. legal system. I was seated at a table that included a few Americans, some Europeans, and a delightful lawyer from Algeria named Omar. Like most foreign lawyers who are not familiar with “the American way”, Omar was amazed by how litigious […]
CAREER LESSONS I LEARNED FROM A WOODPECKER
A few years ago I was awakened early one morning by a woodpecker that was furiously trying to drill a hole in the concrete stucco outside my bedroom window. I could tell by the speed and force of his blows that he meant business. I tried to scare him away by pounding on the wall, but he was undeterred. I later stepped outside to check […]
Shake Hands or Bow – How it all Began
Near the end of my first year of law school, around midnight on a Friday night, I found myself stumbling through the law library, bleary-eyed and completely brain dead. I had spent hours and hours studying for end of semester finals, and I was looking for any kind of diversion from reading cases and anything else pertaining to law. As I shuffled through the rows […]