When I am asked how I chose law as a profession, it’s an easy question to answer. My father, who is 97 years old at the time of writing this, my first blog entry, retired from the practice of law last year, at 96 years of age. He never planned to retire; he always said with a twinkle in his eye, “If I could choose the way I die, it would be while arguing a motion in front of a judge I hate!”
He didn’t retire because of health reasons, but rather, because he decided it would be prudent to give-up his driver’s license, and could therefore no longer drive himself to the office. With that same twinkle in his eye, he said, “ After all, I’m 96 years old….I’m starting to get old!” You’ve got to love an attitude like that!
I enjoyed his story of how, after World War II, he was already married with two children (I wasn’t born yet), and was working for a liquor distributor, and realized he wanted to work for himself. He worked all day and went to law school at night for four years, and graduated law school the year after I was born. He would often tell me how he paced the floor with me in one arm, and the law book he was studying in the other. I’d like to think my passion for the law started then.
His love of the law was infectious and he always had interesting stories to tell about the cases he was handling, and how he was able to use the legal process to help his clients out of legal situations and with their legal needs. Not once did he ever say, “I want you to be a lawyer.” But my older brother, Jay, and I, were hooked by his enthusiasm for the profession and we both graduated law school and started our own legal practices.
I was proud to have graduated from my father’s alma mater, John Marshall Law School in Chicago in 1977. This was long before computers, the internet, and blogs. Not even fax machines had yet been invented. The newest high-tech tool was an IBM Selectric II typewriter with an interchangeable type ball, which was about $1,000 and a required annual maintenance contract, a hefty sum back then.
Lawyers weren’t allowed to advertise back then. We could merely hand out our business cards. Even the size of the law firm’s name on our office doors were limited, so conservative was the profession at that time. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Bates & O’Steen v. State Bar of Arizona was issued in June, 1977, which now allowed lawyers to advertise for the first time.
Having just started my practice one month earlier with few clients of my own (my first client was the person who showed me the office space I rented, and my second client was the person who helped me carry-in a used desk I had purchased at the local Salvation Army thrift store), I decided to take advantage of the new advertising rules, and placed a little one-inch, 13-line advertisement in the classified section of the Chicago Sun-Times, which cost over $1,000 per month, and later added a 4” x 4” display advertisement in the local yellow pages. The thought of advertising on radio, television, and billboards was, at that time, unthinkable.
But the advertising worked, and in the eleven years I practiced in Chicago, I built a respectable clientele and I handled a wide variety of legal matters for clients, ranging from divorces, bankruptcies, and real estate closings, to estate planning, probate, and many aspects of business law. But due to the high volume generated by the advertising (a nice problem to have), I was working long hours and was burning-out. I wasn’t enjoying my law practice as much as my father seemed to enjoy his.
In 1988, I moved from Chicago to Tampa, having finally realized that winter is an option. An avid snow skier, I enjoyed the snow, but flew to Colorado for Spring skiing in early April. Since I could fly there from Florida, too, why be cold anymore?
And as long as I was moving, I also decided I wanted to try a different profession, and became a financial advisor with one of the major Wall Street investment firms, getting all the necessary licenses, working my way up to Vice-President of investments, becoming an arbiter for the NASD (now FINRA) which is the regulatory arm of the SEC in helping to adjudicate investor disputes between investors and their financial advisors, and obtaining my certification as a Certified Financial Planner.TM
But I found I was missing the practice of law and helping my clients with their legal needs.
Inspired by my father still practicing law into his 90’s, I realized that I potentially (and hopefully) still had another 30+ years ahead of me, I took and passed the Florida bar exam, and resumed the practice of law, this time limiting the scope of my practice so as not to burn-out again.
And I’m delighted to say that my passion for the law has been reignited. Like my father, I don’t think that retirement is necessary when one loves what one does.
So going forward, my blog will focus on estate planning and business law matters I believe you will find useful and interesting. I invite your comments (please be respectful), and hope you will feel free to call or write to me with legal questions you may have, and with ideas for future blog entries. I also invite you to share my blog with others, and to connect with me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media. And if you belong to an organization that might enjoy having me give an interesting and entertaining legal discussion on the topics of estate planning or business law, please feel free to contact me.
Jerrold E. Slutzky, J.D., CFP® is a Florida-licensed attorney at law with offices in Land O’ Lakes, Florida and Safety Harbor, Florida. For more information, go to our web site www.SlutzkyLawFirm.com or write to us at: JSlutzky@SlutzkyLawFirm.com or call (813) 909-1515.