Our 13th Year Series – Still At It
I had the occasion this past summer to attend the much anticipated return of a client’s annual cocktail party, this time held at a downtown boutique hotel rooftop with a nice view of midtown Manhattan. It was a sizable crowd filled with trial attorneys I had helped at one point or another since my 1994 entry into the world of courtroom communications. One such client greeted me with “are you still doing the same thing?” She corrected herself to be sure she hadn’t insulted me, but I assured her no offense was taken.
To apply a unique set of diverse experiences and learned skills for longtime clients as they prepare for trial gives us a particular joy. To learn from those experiences brings even deeper satisfaction. Atrophied in-person networking muscles notwithstanding, I reassured her that trial presentation work was always peppered with some new element. Additionally, process oriented distinctions to such unpredictability separate the good from the great. How our particular team rises to these challenges remains an edge.
About a week later, I discovered my next trial team was setting up a trial war room in the same downtown NYC hotel. I returned and dove right into the vortex of that long delayed trial for the next two months.
During a long walk on our last night on site, I found myself in front of a storefront window that was the site of a 1987 year-long performance art piece called “WindowPeace,” of which I played a part. Thirty-five years ago I had gone “all in” with fifty other women led by the late Susan Kleckner who vowed solidarity with a UK/Greenham Peace Encampment activist group by keeping a window space vigil occupied by one of us each week for the year.
I emerged from trial thinking about the conversation I had at the cocktail party. The connections between my work now and that performance art project were immediate. All in. I am still “rushing to YES” (a core value of the company I founded in 2010 – coincidentally, the year Ms. Kleckner died). Thankfully, our clients and colleagues continue to feed our appetite for “all in,” with work that demands it and repeat work that rewards it.
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