The Day that “Joe the Lawyer” Died
And “Joe the Activist” was Born
When I was a kid, all the adults would tell me: “you love to argue so much, you should become a lawyer.” So, eventually, I did. I went to U.C. San Diego and got two Bachelors of Arts degrees (Judaic Studies and Economics) and then my law degree from Stanford Law School at age 23.
I used to love the Paper Chase when I was in high school. The dramatic character, Professor Kingsfield, would say “you enter with a skull full of mush, and with any luck, you end up thinking like a lawyer.” I loved that line before I knew what it meant. Despite feeling like a know-it-all double major at age 20, I did indeed enter Stanford with a skull quite full of mush that became something quite different after law school. At top law schools, like Stanford, they don’t teach you how to research the law or be an actual lawyer. That’s for your “summer jobs” to cover. My first job at a huge firm was six years of on-the-job, hands-on training.
Instead, I learned how to act like someone I am not. I had already developed such chameleon-like tendencies because of my childhood traumas. I learned rather early to be a different person to different people, but not quite because I was a people-pleaser and not because I was “codependent,” a word I frankly don’t understand. As a lawyer, I quickly learned the same thing. I could be myself among my fellow class years (1988 or so) who did not put on pretenses. We were also quite relaxed when we dealt with non-lawyer staff people. But when you appeared before a senior partner, it was like the West Wing whenever the staff would enter the Oval Office. I had to reflect raw power and polish as well as due deference to the King or Queen. Finally, for the clients, you had to be whatever you thought they wanted in a lawyer.
I was a courtroom lawyer, first a litigator and then a trial lawyer. Courts, unless you or your co-counsel happens to be a close personal friend of the Judge, are always formal, by which I don’t just mean that I wore a suit and tie that made me sweat and never fit me too well. You have to act with “respect” and follow the various “traditions” of the profession. So, as you can see, the lawyer in me was himself a chameleon.
Once I was out of the office, I started more and more to rebel against what I thought a “real” lawyer does on the weekend. It started slow with the occasional Grateful Dead concert where it was acceptable in my professional circles to go there, and nobody talked in the office openly about tripping on acid while there. Of course, my first wife and I hosted and went to plenty of cocktail parties, which being in California usually meant smoking pot as well.
After 15 years as a lawyer, I got divorced. That was the same year I was arrested (February 2003) and charged with felony terroristic threats during my first manic episode. Shortly thereafter I was involuntarily held in two psychiatric wards in San Francisco, where I was first diagnosed with “Bipolar I Disorder” which still bothers me nearly 20 years later. After that, my lawyer appeared in court with me. By then the Court knew I was a lawyer and that I had just gotten on psych meds.
The Superior Court for Hennepin County, Minnesota Judge convinced me to take the guilty plea offered because it treated my plea as a “gross misdemeanor” (even though the statute describes a felony) — time served (3 days), $1,000 fine, and 50 hours of community service in New Mexico — and that “you would not have to report it to the Bar based on her phone call to the state bar.” So I kept practicing. I took 2003–2006 off as post-divorce early retirement when I started doing a lot of drugs. Then I worked for some solo lawyers as an independent contractor, and I hit rock bottom. But none of that came up, so I still was practicing trial law until 2010.
In 2010, I moved to Israel hoping to become an Israeli lawyer. My Hebrew, while very good is not “lawyer good,” so I had to take an English-speaking job with a couple of “legal outsourcing firms,” doing contract writing for other lawyers. I kept my license inactive from 2005–2017. I then reactivated it when I returned home to Florida to take care of my mother. At this point, the State Bar started a fingerprint requirement for active lawyers, not just applicants. I knew that my Minnesota convictions and my two DUI’s would show up so I decided to write the California Bar first. Their response was to seek to disbar me for a felony conviction.
Ultimately, I agreed to a less than a year suspension from the bar with two years suspended and two-year probation with various requirements. This effectively made it impossible for me to work in law. Then COVID hit, and everything dried up. I was going to honor the terms of my probation until I simply “gave up.” Watching Rudy Giuliani “represent” President Trump also made me disgusted to be a lawyer. So, this January I filed my resignation with disciplinary charges pending.
Less than a month ago, I got my final order from the California Supreme Court, granting my motion for resignation from the California Bar with Disciplinary charges pending. “Joe the Lawyer” was no more. I rejoiced at being me. I have not had a drink since January 4, 2018, and I have learned a lot about myself, not the least of which is that I probably never should have become a lawyer in the first place.
It’s a melancholy end. I had hoped to ride off in the sunset with my gold watch. I never was sued for malpractice, and my “crime” had nothing to do with my law practice. Still, the Courts and the State Bar lack compassion for the mentally ill. So in that respect, I am a little sad.
But I am mostly VERY HAPPY! Not many practicing lawyers feel that way, based on numerous surveys over time. The secret to my happiness is doing what I love doing — forming a non-profit, #BipolarLivesMatter℠, surrounded by my wife and cat and many people who love me and I love them. The tale of “Joe the Lawyer” ends like a Phoenix — out of the ashes a new more consistently “Joe”-ish person has arisen.
