I married a very smart woman.
Yesterday evening I told her that I was planning on going out to dinner tonight with Kitty Karle, Jason MacBride and Joe Waldorf to commemorate the one year “anniversary” of the day we all lost our jobs as Assistant District Attorneys.
“I feel like it’s just going to be a bitch fest about the bigwigs at the DA’s Office,” she said about our plans, “when it ought to be a celebration of all you guys have accomplished this year.”
Like I said, pretty smart. She is 100% correct.
I look at today as an opportunity to take stock of where I have been and where I am now. As I sit here in my office typing this, I have just come back from representing two clients in Greece Town Court. Later on, I’m headed out to East Rochester Town Court, and I will finish my day in Ogden Town Court. All three courts are places I love to go, with friendly staffs and great judges that care. Just like so many of the courts I have been fortunate enough to re-acquaint myself with this year. As a felony level ADA you really operate almost exclusively in the bubble of the Hall of Justice on a day-to-day basis. With my practice I get the pleasure of travelling to all kinds of places and meeting all kinds of people. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s like a throwback to when I first started practicing, and it has energized and rejuvenated me as an attorney in many ways.
And on the topic of my office, I’m lucky to have a great location with the best office mate I could ever ask for, my old Woods Oviatt buddy Heidi Feinberg. One year on, the Times Square Building feels like home. It’s no longer a strange feeling to come here for work instead of the Watts Building. That’s thanks not only to Heidi and her assistant Sarah but also to my landlord Rich Calabrese and even Tom the doorman and so many others. I make the rent every month, the lights in my office are very much on (and now more energy efficient thanks to Rich) and the locks are in no danger of being changed anytime soon.
That is due exclusively to my clients, the group of people I am most grateful to. In the span of one year I have met some great people (and their families) that I would have never otherwise known. They come to me with problems – sometimes with problems that could result in consequences that alter the course of the rest of their lives – and they give me the honor of choosing me as the person they will look to for help during a period of personal crisis. It’s truly humbling when I take a step back and think about it. I look forward to continuing to work with my current clients to get the absolute best results possible, and I eagerly look forward to meeting all the new people that I can help in the year to come.
So to my clients, a giant THANK YOU. Without you, my practice of law does not exist.
Thank you also to the innumerable people who have helped me so very much get this practice off the ground. There are just too many to name, but they all know who they are, whether they be judges, court clerks and staff members, other attorneys, members of the media, former colleagues at the DA’s Office and elsewhere, and all of my friends and family, and most especially to my wife and daughter. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can never say it enough, and I can only hope to repay you all in some small way for all that you have done for me.
So, celebrate we shall this evening, for many, many reasons. One of the most important reasons to me is the unbreakable bond I will always have with Kitty, Jason and Joe. It seems to me that we’ve managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – once again, just like so many times before.