Sidebar. Having It All

• Author: Kenneth P. Nolan
• Pages: 62-63

Sidebar

Published in Litigation, Volume 47, Number 4, Summer 2021. © 2021 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not

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KENNETH P. NOLAN

The author, a senior editor of Litigation and the author of A Streetwise Guide to Litigation (ABA 2013),

is counsel to Speiser Krause, Rye Brook, New York.

Trapped by the pandemic, my lovely bride,

who has never tossed out a card, photo, or

baby shoe, decided to rummage through

the many boxes stored in our basement.

A ticket stub from a 1976 Sinatra concert,

every card from our wedding 47 years

ago, menus from our 1975 cruise to the

Bahamas with friends where two couples

slept in a tiny room to save dough.. . . I

really wore that many three-piece suits?

What a nerd! Memories, so many and

mostly good.

In the boxes were tons of stuff from

when our kids were young, including

a pre-K description of me. Sometime

around 1990, my daughter Lizzy said that I

was 20 years old, 10 feet tall, and weighed

9 pounds. She knew I was a lawyer, and my

favorite food was “steak, I think, I don’t

know. I don’t see him eat.” For favorite TV

show: “He watches at nighttime. I don’t

see him.” A few years later, Claire said I

was 29 feet tall and weighed 36 pounds.

“He’s a lawyer, he types on the computer,

writes, staples. At home, he watches bas-

ketball and sleeps and reads to me. He

comes home at 9 o’clock.”

I smiled at the hilarious portrayals and

studied the photos of when my daughters

were so innocent and my hair so dark.

Every few days, we pore through another

box, straining to hear the laughter, see the

smiles. Inevitably, the conversation is the

same. Me: “Wasn’t it...” Nancy: “No, it

was...” We sit and reminisce for we have

time, too much actually. No longer are

we running to work, restaurants, shows,

planning trips and parties. Instead, we

sit home Zooming, binging 30 Rock and

Seinfeld for brightness, and spending too

much time alone. This has caused me to

do what I’ve always avoided and feared:

think about my life.

“I don’t see him eat.. .. I don’t see

him.. .. He comes home at 9 o’clock.”

Somehow, I had convinced myself that I

was there for dinner, school recitals, when

their fever hit 101. Out of the mouths of

babes. Our four have turned out fine,

thanks to Nancy. Yet, as I sit here in the

midst of this stinking pandemic, I argue—

in silence and only to myself—that I was

a hands-on, family-first dad. It’s true, I

swear, Your Honor. Look at Exhibit A

where Claire said I read to her. See? I was

a devoted father. I really was.

Like most men, however, I ceded child-

rearing to my wife, allowing me to focus on

career rather than weekday meals, baths,

and bedtime stories. There was always

another deposition or trial, a client to in-

terview, a meeting to attend. Even after an

exhausting day, I would sit on the nasty

subway reading advance sheets, search-

ing for relevant decisions. I was a zealot,

working incessantly, building a practice,

trying cases, traveling. I networked, joined

bar associations, volunteered in the com-

munity. I was determined to succeed pro-

fessionally and financially. And I did, at

least in my parochial world.

But did I really? Can you be a valued,

dedicated litigator and a good parent and

spouse? Or does the law, with its eternal

hours, its demand for complete devotion

and fidelity, make significant commitment

to family impossible? And by trying, are

we simply fooling ourselves, setting us up

for failure at both? Should we mirror the

Catholic priesthood, forbidding marriage

and children for we can only worship our

one, true God—the law?

Many legal positions, of course, are con-

sistent with good family life—those in small

firms, in government, as in-house coun-

sel. These jobs appeal to many, especially

those who prioritize children. Indeed, my

daughter tells of a bright, personable friend

who recently changed to a “parent-friendly

job,” working for a municipality. Now she’s

home for dinner and weekends, available if

her daughter has a sniffle. Yes, her salary is

less, but so is the stress, for when she loses

a case, she doesn’t lie awake with regret,

because the municipality is usually at fault

and “it’s only about money.”

And it’s not only law. Just yesterday,

a friend’s daughter, big on Wall Street,

HAVING IT ALL