The Advice from My Volunteers

Very soon I will head down Interstate-95 toward Florida.

This summer, I ran concessions for classical music concerts at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina. A number of volunteers worked for me on the days of the concerts, selling the items we had set out.

Talking to them was my favorite part of the job. Most of my volunteers were retirees, and they told me great stories about their life experiences. One couple, the Taylors, have a son who is currently a lawyer specializing in intellectual property in Seattle. He went to law school at the University of Virginia. Mr. Taylor said that after his son had been at law school about three days, he called home and said, "Dad! These people are smart! I don't know if I can do this!" But Mr. Taylor assured his son that he was intelligent as well and just to keep going.

I imagine similar feelings will hit me once I start at Florida State.

Another volunteer who worked with me had practiced law for 40 years in Indianapolis. He earned his law degree from Northwestern University. I especially enjoyed hearing his stories. To my surprise, he said that he actually enjoyed law school more than his undergraduate years.

I asked him what kind of law he practiced, and he said he was a "door" lawyer.

"A door lawyer?" I asked. "What is that?"

"That means I took whatever came in the door," he replied.

He told me to expect some strange things in law school. When he was at Northwestern, sometimes a professor would assign a special reading to be done in the library, and he would find that the book had disappeared.

He also went to school with a student derisively nicknamed "Razor." The student earned this nickname when someone saw him using a razor to slice cases out of a law book in the library.

I asked him what mistakes he made as a lawyer that I should strive to avoid, and what things did he really do right that he would emphasize to me.

After some thought, he told me that he once was sued for malpractice because he misunderstood the timeline for filing an appeal and subsequently went past the statute of limitations.

"I guess the moral of that story for you is to be darn careful," he said. "Know what the deadlines are and don't wait until the last minute. File your paperwork three or four months before the deadline."

As far as successes, he told me to give my clients proper attention and great service. Work late hours for them, he said, and keep them informed of what you are doing. If you provide them with good service, they will come back to you and recommend their friends to you as well.

I appreciated the advice of the volunteers this summer, and if I ever get back to Brevard I hope to see them again.

Until Next Time,

Nathan Marshburn