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Apr. 14th, 2011 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThis was scheduled to be a combination happy/snarky post about Eleanor and I going to the BPO concert hall last night, for a benefit to fund the cultural organizations stripped from the 2011 county budget. It would've been titled "Chris Collins Bake Sale" or "Concert for the People of Spaulding Lake," with plenty of class envy to boot.
Life, instead, intervened.
I spent over an hour today at a deposition of a client who had a judgment taken against him. Which, rather unexpectedly, was conducted by a Rochester attorney who is one of my longest-acquainted, and deeply respected, of any I have had the Joy (coincidentally the name of his daughter) of practicing with over the past quarter century.
In between his mundane questions to my client about dates of birth and mortgage balances and whatnot, L just lapsed into stories. Stories about his life, and, most touchingly, stories about his wife. Who I knew, ages ago, from a couple of different contexts, but who, I didn't know, had fallen into severe back pain in recent years and risked life, and time, and money to try to get better.
The word "invalid" came up in these conversational pauses. L was running his full-time law practice and their suddenly smaller condo due to Enid's disability, cooking the meals and doing the wash because his soulmate suddenly couldn't. When local orthopedists offered no hope, they sought out an experimental treatment at Johns Hopkins, but one that would have (a) been staggeringly expensive and (b) required both patient and husband to commit to doing her rehab in Baltimore for at least a whole month.
Somehow, though, that experimental doctor caught on to the fact that Mr. & Mrs. L were from Rochester. "Oh- do you know Doctor R? He trained with me; he could probably do it."
They hadn't heard of Dr. R, but L (and even I) had heard of the lawyer of that last name in an adjacent county, whose son had chosen medical school and, eventually, orthopedics as a line of work. In time, he agreed to perform the nine-hour procedure, but with full disclosure of its risks, which were rather great. Blessedly, Enid came out on the good side of them all, and whereas before the surgery she could barely stand up, she is now back to organizing and guiding tour groups through some of the most amazing places in the western world. I was near tears of joy by the time he got to this part of the story, for both she and he are so completely deserving of that outcome.
When L stepped out of our session briefly, I assured my client that I would not be billing him for any of the Story Time connected with L's diversions from the deposition. By the time it was through, though, he remarked to me how decent, and sensible, L had been with him- and how very unlike several younger lawyers had been with him in any of a few previous versions of this process that he had attended.
I know I've spoken here before about L's generation of gentlemen. Gentle men. Who don't put profits before people when the two are both in the same room at the same time. I was pleased and honored to have him spend an hour and change with me today reminding me of those values.
Life, instead, intervened.
I spent over an hour today at a deposition of a client who had a judgment taken against him. Which, rather unexpectedly, was conducted by a Rochester attorney who is one of my longest-acquainted, and deeply respected, of any I have had the Joy (coincidentally the name of his daughter) of practicing with over the past quarter century.
In between his mundane questions to my client about dates of birth and mortgage balances and whatnot, L just lapsed into stories. Stories about his life, and, most touchingly, stories about his wife. Who I knew, ages ago, from a couple of different contexts, but who, I didn't know, had fallen into severe back pain in recent years and risked life, and time, and money to try to get better.
The word "invalid" came up in these conversational pauses. L was running his full-time law practice and their suddenly smaller condo due to Enid's disability, cooking the meals and doing the wash because his soulmate suddenly couldn't. When local orthopedists offered no hope, they sought out an experimental treatment at Johns Hopkins, but one that would have (a) been staggeringly expensive and (b) required both patient and husband to commit to doing her rehab in Baltimore for at least a whole month.
Somehow, though, that experimental doctor caught on to the fact that Mr. & Mrs. L were from Rochester. "Oh- do you know Doctor R? He trained with me; he could probably do it."
They hadn't heard of Dr. R, but L (and even I) had heard of the lawyer of that last name in an adjacent county, whose son had chosen medical school and, eventually, orthopedics as a line of work. In time, he agreed to perform the nine-hour procedure, but with full disclosure of its risks, which were rather great. Blessedly, Enid came out on the good side of them all, and whereas before the surgery she could barely stand up, she is now back to organizing and guiding tour groups through some of the most amazing places in the western world. I was near tears of joy by the time he got to this part of the story, for both she and he are so completely deserving of that outcome.
When L stepped out of our session briefly, I assured my client that I would not be billing him for any of the Story Time connected with L's diversions from the deposition. By the time it was through, though, he remarked to me how decent, and sensible, L had been with him- and how very unlike several younger lawyers had been with him in any of a few previous versions of this process that he had attended.
I know I've spoken here before about L's generation of gentlemen. Gentle men. Who don't put profits before people when the two are both in the same room at the same time. I was pleased and honored to have him spend an hour and change with me today reminding me of those values.
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Date: 2011-04-15 04:45 pm (UTC)And now I sort of wonder who this doctor is, and whether he might be able to do anything for my aunt's back issues.