AND THEIR PROBLEMS…HOW LONG CAN ONE KEEP GOING?

Of course, case by case determinations are the real answer, and they vary from individual to individual. So get used to uncertainty.  Indeed, learn to love it.

However, keep the following in mind. Murray Shusterman died recently. He started practicing law in 1936, and he practiced law in Philadelphia from that date until he died, though not always with the same firm.  He also taught corporate and real estate law at the Law School at Temple University, as an adjunct.

Murray was 104 when he died.

I wonder if he could have done all this if his practice area was litigation? Suppose he couldn’t. Might not an aging litigator simply change “horses,” as it were?

Suppose Murray had been a lawyer that prepared and occasionally tried commercial cases. At 80 might he not reasonably consider starting over in, say, corporate law and then doing it? He would, after all, have 24 years to go, and I suspect that, given his history, with a little help he would have done just fine. Imagine the marvelous stories he would have to tell his great-great-grandchildren.